In the spirit of President Buhari clocking seven years in office, African Independent Television (AIT) organised a town hall forum to look into issues in the country today and possible solutions to them.
Among the panelists where Professor Jideofor Adibe, a renowned political scientist, Austin Aigbe, Osita Okeychukwu an APC chieftain and others.
The panelists agreed that the nation is currently at a crossroad and requires concerted effort by all stakeholders, especially the government of the day, to bring it out of its conundrum.
Professor Adibe spoke about the contradictions in Buhari’s administration today when compared with his stint as a military head of state in 1983 in terms of economic liberalization.
For him, corruption is a symptom of a more fundamental problem, a problem which we have not been able to diagnose as a nation. The crisis of nation building is not left out because “we have to have a nation first before we can solve any problem and for as long as the problem of nation building exists, anything you throw to solve the problem will become part of the problem”.
He said that Goodluck Jonathan might not have been the best president in view of the problems that were part of his administration, but his singular act of conceding defeat to Buhari in the 2015 election meant that he left office in a blaze of glory which still trails him today. So also with the numerous challenges facing Nigeria today, president Buhari should think of how to leave in a blaze of glory; especially in building a united Nigeria before his tenure expires.
Osita Okechukwu was of the opinion that the government needs cooperation and understanding. “The administration is working very hard to better the economy through agriculture. The anchor borrowers for example is community based, the community owns almost everything, what the government is doing is to empower farmers”.
On this Professor Adibe cautioned that “The people you find in agriculture all over the world are quite advanced in age. We need to rethink our strategy of reviving the agriculture sector in Nigeria, for example; how do we use technology and AI with the youth inclusive”.
