HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA?

 WE NEED TO FOCUS ON BUILDING THE MIDDLE CLASS, WHILE CREATING SOCIAL SAFETY NETS FOR THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID:
While Latin America is reaping the gains of economic reforms in Countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico and migrating a lot of people from the bottom of the pyramid to the middle class, we are reaping violence and poverty even though our economy is growing; and one would have felt that a lot more people would have been pulled out of poverty and that we would have started to narrow the gap between the top and the bottom of the pyramid, but the contrary has been the case.
A STRUCTURAL DYSFUNCTION AND A HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: While it is true that a lot of the crisis we have witnessed in Nigeria are a consequence of bad politics, the root causes are more about economic exclusion than politics. From the Area Boys and OPC in the South West, to the Bakassi Boys and Biafra renaissance in the South East, from the MEND Militancy in the South-South to the Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen in the North; able bodied men who should have ordinarily been gainfully employed are easily lured into anti-social groups that portend grave danger to the stability of the State.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO STEM THIS TIDE?
I imagine that it is possible to turn the tide if we can do three things very well within the next 5 to 10 years:
1. Education: We need to prioritise education so as to open peoples world to possibilities and give them a life-skill. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was able to do this in the old South West and I believe that an investment in Education always pays off across generations.
2. Job Creation: Given that a lot of the unemployed in Nigeria are actually unemployable because they lack requisite skills, job creation needs to be bundled with vocational skills acquisition using the traditional guild systems so we can start to see people emerge as Mechanics and become employable in the manufacturing industry and in the automotive sector. We need to rebuild the guild system, so we can start to see people also become bricklayers and foremen and become employable in the Construction Industry. We also can start to see people become welders, vulcanisers, blacksmiths, hair-dressers, tailors, cobblers and a host of bottom of the pyramid possibilities will start to emerge, which will mean more than violence and low life-expectancy.
3. Creation of Smaller Governments and Bigger Social Safety Nets: Let us spend less on people in government and their hangers on and spend more on things that guarantee a better quality of life for the people at the bottom of the pyramid, so they too can have access to a life that defines them as humans and not beasts.
ITS TIME TO REORDER OUR PRIORITIES
Let us spend less on Estacodes and private jets and spend more on public schools and primary healthcare centres. Let us spend less on furniture allowances for Legislators and spend more on feeder-roads and rural electrification projects. Let us spread the social safety net and help increase the disposable incomes of those at the middle and the bottom of the pyramid, so we can create a healthy economy, one that looks after the vulnerable in society and profits the rich. One that guarantees a hope for movement across the socio-economic classes, provided people are ready to work hard and be better at what they do. Let's bring back the notion of government as service as opposed to it being about bread and butter, so we can reduce the violence in the land. I believe it is possible. It is about reordering our priorities.