Government has to do with the act of implementing poli
cies with a view to provide ‘an enabling environment for the citizenry.
In Nigeria today, impunity of some of our party leaders, involving inequality of wealth and opportunity vested on government functionartes are some of the major social problems affecting the electorates.
This inequality is a necessary part of private enterprise; the chances of making it in life, which spur persons to seek for work, save and invent.
There is no doubt that in the nineteenth century, the result of this incentive was remarkable; but today the evil consequence of impunity, politics of calumny and inequality in the conduct of government officials is the bane of the Nigerian Nation.
From early years of the nineteenth century, only limited number of persons in Nigeria obtained great wealth and power, but the masses lived in poverty, ill-fed and in-sanitarily housed, and with the merest fragments of education and opportunities.
The talents of children born into such conditions were necessarily stunted, and the development of industry made it progressively harder for a man to rise from the status into which he was born and most cases enslaved.
Hence it became difficult to argue that the great fortunes were the rewards of service, and this made the working class to assemble in towns and demanded for a better life, just as in the case of the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria’s polity today.
The government was induced to modify the rigours of capitalism by introducing social services, which eventually absorbed a larger part of the energies of the Nigerian Government.
These services, which include, Labour Employment, and Industrial Relations, Food Security, Housing, Health, Education and National security and Insurance schemes, cost a great deal and are sometimes represented as a burden on the country’s industry.
This is why there should be provision of functional healthcare delivery services, better and affordable housing and sanitary policy, well coordinated universal basic education system for our youths, as well as old and less. privileged people’s insurance policy to particularly protect the right and improved care for pensioners.
The cumulative positive impact of these services will definitely improve the standard of life of the poor masses. The better housing, care for old people and effective health care for the youths will reduce the wastage of life and resources through depression and disease.
Again, measures such as effective old age pensions and less privileged people social security, should equally be put in place to give them a sense of belonging and hope.
There is no need however, to justify the social services solely on the grounds that they increase the total wealth of an individual and the well-being of a country.
In Nigeria today, it is certain that the social services have materially increased the living standard of the citizenry particularly for government operatives.
Perhaps, the increasing rate of restiveness in the Niger Delta Region could be attributed to the seeming inequality of wealth in terms of development as opposed to the natural resources endowed with the region.
It is of common knowledge for the nature of man to live in communities, just the way the people of Niger Delta region find themselves in the Nigerian nation, and in the same vein, the different tribes that constitute Rivers State.
Man lives in this fashion in every part of the world today, and the evidence of history and prehistory shows how long he has done so.
The reasons for his habit do not concern politics.
Indeed, it is pertinent to note that man is moved by instincts and desires which can only find full satisfaction in community life, and economists also indicated that efficient production of wealth requires co-operation; therefore there are great advantages to be gained by living together.
Politics only comes in, to discuss with a view to addressing the problems which community creates.
Obviously ,when people live in a community, individuals or groups of people cannot do exactly what pleases them, as is the case with some of our leading politicians today.
Certainly, the people of the Niger Delta cannot continue to be restive without creating disorder to the Nigerian Government, neither can man kill, kidnap, or rob whomever he pleases without causing the society to collapse.
But if man was not restricted, if he has the liberty to do what he likes, much of man’s energy would be absorbed by the attempt to protect himself, by the task of getting a better living.
Therefore, it is suggestible for the on-going national conference to articulate reduction of the impunity clause in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
Otherwise, the continuous state of general insecurity would prevent the development of any improved method of producing wealth.
Though we agree to the fact that the community life, means giving up certain liberties, in order to get more liberty, and that the life of man outside society, is “poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short”, man should always obey the government since the government, however harsh, is there to serve its citizenry.
It should be noted that the same Government that provides liberties can also destroy it by placing it in the hands of unscrupulous people, such as dishonest and selfish politicians.
There is therefore, the need to also stress that politicians should play the game according to existing rules to avoid politics of calumny.
The seeming excesses of such politicians if not checked, may use the people’s mandate not for the good of the masses, but to make the majority, subject to their convenience as witnessed in some states within the region.
In the case of the Niger Delta Region in the polity of Nigeria, the affected communities will feel justified to request for a change in the policies of Government or a total change to an alternative Government.
The national Government of Nigeria should as a matter of priority, fashion our adequate remedial systems to keep the Niger Delta Region on a fast lane of human and physical development in the interest of justice and social harmony.
In as much as we reckon the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission as a special intervention agency of the development of the Deltaic Region, it should be suggested that component units or Departments should be created and decentralised. They should also be specifically charged with the responsibility. of providing for the sick, the aged, and the unemployed who are unable to fend for themselves to promote equality of opportunity, and prevent the inequality of wealth.
In the instance therefore, funding of the commission should not be politicised. The Federal Government should release with minimum delay all outstanding funds due to the Niger Delta Development Commission.
This is what the people of the Niger Delta Region expect from the National Government in return for its abundant non-renewable natural endowments.
Finally, delegates from the region, in the on-going- National conferences and our legislators should articulate the creation of more states and local government areas in the region, as panacea to the perennial struggle for the desired equality.
Fuayefika, a public affairs analyst, writes from Port Harcourt.

 
Tonye Fuayefika