A United Kingdom-based human rights, good governance and anti-corruption organisation – Global Peace Movement International (UK) – has admonished the Federal government to be forthright with the value it places on its citizens, in order to promote patriotism among those resident at home and abroad.
The admonition was contained in a statement jointly signed by the organisation’s National President, Dr Mike Uyi, and its Director of National Affairs, Mr. Sam Okereke. They argued that the way and manner the Federal government handles issues pertaining to its citizens make them desire less of being proud Nigerians.
Hence, according to them, other nationalities take Nigerians for granted and even exploit them with impunity.
The organisation maintained that “the controversies surrounding the handling of COVID-19 response indices, palliatives, enforcements, and evacuation of those in the Diaspora, have revealed systematic failure of successive governments to invest in the health sector, the national proactive planning and response capacity of the government, the global economic competitive and national patriotic orientation of the citizenry.”
The organization continued: “Ffor government to ask citizens to pay for evacuation and accommodation for quarantine, in the face of war (pandemic), is quite unfortunate and making a ridicule of the nation in the comity of nations, considering the huge natural and human resources, the intervention of corporate, individual donations, aids coming from different international organisations and governments, and for lack of proactive, holistic and robust framework, it will take the agitations of citizens, for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN), which are organs of government, to intervene, to make the evacuation seamless.”
Arguing further, the organisation insisted that most of those in the Diaspora left the shores of the nation as a result of the successive governments’ failure in providing minimum standards of living, such as jobs, housing, electricity,food, roads, education and security to mention but a few.
“Then in the face of war, when nations were busy securing the evacuation of their citizens, the government was absolving itself of its fundamental obligations to its own citizens, thereby raising the question of how the nation’s commonwealth, donations, aids and even debts are utilised and managed, if the government was failing in fundamental obligations to its own citizens at a time like this.”
The organisation thus called on the Federal government to wake up to its responsibilities of protecting its citizens, which naturally elicits patriotism in the citizens, both at home and in the Diaspora.