By Douglas Anele

The 1999 Constitution, on page 15, contains the blatant falsehood that “we, the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…do hereby make and give ourselves the following constitution.” It has many provisions that make Nigeria a distorted federation. For instance, it gives too much executive and legislative power and financial resources to the Federal Government. Again, the Presidential system it stipulates is very expensive to operate.

The Constitution tacitly encourages corruption and indolence by its failure to make the business of lawmaking part-time. The document contains obnoxious federal character provisions that celebrate our disunity while promoting mediocrity and injustice. Thus, Jonathan must be bold and imaginative enough to address these issues without delay.

Second, the President must confront corruption with all his being. Like most Nigerians, he knows that what the maverick musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, satirically called “authority stealing” has been destroying the country, especially since 1970. There is no need to belabour the point that Nigeria’s ruling and business elite is dominated by insane primitive accumulators. To worsen matters, the three arms of government have been thoroughly compromised and weakened by corruption.

President Jonathan must distance himself from graft. Moreover, he must give 100  per cent support to the anti-graft bodies.  He promised not to interfere in the work of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Hence, nobody (not even his wife) should be spared if there is weighty evidence of corruption or financial crime against him or her. Giving the EFCC and other law enforcement agencies all the help they need to fight corruption without interference is the only way Nigerians will know that their President is totally against corruption.

If Jonathan, by his actions, shows that he cannot condone or tolerate corruption, his lieutenants and other public office holders will get the message. Therefore, he is expected to lead the crusade against corruption by personal example. Third, Nigerians expect the President to end the phenomenon of epileptic power supply for good. Since 1999, billions of dollars have been spent on energy; yet it appears that the money has been wasted. Many of us suspect that an extremely powerful, well-connected, generator-importing cabal is largely responsible for the shambolic state of electricity supply in the country.

That said, because of the crucial importance of stable electricity to national development and personal well-being, Jonathan and his team must look into this quickly, and if indeed, there is such a cabal the government should disrupt, dismantle and crush it so that other problems militating against adequate and reliable supply of electricity throughout the country can be dealt with. Fourthy, Mr. President m
ust be worried by the poor state of education at all levels in the country. Never mind the shibboleths from some so-called experts with high falutin academic titles who hide their heads in the sand like an ostrich by denying the obvious. Of course, the quality of an educational system can be measured in several ways.

But fundamentally, it should be assessed by the intellectual and moral quality of those that passed through the system. From the primary school level to the university, things have really fallen apart, to the extent that nowadays the average secondary school graduate cannot perform simple mathematical calculations or write a simple letter without bungling the rules of syntax and grammar, whereas there are doctorate  holders in English Language that write bad English.

Now, the Presidential Task Team set up by Jonathan to thoroughly examine the education question and make recommendations submitted its report on May 18. So, the President, as a former academic, should critically dissect it and implement the good ones expeditiously. Education is the key to national development in all its ramifications, particularly now that we live in a globalised, knowledge-driven world.

If the President can tackle successfully the problems of constitutional reform, corruption, epileptic electricity and collapsing educational system, he will be ranked as the greatest Nigerian leader since independence. Our emphasis on the four areas mentioned above does not imply that infrastructural development, agriculture, healthcare etc. are unimportant – they are, indeed.

The point is that, if the four major areas we listed are dealt with satisfactorily, others will improve. For example, if corruption in public life is drastically reduced, more funds will be available for the provision of better educational facilities which, in turn, will promote production of top quality manpower to catalyse our development plans in agriculture, infrastructure, industrialisation, housing and healthcare. Recalibrating our constitution along federalist lines will liberate the latent potentials of the six geo-political zones for diversified economic development, as was the case in the mid-1960s when the country had just four regions.

The critical importance of electricity in all aspects of contemporary existence, especially for industrialisation and wealth creation, cannot be over-emphasised. What all this boils down to is that President Goodluck Jonathan should concentrate on a more manageable four-point agenda, rather than the cumbersome seven-point agenda of his predecessor, without necessarily ignoring the others completely. In a world where challenges are greater than available resources for solving them, the only reasonable option left for any leader is to prioritise. To repeat once again, Jonathan and his supporters have run out of excuse for poor performance with his inauguration as President on his own merit.