The Unkept Promises

Time was when keeping your word held special significance. People took great pride in being of good character. Personal integrity was valued. It was a period when good moral was instilled in children at very early age and was viewed as instrumental in achieving success.
Today, not many care about these values. Lying, dishonesty, insincerity are the order of the day. People make promises and do not bother to keep them. Yes, we all fail to keep our promises sometimes, but some of us seem to have a problem keeping most of their promises. Politicians fall under this category.
Every politician knows that the key to winning election is to make great promises. During campaigns, they promise to cure the ills of society including fighting corruption, developing all the sectors, guaranteeing the security of the lives of the citizens and many more. At all levels of government – local, state, federal, the story is the same.
There is no need detailing the many broken campaign promises in the history of Nigeria. However, permit me to mention two of such promises by the current administration. Here they are: “We intend for instance, to bring back our National Carrier, the Nigerian Airways. We shall do this by bringing all the aircraft in the presidential fleet into the Nigerian Airways and within a year increase the fleet into about 20” – Muhammadu Buhari (Feb 2015, while addressing Nigerians in UK);
Another one: “A serious government will fix power problem in six months” – Babatunde Raji Fashola (Nov 12, 2014).
There are many more of such promises.
The big questions are, have these promises been fulfilled? We are almost three years into the life of the current administration where incidentally, Fashola is the Minister for Power, Works and Housing. Can it really be said that power issues in the country have been fixed or is this government “not a serious one”?
Just four days ago, Nigeria was ranked the 2017 second worst electricity supply nation in the world. According to a report released by Spectator Index, of the 137 countries examined in the report, Yemen ranked the worst electricity supply nation in 2017, followed by Nigeria, Haiti, Lebanon and Malawi.
Is it not baffling that despite all the huge resources invested in the power sector every year by both current and previous administrations, power supply in the country keeps getting worse? Even the privatization of the power sector has not brought any succour. All we hear are claims upon claims of significant progress in the power sector, yet the reality on ground says otherwise.
An African Progress Report recently disclosed that more than 90 million Nigerians have no access to electricity. It says, out of this non-electrified population, 17 million people live in the urban centers, while 73 million live in rural areas. How do we expect our economy to grow in this circumstance?
Electricity is pivotal to the development of any nation, but when almost half of the population have no access to electricity, how can the economy thrive? People rely on power generating sets for their commercial and domestic power supply which is even now becoming out of reach for many Nigerians.
Affirming the decay nature of the nation’s power sector, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2015, said: “No single cause can be identified to explain Nigerian’s poor economic performance over the years than the power situation. It is a national shame that an economy of 180 million generates only 4,000 megawatts and distributes even less.
“Continuous tinkering with the structures of power supply and distribution and close to 20 billion dollars expended since 1999 has only brought darkness, frustration, misery and resignation among Nigerians.
“We will not allow this to go on; careful studies are under way during this transition to identify the quickest, safest and most cost-effective way  to bring light and relief to Nigerians.’’
Almost three years down the road, Nigerians are still waiting.
Meanwhile the promise to revive the Nigeria Airways has remained only on the pages of the newspapers. No action whatsoever has been seen to be taken in that direction nor has reasonable attention been paid to the aviation sector of the economy.
Not too long ago, two Nigerian airports – Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, were ranked among the worst airports in the world. Observers have said that going by the poor state of infrastructure in these and other airports in the country, the poor customer relation of most airport staff and the filthy environment, they couldn’t have expected a better result.
In the education sector, health and virtually all the sectors, the situation is the same – poor attention. Let us not go to the issue of insecurity particularly cattle herdsmen menace which seems to have overwhelmed those in authority. Many Nigerians are killed almost daily by the herders, yet, no concrete step has been taken to punish the offenders or find an agreeable permanent solution to the crisis. Meanwhile, Nigerians were promised adequate protection of their lives and properties.
Therefore, one thinks it is high time our leaders matched their words with action. The poor rankings of Nigerian universities, Nigerian Police and others are indications that the government should do much more than it is doing. Let us begin to see the fulfillment of all the lofty promises. Yes, we know that sometimes, after making promises, there could be unforeseen circumstances posing a challenge to their fulfillment, but let us see some efforts towards keeping these words.
Another election year is approaching and politicians have started making another round of empty promises. While members of the opposition parties are promising heaven and earth if they are voted into power, those of the ruling parties are making more promises even when they have not kept the ones they made three year ago. Let us not be swayed by the politicians’ antics and be carried away by mass delusion of inflated expectations. We should rather be able to read in-between the lines and elect the best candidates who will genuinely work for the good of the country and the citizens not those that will renege on their promises and leave the people to suffer and die of hardship.

Calista Ezeaku