BlossomNigeria acknowledges President Bola Tinubu, who on Wednesday June 12, 2024, paid tribute to the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, late Chief MKO Abiola, describing him as a symbol of Nigeria’s 25 years of unbroken democracy.
In a national broadcast to mark the 25th anniversary of unbroken democracy, the President also paid tributes to other heroes and courageous women of democracy, announcing that the sacrifices they made and the valuable profit brought by their magnanimous commitment, can never be forgotten nor will it be overlooked.
Being the sixth anniversary after the Muhammadu Buhari government declared June 12 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day in 2018, in recognition of MKO Abiola’s victory in the election annulled by the Ibrahim Babangida-led military junta, President Tinubu went down memory lane on the pro-democracy struggles and the price paid by the heroes and heroines.
Analysts say 31 years after the landmark Presidential election widely regarded as the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history, citizens seems to be in a deeper mess than they found themselves under military rule in 1993.
In recent years, Nigerians are officially noted to have fallen into extreme poverty. This is why the democratic ethos of freedom, equality and inclusion, as inspiring as they sound, have been usurped by despair, grinding poverty and crushing hopelessness.
It is noted that in place of the feudal system, with limited land ownership by the rich and the clergy, gave birth to republicanism. From official records, Nigeria overtook India in 2018 to become the poverty capital of the world with 86.7 million people. The National Bureau of Statistics also reported 133 million people living in multidimensional poverty in 2022. The World Bank added another 7 million to those living in poverty, due to President Bola Tinubu’s cancellation of oil subsidies and the merger of the naira exchange rate in 2023.
Talking about the way forward for the Country, BlossomNigeria agree with professionals, that are of the opinion that the rot in the country could be reversed, but it will not be overnight. They also suggest that the Federal Government (centre) is too large, making it arrogate too much to itself. With this, we trust that a major step among other things, will be to abolish the fundamentally flawed 1999 Constitution, and create a truly federal constitution. Fiscal federalism, State Police and the operation of a truly open market, will also be beneficial to the economy.
As has been factually noted, that currently, poverty has been looming across the country’s oppressive and difficult investment atmosphere, which seems to have stripped this iconic June 12 of all its meaning, BlossomNigeria says the future should not be seen as too bleak for a change, if more Nigerians make up their minds to contribute to the positive development of the nation, that can still be saved from rot, corruption and outright hopelessness. It is not too late to contribute positively to the nation’s development at all levels. Let the change in mindset begin.
