By Sylvia Felix
Civic Activists and Media Practitioners (CAMP) Forum has called on Nigerians to reflect on the state of the nation.
The group in a press release signed by it’s Board of Trustees and made available to this newspaper said the country is at a point that only conscious reflection can help.
CAMP Forum mourns with the family of late Dr. Chike Akunyili and condemned in strong terms his assassination.
Release in full:
We wish to seize this moment to call on Nigerians, both home and abroad to use this day to reflect on the state of our nation with a call to usher in new thinking and solution to the strings of challenges confronting the country.
As it stands today, the war on corruption can be said to be failing especially as we see record rise in level of unresolved cases driven by backlog of petitions against several political office holders who are still moving freely or those whose trials can be best described as suspended technically.
As at today, Nigeria hasn’t exited the status of the poverty capital of the world, neither has the country at large said to assume better ranking on the global terrorist list where it stands as the country with the fourth deadliest terrorist group in international comity of nations.
On the economic front, national unemployment and inflation rates are still on the rise and gaining more momentum to hit new heights as the federal government leads in the rollout out of dysfunctional policies that have sustained the free fall of the Nigerian naira and dwindling energy quality across the nation in terms of earning power and production spread.
Also as the nation mourns over the assassination of Dr. Chike Akunyili, we are urged to remind ourselves how poor national and regional security statistics have become, especially as emerging figures show that we now live in a country where life has been made terribly cheap with a life expectancy that stands at 42 years on nationwide.
On the flip side, gender justice and equitable representation of women in political offices are far from being achieved. This we say, when as a nation we take into consideration the fact that only 7 Senators out of 109 are women and just 22 out of the 360 House of Representative Members are women. These horrible statistics threaten the aspirations of all girl child and equally show there is a problem in the overall claim for gender inclusivity in our developmental ideas and templates as a country at 61.
The challenges we face are numerous and this should inspire us all to come together and begin to find far reaching solution to the existential problem we face as a nation.
As the nation pursue the objective of seeking solution, it is of great importance, that we call on the leadership of the country from National to State level, and all political office holders to go and listen to the people and do what the Nigerian masses need. Hence there is now need to broaden citizens participations on all levels of governance as a way to addressing all national and regional questions.