From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has linked social inequality, poverty and unemployment to the problem bedevilling the country.
Fayemi spoke, yesterday, in Abuja at a book launch, entitled: ‘Media, Politics and Power in Nigeria’, and authored by Emeka Nwosu.
He observed that the socio-economic gap between the rich and the poor, and the epicurean lifestyle of those in power currently threatens the corporate existence of Nigeria, as those at the lowest ebb are unleashing mayhem.
The Chairman of Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) wondered why values such as integrity, equity, honesty, and oneness no longer exist.
Represented by the Convener of the Nigerian Agenda, Ahmed Sajoh, he said: “We have not constructed shared values as members of the elite class. In the process, we have left our people also to grope in the dark with shared values.
“Values such as integrity, values such as equity, justice, fairness and inclusion should be shared by us on a level where everybody appreciate them as core values the society will appreciate.
“But because we have eroded those values, we have developed high level of poverty in our land. We have high level of social inequality.
“These things have resulted in the creation of an insensitive ruling elite. And I say it with the sense of anger. We have an insensitive ruling elite.
“People who could waste, lavish millions of our resources in their frivolous lifestyle at the expense of the ordinary people.
“Fayemi has always said we need to devolve more powers to the constituent units.
“He also understands like I do and all of us should do, restructuring the country alone is not enough.
“In 1966, one of the key components of the restructuring debate then was creation of more states. Have we not created more states?
“Has it solve our problems? It has not solve our problems. Today, if we devolve power, yes, it will benefit more people in the corridors of power, but in the long run, if we do not address poverty and social inequality we are still not going to get it.
“Poverty and social inequality are the key components of things we need to restructure our country.
“We need to restructure our social relationship. The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. The gaps are getting wider. The insensitivity is getting too much.”
On the nexus between the media, politics and power, he said: “Generally what we are talking about is the interface between politics, power and the role of the media in ensuring the politics which is usually the road to power and power itself serve the common good of Nigeria.
“I must confess that the nexus of media, politics and power is such that politics determine the structure of power while to some extend, media determine the structure of politics.
“Because you make choices base on knowledge and the vehicle that shares knowledge to society is the media. We cannot all have access to the classroom to share knowledge of teachers that would say we are sharing common knowledge among us.
“The media is the vehicle through which we have shared knowledge, values and the political process gained from this shared knowledge we attain political powers. We do not have shared values.”