ORLDWIDE, the
middle class is that segment of society that drives the engine of development
and stabilizes the polity.
Those in this class are neither among the affluent class nor
in the bottom classes of citizens but occupy a respectable middle position, the
citadel of professionals. Members of this social class that is the bulwark of
the society are substantially removed from the biting depravations of the poor
or the hapless base class of the society.
The middle class, usually constituted by the professionals,
bureaucrats, teachers or lecturers, business people or farmers, are marked out
by a reasonably comfortable standard of living.
Between the 1960s and the mid-1970s, before the controversial
purge of the civil service by the military administration of the late Gen.
Murtala Muhammed, the middle class was constantly reinforced by young graduates
who, upon graduation from the universities, were sure of several jobs waiting
for them, out of which they would pick the ones that most appealed to them; they
were usually sure of well furnished apartments to go with the jobs and in most
cases would have cars given to them or at worst, would be sure of car loans soon
after taking up the jobs.
Besides, this class of people could be sure to have the
resources to get married soon after graduation and gaining employment and would
set about building houses of their own and extending assistance to relatives
either in the area of sponsoring their education or in sundry other areas. All
these could be achieved within the first five years of graduation.
Lecturers were relatively well paid, had comfortable
accommodation within the well kept staff quarters, had decent lecture theatres,
offices and teaching aids as well as enjoyed incentives like well funded
sabbatical leave, hefty research grants, allowances for up-to-date journals and
exchange programmes involving local and foreign institutions that enhanced not
only their abilities to teach better, but their social, material and economic
well-being.
This socio-economic setting, to a large extent, now only
exists in the memories of a few who remember "those days" with nostalgia.
Scarcely, if at all, would there be people who could claim to be operating
within this standard, people who could boldly come forward now to identify
themselves as constituting the middle class of this country, in the strict sense
of the word.
The fact is that the country’s middle class is unfortunately
fast becoming extinct. Certain policies of governments, past and present, have
been accelerating the pace of the destruction of this critical class of nation
builders with the result that what now exists is the lower class and the upper
class comprising many that have not justified their place by hard work or merit.
High rate of graduate unemployment, for instance, has
guaranteed that the flourishing middle class of the mid-1960s and 1970s is being
mercilessly wiped out. Sometimes, ten years after graduation, many graduates
still roam the streets of the country’s cities searching for elusive jobs.
Where and when new jobs are secured by those lucky to lay
their hands on them, the pay is often less than living wages, and thus cannot
afford cars, decent accommodation, wives or houses for those that earn them. The
near total collapse of public infrastructures has compounded the woes of
hardworking citizens who would otherwise be categorized as the middle class with
the result that most of them are presently struggling for the space that would
otherwise have been for those that constitute the lower classes of society. It
is incontrovertible that the steady decimation of the middle class derives from
poor national leadership, bad policies, misplaced priorities, injustice in the
system and inequity.
This adverse trend may not have commenced in the last five
years of the present government, but for sure the tenure of the present
democratic regime has marked some of the worst reversals for the middle class.
The warning that destruction of the middle class would spell
doom for the country has consistently been sounded by knowledged sources.
Government must heed the warning and consciously deploy resources towards
resuscitation of this class of catalysts of development.
This can be done, first, by ensuring that the country begins
to operate genuine democracy, where the will of the majority will prevail at
elections, in the legislative process and even in policy formulation and
implementation.
Accountability and transparency in government business must
become the rule rather than the exception. Infrastructures must be rehabilitated
to make the environment attractive for investors and every effort must be made
to revive the productive sector of the economy, so that the army of unemployed
would become gainfully engaged.
Government’s reforms may be targeted at achieving some of
these goals, but the reforms must have a human face, since it would make no
sense at all to kill off every member of the middle class in a bid to make them
come alive again.
Concessions must be made to ensure that this class begins to thrive again,
because it is only by so doing that the country as a whole can begin to
flourish. It would, indeed, make no sense for the country to cut its nose just
to spite its face. The endangered middle class must be saved in the interest of
all.
