IT is restating the obvious that Nigerians need solutions, fast, to the myriad of problems they encounter in the pursuit of happiness, which is life and living. To say that things are very hard for the average Nigerian now is stating the obvious, in fact, trite. On a daily basis, the prices of consumer items, including and especially foodstuffs, keep increasing.

I couldn’t have envisaged, even in a drunken stupor, that a bag of rice will sell for as high as N56,000 in Nigeria, or that an average size piece of frozen fish, just about 30 cms or one foot, will also cost as much as N1,500, a price that used to purchase at least four of it before.

While there seems to be no quick fixes to many of these problems, it gives hope to the people that work is in progress to address the situation. They are then consoled that their hardship is only for a limited time and may gladly bear the hard times. But when life just goes on as if it is normal, as it seems with the power elite, who, occupying privileged positions that guarantee access to resources that enable them and their families to carry on normally, then, there is serious cause for alarm.

For example, by the time Buhari left office, the number of passport applications, new and renewals, was countable in the hundreds of thousands. But in the few months that we’ve had a new Interior Minister in the person of one Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the backlog has been substantially cleared, as the minister gave clear, concise, and direct marching orders to the agency concerned — the Nigerian Immigration Service to tidy up their acts. That is the way it should be.

If Tunji-Ojo continues like this, NIMC may crack the NIN kernel in the lifetime of this administration. Now, we are assured that passport renewals, which was so difficult at a time that a Lagos-based applicant may have to travel to as far away as Lokoja to get it done, will now take just about two weeks. It left me wondering just what the Federal Government under General Muhammadu Buhari was really doing. Things went down south so badly that our youths, despairing in the apparent hopelessness of the situation, started emigrating to other lands.

That was how the “Ja-pa” syndrome was born. Even some star performers under Buhari left glaring instances of government inefficiency as in the situation of many of our roads. Most of the trunk roads traversing the length and breadth of the country are so-called federal roads, many of which have fallen into utter disrepair. The potholes on Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos are eyesores, to say the least. We repaired the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway for almost 24 years, a feat that deserves attention by the Guinness Book of World Records.

As for the East-West Road, my guess is that will be completed by the time my grandchildren become grandparents. Everywhere you turn, you see evidence of  failed governance. Driving licenses take months to renew, just like passports. One cannot but wonder what the nearly 1.2 million Nigerians employed by the Federal Government in its more than 1,000 MDAs do, with so much value lacking, and services not rendered.

On the economic front, there clearly is a lot of work to be done. Today, the Naira is exchanging for about N1,010 to the US$. There are no signs that the situation will improve soon. But we can start working at it. The Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy/Minister of Finance, Mr. Olawale Edun, has his work cut out for him. So are his counterparts in charge of Industries, Labour and Employment. In tandem with the Central Bank Governor, we must find ways to revive our dead industries.

Ailing concerns should also get the needed lifelines to remain in production. It is inconceivable that we now import most of the things that we used to produce, like electric bulbs, home appliances, automotive batteries, tyres, and even, paper. What we have just been doing is packing all the available Naira to the forex market, use them to buy foreign currencies and import.

Pray, why can’t our refineries work? Why can’t we build new ones? Why don’t we adopt the option of modular refineries that can be delivered faster than the huge, regular refineries? And why are we still destroying the “illegal refineries” that dot the creeks of the Niger Delta? Surely we can find a way to bring the so-called “illegal refineries” into the orbit of normalcy and signpost them as indigenous technology in crude oil refining.

The Labour Minister should find out why textile firms that used to employ hundreds of thousands workers have all but died, and see what he can do to revive them. The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy should task himself on what happened to local fishing companies that also used to employ thousands of workers, with a view to seeing how they can come back into business.

If local fishing capacity is resuscitated, the price of fish would crash, and more Nigerians would be able to eat more easily. I know there are big issues around the points raised, but we need to start from somewhere; China did not bid to overtake the US in one day. If more of our politicians work harder, we might just be able to exit these hard times in a short period. 

On your marks, ministers, governors!