2021: My Prophecies and Predictions! - Ik Muo, PhD

                                                    Man of the Year, Courtesy, Asuquo B

It looked as if 2020, would never end. Everybody was praying to outlive that lean  and mean year and looking forward, hopefully, to a better 2021. After all, without the hope that the future would be better, we would have all gone under the weight of our various life-threatening challenges, which are our daily bread in Nigeria. On 1/1/21, after celebrating the first phase my birthday with a thanksgiving Mass and   the second social phase, which took place in the cloud, I spent the rest of the day thinking of 2021: how to start the year, my prophecies, projections, personal plans and the structure of my interventions for 2021. I also spent some time going through the various messages of felicitation and suddenly, I came across this message from Inno Nduka, a long-standing pharmacist and a long-time comrade starting from our student union days.  And here is the message (He was not the originator though): ‘for those looking for 2021 prophecies, a ‘new year’ is a mere construct of man for administrative purposes, which does not alter the ticking of the clock, sunrise or sunset. All that needs altering is our ill-informed mindset’!  I agree with this message though the ‘new year’ is a divine creation because even in the Bible, years are mentioned repeatedly. So, a year is a demarcation of our lifespans into   chunks of 365 or 366 for administrative, statistical and planning purposes. Thus NOTHING happens on any January 1 and thenceforth unless we make genuine efforts to change our mindsets, activities and behaviours. This is so because time just continues to ‘run’  regardless of seasons and I don’t think the clock ( a first class tyrant) knows that it is new year, mid-year or year-end. However, this intriguing message will not stop me from making my own prophesies and then, the projections for 2021. These prophecies are coming a little bit late because I have been in a mountainous desert, praying and dry-fasting, seeking the face of God over these prophecies.

My prophecies for 2021 are as follows: people, big and small, men and women, old and young will die in their thousands; the night will always follow the day and the rainy season will start from April but a little bit earlier in Lagos. Government will continue to default in its agreements with ASUU and indeed every labour union; Nigerians will not take NLC seriously this year, the traffic gridlock along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway will not abate and the police toll-gates between Shagamu & Onitsha  will continue to be very active! People will get married; those who said ‘if I don’t marry her, I will die’ in January will later in the year be saying ‘if she doesn’t leave my house, somebody will die’! People will be making money like no man’s business, others will be losing money at the same rate and despite the stringent measures by Lagos State Government, people will still drive against traffic.  The President will always be ‘shocked’ by our various audacious security breaches, while government spokespersons will continue to defend the indefensible and contradict each other and Nigerians will continue to be fed with bread of adversity and water of affliction (Isaiah 30:20). Politicians will continue to decamp and counter-decamp and many photo and WhatsApp projects will be unveiled by our politicians (The federal Ministry of Works has just accused some politicians of stealing its projects!). Nigerian government will continue its strategy of borrowing every possible amount from all possible sources without disclosing the details to we, the people. One more prophecy: other prophets will also make their own prophecies but the only difference is that the probability of my prophecies coming to pass is 99.9 %! It would have been 100% but only God is so perfect as to score 100% in His declarations.  Kindly keep this 2021 Prophetic Package handy and align your plans to it. It shall be well with all of us. I have spoken!

Now that I have finished with the serious business of prophecies, I will go on to the less-weightier business of predictions. You should be able to make up your mind on the differences between prophecies and predictions. As par the message that prefaced this piece, the new year is nothing more than a construct designed for administrative, statistical and strategic purposes. What it turns out for individuals, groups, organisations and nations depends first on how they read the environment and most important, the actions they take and behaviours they imbibe as well as acts of God, which are things that happen ( for good or bad)without our inputs. So what actions have we as a nation taken, and how have we rewired our behaviours to optimise 2021? What are the realities on ground? It is not good to start the new year on a pessimistic basis but our( Nigeria’s) prospects for 2021 are as bleak as they were in 2020, at least in the near term.

The major economic developments in Nigeria of late are the opening of borders, 2021 budget and the new finance bill. While the borders were closed, criminal entrepreneurs had a field day. As such, the opening may not make major differences. The budget is still a budget of deficits and debts for which the details are unknown and sources of repayments are uncertain and tilted heavily in favour of current expenditures. As for implementation, check previous records. The controversial 774000 public-works  programme, which has shown the APC as the greatest opposition to APC, will not scratch the unemployment  rate that is approaching 30% neither will it make a dent on poverty. By the way, why is there no vaccine for the hunger virus?

Inflation is walking on all fours and even men who do not ordinarily get involved in the domestic economy have felt the impact directly or through the gaping holes in their pockets.  The size and cost of government is still VERY high and the level of inclusiveness and consultations in economic policy formulation is still low. The government has also proved that its economic priorities remain the same (love your neighbor MORE than yourself) as it has just signed the $2bn Nigeria-Niger rail line deal. In effect, our economy will still be where it was or even worse unless a new properly articulated and genuinely implemented strategic initiative is in place.

 Oga-Coro did not go on Christmas break; it has barred its vicious fangs in a manner never known before. The second wave is upon us and the new, deadlier, strain is on its wicked course, spreading like the proverbial wildfire.

                                          Oga-Coro, on duty, 24/7!

We have now crossed the 100000 mark while the tally for the first 5 days of 2021 was more than the total figure for November 2020. Furthermore, about 80% of new cases are serious and in need of oxygen, which is getting scarcer and scarcer. While the newly inaugurated Lagos oxygen factory can produce 60 units of oxygen daily, the state needs 300 units, an indication of the widening supply-demand gap. Our eggheads and elites top the list of known cases, including Prof Ibidapo Obe , Ebere Onwudiwe and Femi Odekinle, not because they are more affected but because their affliction is more news-worthy.

After all, 60 workers on the Lagos-Ibadan rail-line  project have just been coronised! And by the way, the PTF says that to lock down or not to lockdown is in the hands of the people while the school resumption date at the national level, has become amoebic.  However, while school resumption is in contention, the super-spreader National ID Card capturing is still ongoing while the Ijebu-Ode Banking Model makes it imperative for customers to amass for hours on end waiting for banks to open while the banks are in turn awaiting security personnel to arrive.

                                               Customers@ GTB Ijebu-Ode, 10am, 11/1/21

 Our vaccine story still continues to be checkered even as more conspiracy theories abound while Dr. Gregory  Michael of Miami Beach died after receiving a vaccine and people are already making conclusions.  Our testing records also continue to be pitiable, with Ogun at 50,000 and Anambra at 13415.

 Last year, Alhaji Kazaure  representing the Kazaure/Roni/Gwiwa/Yankashi Federal Constituency declared that his people were more concerned about bandits than Coro, stating that bandits killed more people in a day than the total number who died of Coro. That scenario might still be true as our security challenges are not abating and there has been no known major strategic shift, beyond  recent postings of army officers. Southern Kaduna, Kastina and Zamfara  are still our killing fields but other parts of the country have their own stories. On 12/1/21, the Guardian reported that bandits levied some communities in Niger state N5m monthly as a security levy, so as to spare them from attacks and allow them to stay in their communities peacefully. Such Communities include Iburo, Gandu, Chukuba and Galapy. In far away Bony Island however, the people have demonstrated against the impunity with which pirates have made their lives unbearable.  I forgot that the Commander in Chief has promised that all forms of insurgency would be over in 2021, even though the  Chief of Army Staff had told us that it would last for the next 20 years. As for the internal security, the hurriedly assembled SWAT and even  the much hyped Amotekun have not weaned themselves of the sins of the original police. Brutality is still as common as sunshine. The ASUU strike is over but in less than one month, the Federal Government has breached key aspects of the agreement while the non-academic staff have gone on a warning strike!

On the foreign scene, I have only one key prediction: The USA has survived the Trump-Challenge; a kind of whirlwind that nobody (except few of us) ever imagined. 

The greatest sins of Trump include attacking state institutions( which stood their grounds), abuse of his power-to-pardon, ridiculing the elections and instigating an attack on the Capitol. However, it will spend more than 5 years clearing the mess caused by Trump and his Trumpic politics.

As from next week, I will return to my normal beat. However, I will try to lighten the mood of my reader-friends by including some miscellaneous, odd and curious laughter-inducing stories, so as to remove our minds from our sordid realities.  Once more,   happy new-year and a Covid-free 2021. I also thank those who felicitated with me on my birthday, especially those who joined the celebration in the cloud.   

Please, stay safe, especially the elders like me. Our spare-parts are no longer in the market because the models have been phased out.

-Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625