Sir: It’s quite unfortunate that as Nigerians continue to wriggle from one maladministration to another, those in position of authority continue to show absolute lack of understanding of the ideals of good governance. The current government has been uncovering several avenues through which billions of the nation’s funds went down the drain in the last regime. While the disclosures about the former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele’s activities while in office left the entire nation in shock, another set of former ministers are being quizzed for money laundering to the tune of a whopping hundreds of billions of naira. Ironically, the new regime itself has commenced its own style which appears as an offshoot of the last administration’s fiscal recklessness.

News about Nigeria’s first lady going about sharing money to those labelled as elderly vulnerable Nigerians is now making the headline. While the yardsticks being used to determine such categories of people remain unknown, the legal framework under which the first lady is acting is also suspect. This obviously new practice by the first lady ought to undergo a critical scrutiny with a view to establishing its appropriateness or otherwise so that a bad precedent is not set for others after her to copy. And in any case, the Federal Government must be reminded that such handouts given ostensibly to help some privileged few should never be construed as an evidence of good governance.

What Nigerians clamour for in their demands for good governance are never too difficult to achieve by any serious government willing to alleviate its people’s sufferings. Some neighbouring African countries under their dynamic leaders have recorded remarkable landmarks which show quite clearly that achieving such feat is possible in the so-called dark continent. Stable power generation, for instance, will not only create massive employment for the people but also even attract the so much sought after foreign investors.

Making the health sector truly functional will also not only discourage the nation’s medical personnel from relocating abroad but also prolong the lives of the citizens who continued to die of mostly preventable diseases an illnesses. Again, good leadership by example will seek patronage for the nation’s health sector by putting a final stop to medical tourism. Moreover, no nation that desires a continuous growth trifles with its education sector. Provision of amazing facilities and establishment of an effective system that is knowledge-driven and result-oriented will build secured future for the country ultimately.  Such can never be achieved until leaders themselves enrol their children in public schools.

The biggest responsibility of any government to its people is security and so tackling insecurity head-on is of paramount importance. But as things stand now, this has not been so in this new regime.  At least, two unfortunate events have occurred which shows quite clearly that there’s no departure from the ugly experiences of the past. Innocent people were mistaken as terrorists and bombed in Kaduna by soldiers. This is an obvious flimsy excuse since terrorists have their general outlook and there was no way those in celebration mood could be categorised as terrorists. Besides, a preferred strategy must have been to lay siege and eliminate the evil men whenever they are on their full dastardly mission or operation.

That must have won the military a loud applause from everybody. But that never happened and only those meant to be protected were the ones eliminated.

Again, many people were killed in Plateau in a renewed assault on many villages and the perpetrators went scot-free without any counter attack from the nation’s security personnel despite the fact that several hours were obviously spent in the unprovoked attack.

This is clearly inexcusable because such attacks have happened several times in the past and a new government with a serious strategy to tackle insecurity ought to have come up with how to guard against a recurrence most effectively.

Nigerians also want a radical change in the judicial system in such a manner that can restore the people’s confidence, not the one that proves itself to be partisan almost every time, and roads that are truly motorable whereby accidents are reduced to the barest minimum.

All these and more are the hallmarks of good governance, not handouts to a selected few. There’s therefore an urgent need for the new regime to restrategise, halt the showoffs which giving of handouts represents and face the issue of good governance squarely.

Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International, Lagos.