Nigeria Has Become Failed State Under Buhari – Nwabueze

BY RAPHAEL ONYEKACHUKWU, OWERRI – Elder statesman and foremost constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, has raised a dirge over Nigeria, saying that Nigeria is now a failed state under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He, however, did not write off the nation entirely as he posited that the present difficulties can be summoned if there is a change of leadership.
Nwabueze’s bombshell is coming shortly after the former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared that Buhari had better forget 2019 and retire quietly from the political scene in order to give counsel to younger and upcoming politicians.

According to Nwabueze, “By all internationally relevant and accepted indices and indicators, and judged by the reality on the ground, as analysed above, Nigeria is justifiably categorised as a failed state, now ranked 15th among the
“worst failed” states in the world.

“I believe, however, that the country can be made to work again, as it was doing before, and to become a great Nation it is destined to be, and a leading star in the affairs of the African Continent and indeed the world. But for that to happen, there has to be a change of leadership,” Nwabueze said.
The elder statesman based his position on the insecurity prevalent in the country where people are killed at will and the security agencies seem incapable doing little to contain the blood-letting.

“Based on the verdict of history and on the authority of section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999, as amplified above by purposive interpretation, it may be said that a state which is not able to secure and maintain peace, security and welfare for the people to a reasonably adequate extent is a failed state,” Nwabueze pointed out.

Apart from insecurity in the land, Nwabueze pointed out that economic development is not even, and there are mounting unemployment whereas even the employed are losing their jobs almost on daily basis as part of the reasons why it is important now to have a change of leadership, come 2019.

According to him, “There is an uneven economic development along group lines as manifested in group-based inequality in opportunities for education, jobs, and economic advancement, and as measured by group-based poverty levels, infant mortality rates; sharp and/or severe economic decline as measured by a progressive economic decline of the society as a whole (using per capita income, GNP, debt, child
mortality rate, poverty levels, business failures) etc.

“There is endemic corruption or profiteering by ruling elites and resistance to transparency, accountability and free election; widespread loss of popular confidence in state institutions and processes; progressive deterioration of public services particularly basic state functions that serve the people, including failure to protect citizens from terrorism and violence and to provide essential services, such as health, education, sanitation, public transportation etc; widespread violation of human rights etc; private security
apparatuses and “praetorian” guards operating with impunity more or less as a “state within a state”; state-sponsored or state-supported private militias, operating as an “army” outside the regular army of the state, which terrorise political opponents, suspected “enemies”, or civilians seen to be sympathetic to the opposition in furtherance of the interests of the dominant political clique; factionalisation of
the ruling elite and state institutions along group lines, etc as well as incursion of other states or external factors into the national territory,” he itemised.