My time in Nigeria is winding down, but one constant is that everybody, including me, has something to complain about.
Is it the roads that are in bad condition, lacking repairs, destroying tyres & shock absorbers, causing accidents, death, & destruction on a daily basis?
Cities and urban areas with tarred major roads, leaving the majority of inhabitants living on dirt, ungraded dusty roads, inhaling dust clogging up their lungs.
Most dirt roads have turned into extreme obstacle courses requiring prizes for those who get to their
destination without injury or damage.
Is it the lack of drainage or drain clearance turning roads into rivers and communities into swamps whenever it rains, making them near impassable for residents & commuters?
These drains are breeding grounds for hungry blood sucking mosquitoes who spread deadly malaria like wildfire.
What of the dirty environment? Despite taking a whole day for the environment, most cities, towns, and now villages are festooned with heaps of smelling garbage that blocks gutters & breeds disease-ridden rats spreading deadly lassa fever.
We haven’t got to lack effective medical & educational, policeing facilities, talk less of broken transformers, cut power lines, and broken water mains that are left unrepaired.
You go to the local, state, and federal MDA’s to complain and are told to come today, come tomorrow, or pay extortionate bribes before your complaint can be attended to.
Application processes for most government services at all levels are protracted & opaque, leading to frustration. Govt open for business is the cry but rarely achieved as evil servants masquerading as civil servants intentionally slow the process so their alternative Egunje process that fills their pockets can strive.
Anywhere you go on the road, in taxis, in beer parlours, booker/pepper soup joints, restaurants, in markets, or in any office or social media outlet, & especially opposition media masquerading as independent news outlets, you will find Nigerians complaining daily about the government and blaming somebody or the other, often the president or the governor, but rarely their local government chairman, who remains faceless & often nameless.
Most Nigerians don’t know their Senator, Hon. Hse of Reps, Hon. Hse of Assem, or their local councillor, who should also be points of reference to register complaints too. They have a duty to respond and resolve many of these issues in a true democracy; otherwise, what are we paying them for and what are we electing them for? Is it just to give them fat salaries & foreign SUV’s?
Wahala plenty for Nigeria, but despite all the above inefficiencies, which are sadly also pervasive in our private sector, there is a Fed Govt agency set up to deal with all your complaints.
It’s called the Public Complaints Commission (PCC), which has offices in every state. They deal with all complaints, whether government-related or private; they also act as an arbitration & dispute resolution service. I hope to interview one of their officials before I leave to enlighten you on how you can make formal complaints and hopefully get your complaints resolved whenever you are in Nigeria. The link to the agency is below. Have a look and make use of it. 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾
https://pcc.gov.ng/
Have you had a complaint resolved, or is your complaint still unresolved? Please let me know. On my way to the farm, have a nice day. Please share, thanks
Femi Oke
Betta9ja
