Unemployment, electricity top list of Nigerian citizens’ concerns

Emeka Ibemere

Barely a week after the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammed Buhari, and Nigerians had expected the President to hit the ground-running with the promises made to them ahead of the 2015 election.

 But unfortunately, the President is yet to form his team to tackle the challenges posed before his tenure as the forth President after the democracy hit Nigeria on the face of the annulment of the June 12 Presidential election.

While the public is eagerly waiting for Buhari to unveil his team of wise-men, opinion poll research conducted by Afrobarometer said Nigerians’ demands are just few important areas.

According to the research group, unemployment, a reliable supply of electricity, and poverty are the most important problems that Nigerians want their government to address, with crime/security following in fourth place, the latest Afrobarometer survey has shown.

With the scarcity of fuel still lingering, and the hydra-dreaded removal oil-subsidy facing President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians places their priorities according to their scarce needs.

According to them, the President   must contend with immediate fuel, cash, and power crises, adding that the manner and the way he handles’ citizens priorities can help inform the administration’s agenda for the next four years.

According to The Afrobarometer survey, conducted in December 2014-January 2015, shows a continuity of economic concerns and the growing importance of electricity and crime/security on the public agenda.

In The Afro barometer’s key finding survey, unemployment, electricity, poverty, crime/security, and corruption are the problems that citizens cite most often among their top three priorities.

The survey said: “Unemployment has been Number one among citizens’ concerns in all five rounds of Afrobarometer surveys conducted since 2003, always cited by about half of survey respondents”, it added.

“Poverty and corruption have consistently ranked among the top five problems, while education has declined slightly as a priority”.

According to Afrobarometer, electricity and crime, and security have been rising rapidly as citizens’ priorities. “Electricity jumped from No. 12 as cited by 11% of citizens, in 2003 to No two, since 2008 when cited by 32% of citizens in 2014 while Crime and security has moved up from No. 15 as cited by just 5% of citizens in 2005 to number four by 26% in 2014.  Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions, and related issues across more than 30 countries in Africa.

Five rounds of surveys were conducted between 1999 and 2013, and Round 6 surveys are currently under way (2014-2015). Afrobarometer conducts face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice with nationally representative samples of between 1,200 and 2,400 respondents.

Fieldwork for Afrobarometer Round 6 in Nigeria was conducted by Practical Sampling International (PSI) in collaboration with the CLEEN Foundation. PSI interviewed 2,400 adult Nigerians. The sample covered 33 of Nigeria’s 36 states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory.

According to the group, it was not possible to conduct interviews in three states in the North East zone – Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe – due to unrest in the region, so substitutions of sampling units were made from neighbouring states in the same zone.

 Thus, each of the country’s zones is represented in proportion to its share of the national population. A sample of this size yields results at the national level with a margin of sampling error of +/-2% at a 95% confidence level. Previous Afrobarometer surveys have been conducted in Nigeria in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2012.

In its latest report on the world’s poverty index, titled “Prosperity for All – Ending Extreme Poverty”, the World Bank listed Nigeria among five countries with the highest number of poor people in the world.

The other countries are India, China, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo. India accounts for 33 percent of the world’s poor followed by China with 13 percent while Nigeria comes third with seven percent. Bangladesh is ranked fourth with six percent of the world’s poor and Democratic Republic of Congo fifth with five percent. According to the World Bank report, India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the DRC are home to nearly 760 million of the world’s poor people.

However, data obtained by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, puts the population of Nigerians in poverty at about 112 million, representing about 67 percent of the country’s 167 million population. Currently, Nigeria’s per capita GDP stands at $1,555 per annum. South Africa, which is rated the second largest economy in Africa, behind Nigeria, has a per capita GDP of $7,336 per annum.

While the country is basking in the euphoria of a rebased economy, which has made it the biggest economy in Africa, the reality at home is different, and indeed pathetic. Data from the country’s statistics bureau show that Nigeria’s North-East and the North-West zones have the highest percentage of absolute poor people while the least poverty ratings are recorded in South-West and South-South zones.

In many North-East and North-West states, the percentage of people rated absolute poor ranges from 68 – 81 percent while states in the North-Central range between 60 – 74 percent.

The Afrobarometer is a research project that measures public attitudes on economic, political, and social matters in sub-Saharan Africa. It is carried out through a partnership of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) in South Africa, the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD), Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy (IREEP) in Benin, Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi, and the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University.

Afrobarometer results are based on face-to-face and house-to-house interviews of individuals and are considered reliable and generalizable. As of October 19, 2006, Afrobarometer data and publications had been cited 216 times.

The project has conducted five main rounds of surveys, covering a total of 22 African countries, as well as a number of individual surveys. Round 1 survey were conducted from July 1999 through June 2001 in 12 countries: Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

While Round 2 surveys were carried out from May 2002 through October 2003 in 15 countries: the Round 1 countries except Zimbabwe, which was surveyed in 2004 and Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique and Senegal. Round 3 surveys were conducted from March 2005 through February 2006 in 18 countries: the Round 1 and Round 2 countries and Benin and Madagascar. Round 4 surveys were administered between March 2008 and June 2009 in 20 countries: the Round 3 countries and Burkina Faso and Liberia.

Round 5 surveys are being administered between 2011 and 2013. As of April 2013, 22 surveys have been completed, including all Round 4 countries and Sierra Leone and Mauritius. As many as 13 more countries are expected to be added.

It would be recalled that ahead of the 2015 election, Afrobarometer in collaboration with CLEEN Foundation, said Nigerians preferred democratic government to any other forms of government. According to them, despite the high pitch tension concerning the Saturday March 28, election, Nigerians preferred democracy as a system that could grant them freedom and popular participation in governance than military and Interim alternatives. Ahead of the election, Nigerians are adamant to vote their preferred candidates but wouldn’t want to toy with interim option or military even in the provocation of any post-election violence, they still would want democracy.

“Yet, as troubled as the upcoming election has been, there are signs that Nigeria’s democracy is maturing. Information flow is at breakneck speed. The plurality of voices in the Nigerian media is emblematic of a country that enjoys freedom of expression, a rare commodity in many African countries. Though Nigeria’s democracy faces serious challenges, it also shows signs of resilience,” Uchenna Ekwo, a journalist reported.

The survey also stated that majority of Nigerians do not consider the ballot an effective means of removing leaders who fail to perform in office and do not see voters as playing a leading role in holding political officials accountable.

Afrobarometer, is an African-led, non-partisan research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions and related issues across more than 30 countries in Africa, Their five rounds of surveys was conducted between 1999 and 2013, while the round six surveys are currently under way 2014-2015.

 The fieldwork for the Afrobarometer round of six in Nigeria was conducted by Practical Sampling International, PSI, in collaboration with the CLEEN Foundation. According to PSI, they interviewed 2,400 adult Nigerians between December 5, 2014 and 19 January 2015. The samples covered 33 of Nigerian’s 36 states as well as the Federal Capital Territory.

Prior to the election that produced Buhari, the group also warned against the hate speech in Nigerian election and said it played a huge role in fuelling the genocide in Rwanda as well as post-election violence in Kenya. It has the capacity to do the same in Nigeria. “Therefore, we must stand together to reclaim our country before it is too late”.

Meanwhile, with the sensitivity of the election period the group said that what Nigeria need now are honest and independent institutions to conduct the much need election. According to Mbaegbu, the institutions must be impartial, free and fair and ready to be courageous to do their constitutional duties perfectly.

“We cannot afford to have the independence and impartiality of Institutions of Security and law enforcement, and our Judiciary compromised. Nigerians deserve and must demand good service and accountability from State Institutions”, he stated. “We need to mobilize our country men and women across the federation to sign up to hate-speech free and violence free elections and to demand that political candidates focus on addressing the issues stated above with a bid to moving us forward as a united country and not further divide us”.

“We also need our identity and faith Institution to remain non-partisan as they join in mobilizing citizens for peaceful elections and a United Nation. Our faith and identity can only thrive in an environment of peace”.

CLEEN called every true Nigerian that it’s their right to support this because it is in our collective interest that the country remains united beyond February 2015.  According to the group, every Nigerian has the honest role to play by telling the politicians that Nigeria belongs to all of us and that Nigerians cannot afford to stand-by and watch the politicians to destroy the nation’s common heritage.

“We invite true- spirited Nigerians to join us in rallying for a united Nigeria in the period leading to and after the general elections in February 2015. Our tools of engagement will include research, advocacy, mobilization and capacity strengthening. Nigeria and Nigerians will be our sole focus”, CLEEN demanded.

CLEEN promotes public safety, security and justice through empirical research, legislative advocacy, demonstration programmes and publications in partnership with government, civil society and the private sector.