Nigeria @49, there is no hope!
Thursday, 01 October 2009 01:59 Daniel Elombah
Sorry folks, I bear nothing but bad tidings. At 49, Nigeria is still groping in the dark, seeking direction to emancipate its citizens. This bumbling entity is a giant only in name, it cannot boast of commensurate power or ability to change and improve the lot of its people.
The Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Mr Godswill Akpabio, on national TV, NTA Tuesday Night Live, declared that in spite of the adventure of the military into politics, the civil war, decayed infrastructures in the past, ethnic violence, and all societal upheavals that have bedevilled the country, there is hope for Nigeria at 49.
But I am yet to see the green shoot. Sadly, if there is any light at the end of the tunnel, I am yet to see one, count me among the naysayers.
Do we say there is hope when the guardians of the booty are busy sharing the loot; the guardians shepherding the flock, turned to predators? Where the watchmen, who should warn of impending doom have their mouth stuffed with the spoils, their silence permanently bought? And my people, the grazers, exploited and plundered, loving it so, stand by and clap for them!
Retired Commissioner of Police and anti- Corruption Crusader, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav; do you know him?
I do not personally but he is my hero. He not only displayed audacity to withstand and challenge Ibrahim Babangida’s rapacious and insidious pillage, he had the courage to insist on justice in the Dele Giwa murder and its subsequent miss-investigation.
While Gani Fawehinmi legally sought to bring Dele Giwa’s killers to book, this man provided the fodder that if not circumstantially links General Ibrahim Babangida to the murder, evidentially to the attempt to cover it up.
But this week, he threw his weight behind the most corrupted Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Nigeria has ever known, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa. Why? Mr. Michael Aondoakaa is his kinsman!
Tsav described the blanket allegation in the media against the AGF as ungodly and uncivilized, and further stated that launching campaigns of calumny against the Minister to “pull him down because he is occupying an office which others believed is their exclusive reserve”, should he be discouraged if the country is to develop as an entity as a united people.
Now, do you see where I am going? If you want to solve the problem with Nigeria, pray, where would you start? Would you start with Corruption, Nepotism or Tribalism?
What about starting with hypocrisy and delusion? The erstwhile Commissioner of Police, Lagos State said; "As much as I dislike corruption and related crimes, I do not like a situation where the war against it wears ethnic coloration”.
Correct, but do you see what I mean? Tsav does not believe his own battle against corruption “wears ethnic coloration”. So he condemns it in others. Have you read Sigmund Freud and his theory of projecting unto others your imperfections? Talk of removing a straw in your brother’s eye while having a timber in you own eyes!
Before moving on from my hero, Tsav, let me also tell you what else he said; “All the allegations against the Aondoakaa seem to originate from one section of this country, one West. So far, no group from the North, east or South has raised any allegation against the AGF with such vehemence".
I may be unable to prove Tsav wrong in other material aspects but on this particular issue I know for certain that he is wrong! I have written several allegations against Aondoakaa and I am not from the West.
For a final shot Tsav called for unity and cooperation among the diverse ethnic groups to move it forward because “whatever the AGF does is with the consent and approval of President Umaru Yar’Adua”. Let’s move on…
There is no hope and Nigeria cannot move forward because our self appointed monitors are also corrupted. How can there be hope when “new” and “rebranded” organisations that are supposedly dedicated to the Nigeria cause, to “change” and “rebrand Nigeria” are 419ers, racketeers and part of the problem because they are only out and about to milk the system?
Their motto is ‘Change begins with me’, but sadly, their credo should be, ‘I am Nigeria, and I am unchangeable’. This is a story for another day, let’s move on.
Today, Nigeria is a disappointment. We have a lot of human, mineral and material resources but we either misuse or misapply them. Some say our leaders misplace priorities, but they are wrong; our leaders have NO priorities!
Apart from oil, we are endowed with so many other things, yet poverty is still endemic and unemployment is everywhere.
Nigeria earned N2.23tn from exports in the first six months of 2009. Out of the sum, crude oil, Nigeria’s main economic stay, fetched N1.83tn. The balance of N404.9bn came from other exported items such as gas, leather, sesamum seeds, raw pawpaw, cocoa, fat, so why are we not getting it right? Why do 70 percent of our people live on less than one dollar a day?
We would rather pay N20 million to the kidnappers of the Secretary to the Kaduna State Government that use the money in worthwhile endeavours that would create job and stop kidnapping.
Our per capital income is one of the worst in the world today, but every elected official have houses in London and Maryland in the United States. Our systems are not working, and we seem not to be bothered about them.
We have been trying to make progress, but the result has always been zero because we do not pursue our efforts to logical conclusions, we don't end them well.
Nigeria is so bedevilled by political instability which is a function of injustice in electoral matters, greed and corruption that it is sheer providence that has so far stopped the military from coming back to power.
Only very few persons in the country today have a genuine sense of patriotism and only a few others are nationalistic in thought. The declaration of amnesty in the Niger Delta has been converted into an opportunity to siphon wealth and get political leverage, so who bothers about the plight of Niger Deltans?
Our professionals have voted with their feet. Nigeria have the highest number of immigrant doctors in the United States, our doctors make the NHS in the UK famous and one of our engineers, Dr. Jude Igwemezie have just won a contract to design the Iraqi Railway while there are no rails in Nigeria; What we can do outside ,we cannot do it at home!
We cannot afford to pay our lecturers a living wage so that ASUU will call of a never ending strike and return our children to the class room but we are happy to spend N4.7 billion yearly on our legislators or N40 Million monthly in wages and allowances.
We prefer to spend N1billion on Sallah free food to our citizens rather than give them the means to fend for themselves.
Yes! Rather than fighting kidnapping, by rooting out their cause we condone it. Rather than jail kidnappers, we are happy to negotiate with them and pay their ransom demands.
We’d rather send our children to study in Ghana than develop our educational infrastructure. Our President would rather commission a first class University in Saudi Arabia than build one in his country. He’d rather appropriate a corner of their first class hospitals than develop one at home to treat his kidney ailment.
Why would we develop our hospitals when the big men could afford yearly medical check-ups in London? Who bothers that the life expectancy of Nigerians is 46 years for men and 47 for women while in Lebanon it’s 70/74, 72/75 in Israeli occupied Palestine, 79/83 in Israel and 60/60 in Ghana?
Do you know that you stand a better chance of being killed or murdered on the streets of Nigerian cities than in violent prone Iraq and Afghanistan?
Our children are being killed in Libya, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, China and in the Sahara Desert, yet some of us - who perhaps luckily survived the hot desert in our flight to the city of refuge, London, to slave in 12 hours a day job for the minimum wage - happily donned placards at the premises of the Southwark Crown Court to display false and rented solidarity with James Ibori.
Last week I wrote that President Yar’Adua intended to burnish his democratic credentials and re-electability by ensuring credible elections in Anambra State and putting a huge gulf between himself and James Ibori and sacking Michael Aondoakaa.
My people, I apologise for speaking too soon; Yar’Adua has since wilted under the steady gaze of Ibori and Aondoakaa and recoiled to his comfort zone while in Anambra State, the self proclaimed god-father of Anambra politics has rebounded in greater force and is set to set Anambra aflame on another macabre dance of death.
My brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, this structure is built on quicksand. At 49 there is no hope for Nigeria unless we quickly go home, destroys this edifice and simply start afresh!
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