Find the will!

Is anyone at all (in the presidency or elsewhere) looking into CBN Governor Sanusi’s bold proposals, put forth last December, that (a) the government’s workforce be slashed by 50% and (b) the over-bloated National Assembly be drastically shrunk from its current membership of 469?

Especially now that (a) the 1999 Constitution is being reviewed and (b) an advisory committee is about to work out an agenda for a national conference to reconfigure Nigeria, this is an appropriate moment to table these quite sane proposals for serious consideration.

Obviously, reducing the public workforce by any significant percentage demands a radical initiative that will provide alternative and productive employment for those affected. This should be accomplished by the federal and state governments working in partnership with the private sector.

For example, train these able-bodied citizens for police patrols (the nation is under-policed). Engage them in: planting, harvesting, processing, distributing agricultural products; constructing roads, bridges, railway tracks, hospitals and schools; replacing open gutters with underground drainage/sewage systems; drilling boreholes, processing drinking water; irrigating arid farmlands into swampy rice paddies; laying pipes for distribution of pipe-borne water, etc.

Nigerians owe it to themselves not just to stay optimistic but to actually apply pressure on our leaders to take the right actions to transform this country into a prosperous and livable place in this generation. We have the resources—human, financial, and material—to accomplish it. Let us find the will.