Goodluck Jonathan is not the problem. #occupynigeria

The uprising in Nigeria, the bandwagon that is now called “Occupy Nigeria” was born out of a natural reaction to the issue of the fuel subsidy being removed. On the back of all the worlds “Occupy” movements it was only natural that Nigeria would follow suit. This is a country with a very high social media usage, mainly Facebook, ridiculous levels of unemployment, a severe lack of education and the basics of a living standard, and so all the ingredients for this type of thing. Equally, with so many Nigerians now living in the western world, their tales of a better life have raised the expectation levels of the youth back home.

But one thing I have noticed while watching the videos on YouTube and Twitter is the anti Jonathan sentiment of those protesting. Okay so as President he is a natural target, but this is more about the man, rather than the position. For me, the target for all this should be the system, not the man. Lets be honest here, removing the subsidy is the correct thing to do, yes the timing sucks, and yes the speed of it could have been done better, but GEJ is doing the right thing and is having to take action because of the extreme failings of his predecessors. Nigeria is the 8^th biggest producer of oil in the world, so why does it have to import oil for its people? That is the biggest question. 

There are refineries in Nigeria, so fix them. If needs be, sell them to the private sector, regulate them, standardise them, condition them, but above all, get them working. Build new ones, maybe via a PPP, and place them in the states that don’t have oil, Cross River would be ideal, plus some of the northern states and then start to produce your own without having to import fuel. But this has been decades in the making, so its not down to GEJ, but fixing the problem is.   

Nigeria relies far too much on its Politian’s, for me, too many countries do that. Nothing works when governments are involved, less government will always result in more action. So my message for those involved in the Occupy Nigeria campaign, ignore GEJ, attack the government and Politian’s, attack the 1%, find a leader for the cause, but above all, create the solutions to the real problems, Goodluck is not the problem