Welcome To A New Year Of Hope

Today is New Year Day, a day set aside by the Federal Government of Nigeria as a national public holiday. It also marks the beginning of the year 2010, and the end of 2009. Typical of such festive moments, the citizens make long journey away from the cities to the country-sides, and momentarily shift  from weightier national concerns.

The Tide joins all Nigerians in wishing our numerous readers Happy Public Holiday.

But while we celebrate, we consider it equally instructive to retrospect on events of the past year, and see how experiences gathered, failures recorded and successes achieved could help fashion our preparedness for the New Year.

No doubt, 2010 will offer fresh challenges, due largely to the many unfinished issues of burning public concern. That will surely require of the citizenry good measure of patience, patriotism, hard work and indeed, hope, if we are to put behind us such pending worries.

Yes, it was not all stories of failures, because Nigerians indeed, had a bit to celebrate in the past year, in areas, such as restoring peace to the troubled Niger Delta area through the amnesty programme, the cheering reforms within the banking sector, the increased oil output as well as the rise in the prices of oil in the international market. The recovery of the Nigerian economy from the pressures of the global economic meltdown is also a resounding story of success.

Although the gains are yet to be visible to the ordinary end users, the federal and some state governments have made appreciable efforts in addressing the electric power supply problem in the country. The Tide is aware that many of the facilities needed to hit 6,000megawatts projection by the Federal Government are ready and awaiting either completion of transmission lines or outright commissioning.

We recall that the deteriorating state of infrastructures in the country, particularly roads in the South South and South East could not be addressed in 2009. The same failure reflects on the state of the nation’s steel and manufacturing sectors. In fact, 2009 was a year in which organized labour in virtually all sectors embarked on industrial actions to press home their demands for improved welfare, among others. We note especially the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and their counterpart in the non-academic stream of the university, secondary school teachers, lawyers, medical doctors, among others, and the untold hardship Nigerians faced as a result.

Even so, as we mark New Year’s Day, The Tide wishes to call on all well-meaning Nigerians to take a genuine stock of our achievements and failures in 2009, and take a decision from this first day of 2010, to commit to face those issues that have remained a stumbling block to the realization of greatness of our fatherland, frontally. Whether as individuals or as governments, The Tide believes that if all Nigerians work hard, the catalog of issues that have failed to move the nation to the next level would be overcome in 2010.

Nigerians should boldly confront the spectre of the long overdue electoral reforms, and constitutional amendments that should usher in true fiscal federalism in Nigeria. If we are to move forward in 2010. We must genuinely face the fight against corruption, and embrace the expected reforms in the downstream and upstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.

Although the president’s ailing health and long absence from the country as a result has not helped the nation in its quest to record significant milestones, all Nigerians must use the opportunity provided by this introspection to pray for the quick recovery of the president.

Here in Rivers State, we urge our people to begin today to think of what they can contribute to the building of the new Rivers State. We believe that if we work harmoniously, we would achieve a state that can, without blinking, beat its chest as the fastest growing economy in Nigeria. And this is what we recommend.