Nigeria at the moment can only be saved from her ongoing and impending self-destruction that is inevitable if this nation through her present leaders will refuse to hold the most needed Sovereign National Conference of all the interest groups, ethnic nationalities and religious faiths in Nigeria with the primary purpose of deciding the best way forward for all the 160 million Nigerians at home and in diaspora.
Nigeria in 2012 under the presidency of Jonathan Goodluck is facing too many major crises in different dimensions that will eventually lead this country into a failed state, civil/religious wars or disintegration in our lifetime if those important national issues are left unaddressed now by own today's leaders, or they can continue to lie and pretend to the whole world that those issues are not there or they are not important in 2012 or they can be swept under the carpet for now and Nigeria as a nation can continue as business as usual on the same current path of self-destruction.
The following important national issues must be addressed now in a Sovereign National Conference of all ethnic nationalities and religion groups in order to save this nation from her own self-made and impending self-destruction. They are the following national matters:(i) The present national culture of unabated official corruption from 1960 to date that resulted in the stealing of over $400 billion from our nation's coffers without any serious investigations or prosecutions of those corrupt officials to date by all our successive governments.
(ii) The continuous massive mismanagement of our state resources by our leaders, government officials and policy markers without anything on the ground to show for it. (iii) The total dependent on the oil as our main source of revenue for Nigeria. This oil was projected by many oil experts in the oil industry that it will finished in 2036 without any attempts from our government to diversify our national economy.
(iv) The rise of massive poverty, unemployment, increase in the petroleum products and food prices in Nigeria leaving tens of millions of Nigerians in untold daily sufferings. (v) The world's highest form of wealth gap, income inequality and poverty wages that are practiced in Nigeria today as a standard official policy of our government leaders and officials who are milking this nation dry in the name of democracy and public service.
(vi) The rise in the numbers of the various militants ethnic groups in Nigeria today who are armed to the teeth and are now openly demanding for their own self-determination, self-autonomy, resource control, rotational presidency, state police, confederacy and possibility of secession such as the O'dua Group, Afenifere, New NADECO, Ohaneze, Ijaw groups, MEND, Egbesu Boys, MOSOP and MOSSOB.
(vii) The sudden rise of the highly feared and the deadly militant Islamic group known as Boko Haram that wants to Islamize Nigeria through the Sharia Laws with their campaigns of terror and bombings. (viii) The continuous religion riots, the killings of Christians from Southern Nigerian in the Northern Nigeria's cities and towns unabated since the 1960s by radical Islamic groups in the Northern Nigeria and at the moment by the Boko Haram, and coupled with the pockets of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violents around this nation for many decades now.
(ix) Our present outdated, old, collapsing and inadequate national infrastructures, electricity supply, social services, health care systems and the 20th century educational systems that can no longer meet the needs of tens of millions of ordinary Nigerians. The failure of our government to protect the life and properties of Nigerians from armed robbers, kidnapping for ransoms, arsonists, vandals, political assassinations and ritual killings.
(x) The growing and the uncontrollable national population explosion in Nigeria that is projected by demographers to double by 2040 and this would make Nigeria at that time to be the 4th most populous nation in the whole world without any national plan in the making or on the ground by our present government to address this impending national calamity of the nearest future from happening to Nigeria.
In my final conclusion, any Nigerian in the leadership or not at the moment and also in his or her right state of mind who thinks that a Sovereign National Conference is not needed now in Nigeria without any delay and that these 10 important issues that I listed above should not be addressed and resolved amicably must be living in a fool's paradise in 2012.
All the Nigerian successive leaders from 1960 to date do not have the monopoly of wisdom needed to address all our burning national issues as a nation in serious national crises.This is the most important reason why we are in a deep hole as a nation in 2012. Our leaders should always welcome diversities of opinions from their so called harsh critics or unpatriotic Nigerians in their quest to find the best practical solutions to our nation's problems as a country of many ethnic nationalities and diverse religion faiths.
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