The Change We Must Reject

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We are in a season of change. Or so would those who want change for its sake would want us to believe. It is a season where sloganeering seeks trump reason as we are collectively being harassed to turn logic on its
head failing which we risk umbrage and assault from the very same persons who profess change.

This desperation by a vocal minority is understandable. When you have no confidence in your goods as a salesman there is logic to being loud to the extent of sounding profane. Nigeria's latter day adherents of change fall smack into this category. They want the voting public to accept their bellowing with the force of an edict spewing from a supreme being without outlining in real terms the justification for the aberration they are
asking for.

The advocates of "Change" hinge their demands on misimpressions or in some cases outright falsehood. The best excuse they have for asking for change is to claim that the present administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is corrupt simply because people are not being clamped into jail without due process. This singular claim shows that the change these people seek is to again plunge Nigeria into an era of junta format, where the whims of one tin god could land even a saint in gaol.

Whereas, the real change Nigeria has witnessed in recent years is the one where individuals suspected of any wrongdoing are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Should we decide to change this as being insinuated in a few quarters then we will throw people into detention until they are proven guilty and they would have been denied their freedom if they are proven innocent.

Innocent people have also died in a long running insurgency that the advocates of change have identified, possibly rightly, as the singular symptom to prove that the security situation in the country is bad. The conveniently omitted part of the narrative is how the posture of the demagogue of the change movement provided the spark for the insurgency while his utterance fanned the embers of the resulting fire. Such unguarded utterances have sadly not reduced but have instead increased as those behind them become ever more desperate to be heard without thoughts for how such words further compound the nation's security woes.

Nigerians have also been inundated with proposed changes to the economy without getting workable details that will prove that the utopian concepts stand any fighting chance in an enterprise global economy that is
innovation and private sector driven.

One could carry on with puncturing the helium filled balloons that is getting the change movement high - whether by lifting them above terra firma or via that intoxication that comes from sniffing helium. But service
to the fatherland requires that the narrative be changed. Rather than babbling from dreamland, it is more productive to examine what has been achieved in the past four years and act wisely.

In the years President Jonathan has stayed in office, his administration has allowed the Anti-corruption agencies to work at their own pace without interference with the EFCC and the ICPC, strengthened in the bid to stem corruption while the Pension Reforms, Fiscal Responsibility Regime gained traction in addition to creation of the Sovereign Wealth Fund and various privatization programmes.

The waste that has been stopped in the management of the subsidy on petroleum sector is another significant plus for the administration as the resulting SURE-P innovations has touched lives in all respect. SURE-P investment in the transport sector brought about fleet renewal along routes that were having dilapidated vehicles while the resulting expansion from this directly created more employments. Youths, who were hitherto unemployed, have been absorbed under different facets of the scheme including the ones who are benefiting from the internship programme.

The entrepreneurial component of the scheme has also seen the birth of several small scale enterprises that have seen erstwhile applicants creating jobs and taking other applicants off the labour market.

As itemized by President Jonathan himself, there have been changes in other areas that include our railway system, airports; roads network; agricultural sector; electoral process; Almajiri education; and the power
sector.

These are changes Nigerians can easily identify with because they are realities that they live with daily.
These changes are certain, tangible and even measurable. Are these the things we want to throw away for mere sloganeering in the name of "Change"?

For the discerning, the kind of change that will take the country into the dark ages must never be contemplated and must be left to remain in the realm of sloganeering. Nigerians, who stand to continues enjoying the dividends of ongoing changes or to suffer the chaos from retrogressive change, know what to decide by now.

Bombarding them with a call for "Change" is thus counterproductive as the citizens would rather continue with this harvest of changes instead of being force fed a change that is not certain and from a group of people who have failed or simply refused to acknowledge what constitutes change.

Comrade Philip Agbese is a rights activist based in Abuja.

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Articles by Philip Agbese