The canyon of
social inequality between the elected and the electorate continues to widen due
to the ruthless irresponsibility of the Nigerian ruling class. Mass poverty has
finally become the norm with youth unemployment over 75 percent and citizen
access to food, potable water, health care and security at less than 25
percent.
The country
is disoriented and engulfed in a never-ending war of untold savagery decimating
the Northeast region, uncontrollable cycles of mass killings by rampaging
primitive herdsmen across the entire nation, avowed orgies of violence and
destruction that have mired the South-South region for decades, an incessant
separatist movement unrepentantly barricading the Southeast, and ever
increasing poverty-driven crimes of kidnapping, robbery, ritual killings, etc.
Astonishingly,
the Nigerian leadership airheads simplistically reduce this endless state of
strife to fighting “hate speeches” for which they are making new laws and
ordering the antiquated police to do more than it can. Well, hate speeches may
be bad for any society but ignoring the deep discontent that causes hate speeches
among the people is the reason the country perpetually limps between crossroads
of chaos and distress in the first place.
It gets
harder by the day to control Nigeria’s descent into anarchy and avoidable
breakup. Only a few options are left. Somehow, Nigeria has got to figure out
how to reduce gargantuan waste from its system to free up funds for development
projects. It is not as simple as devolving power to the states. State governors
already hold enormous powers with criminal impunity that they use to render the
state assembly and local government branches subservient and useless.
Being
products of the crude political system, a majority of Nigerian public office
holders are an egomaniac, vacuous and unfit for their positions. We need a
mechanism for preventing a narcissist governor from coming in to squander his
state resources on idiotic self-glorification projects that take the people
absolutely nowhere for eight years. But I digress, I am ahead of myself.
Qansy Salako
The Nigerian
economic engine keeps chugging on noisily in the vain hope that it can get
anywhere growing a national economy with mediocre economic policies that are
moored to multiple exchange rates against the American dollar. Not much thought
is given to investing in quality education of citizens that will generate mass
production of intellectuals, inventors and jobs, real jobs. So we desire to
diversify our economy by seeking $41 billion loan to expand our archaic rail
systems, even though we are operating on less than 3,000MW of 60,000MW electric
energy that the country needs to power its homes and industry.
China
released to us $5.9 billion of $20 billion loan needed for two inland new
railways but these must be constructed by the China’s Civil Engineering and
Construction Co. The US General Electric Co. leads another group on a second
set of coastal railways. The group comprising of China’s SinoHydro, South
Africa’s Transnet SOC Ltd. and the Netherlands’ APM Terminals BV will fund,
revamp and operate the railways. What happens if any of these foreign
technologies needs repairs or replacement?
When will we ever be in control of our own development? Will we ever be
able to pay off the loans?
The
overworked engine whirs on nonstop anyway on the full throttle of one man who
doubles as both the president and the vice president and who attempts to
coordinate the country by legislating competence into broken government
institutions via executive orders.
Barely 18
months into his elected 4-year term, Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, the real president,
soon entered an exhausted state of rest (aka medical vacation) in faraway
London, UK, where they have the technology, accountability and electricity. To
date, Buhari has spent 5 embarrassing months of his 26-month presidency in
London without much communication with the citizens.
So in just
seven years, it is déjà vu again for Nigerians at the intersection of another
absentee president in a disabled state at the helms of the country. Buhari’s
wife, inner group of political jobbers, party members, state governors, etc.,
all shuttle first class from Abuja to London for just one hour photo-op
breakfast or lunch with Mr. President. Many return without even catching a
glimpse of now gaunt Buhari. Last week, Buhari gleefully announced that he was
feeling better and wished to return to Nigeria but only awaiting his doctor’s
order. We may as well be known as a country of fools.
Nobody knows
what ails Buhari, he won’t tell. Not that knowing matters much. Rather, what
matters more is Buhari’s competency as the president of the largest African
nation in population and economy. A beleaguered small group of citizens are
calling for Buhari’s resignation in honor of the Constitution that he swore to
protect but which he no longer has the strength to defend. However, the
obsolete Nigerian Constitution is open to any interpretations by the confused
polity. So it is unlikely that Buhari will ever be found incompetent or
impeached as president no matter how long he stays in the UK or even if he
returns without a fiber of capability.
Meanwhile,
the chicanery of the national leadership continues unabated. The governor of
Oyo state, Abiola Ajimobi (aka constituted authority) became an epitome of
governance by charity when he commemorated his government sixth year anniversary
with the provision of some surgical and internal medicine procedures for two
days at each of six centers across his state of about seven million citizens
because of his concern for “the well-being of the people” and his commitment
“to provide quality healthcare delivery.” Sleazebags!
The cost of
government continues to hover in the clouds while government output remains
pathetic below the sea level. The majority of the legislators are vagabonds and
out of touch. Truancy at sessions is rife. The performance or behavior of the
few in attendance is mostly dishonorable. In a batch of the usual shenanigans
from out of the Nigerian national assembly (NASS) recently, a crook launched
the book written by a scoundrel about how to catch the rogue.
Right from
its dopey cover title, the book written by half literate clown, Dino Melaye (a
senator), is by no means a work of scholarship. It nonetheless carries a
N50,000 price tag for which his rapacious colleagues in the NASS leadership
consigned N23.4 million of public money to purchase a copy for each of the 109
senators and 360 house of representatives.
In his book
launching speech, Bukola Saraki (senate president), swerved left saying Nigeria
should focus more on how to prevent corruption than on punitive actions. Then
he swerved right arguing that the determination of which country is corrupt is
subjective. Bukola sounds both like the
disgusting Goodluck Jonathan (the immediate past president of Nigeria) who continues
to live in denial of his bumbling presidency and of epic national corruption
under his watch. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo, his godfather,
and predecessor are two members of the Nigeria Wreckers Inc. who should have
quietly walked into the night and never returned to the consciousness of
Nigerians.
Saraki
himself stands as the accused in a case of corruption that he deftly languished
in our odious court system for two years before a rotten judge finally got it
dismissed. The inept prosecuting government anti-corruption agency is
appealing. Imagine, a citizen under trial for dishonesty and avarice is the
country’s head lawmaker and the No. 3 in line to the presidential power, the
first in line of who is AWOL. How much lower could a country sink?
Import
dependent Nigeria continues to operate helplessly on a one commodity economy
based on crude oil that it extracts locally but ships abroad for refining then
imports back for local consumption. Government revenues are a miserable 5.3
percent of the GDP compared to 44.5 percent in the developed economies or 25.8
percent across other African countries and the Middle East or even Bangladesh
at 10.4 percent.
Correspondingly,
Nigeria is up to its eyeballs in debt which is currently at 320 percent of its
annual revenue compared to 196 percent for countries in Africa and the Middle
East. Suffices to say, bad debts across Nigeria’s banking industry are
prevalent with unresolved loans in excess of N4.6 trillion, representing about
75% of the total national budget!
Official
economic policies are lazily yoked to thoroughly abused concepts of
privatization, foreign direct investment and now business entrepreneurship. The
Nigerian leaderships believe they can divest practically all functions of
government to business contractors while they continue to waste over 70 percent
of the GDP annually on emoluments, travels, food and clothes.
Apapa Wharf
Road, a 4-kilometer economic gateway into the country in Nigeria’s main seaport
of Lagos which accounts for about 70 percent of the total revenue generation
from import duties, has been in a state of abandonment for over 20 years until
it degenerated into a N140 billion per week revenue loss. Government eventually
“handed over” the road to Aliko Dangote (a government-made billionaire
businessman) and other concerned local private business volunteers for its
reconstruction, pro bono. Rehabilitating one side of the road will require
shutdown for a whole year.
Also
recently, Buhari’s government appeared to have given up on its avowed campaign
promise to fix the country’s four moribund petroleum refineries which had
gulped over $50 billion in the past 20 years alone but without results. The
government resorted to “begging” the same Aliko Dangote to keep his 2019 target
completion date of his private refinery business project that is aimed at
cornering 40 percent of the national refined petroleum demand market.
Feckless
political leadership! They desire to constitute governments over the people but
have not any clues on how to solve national problems except to wish them away.
Their only idea of governance is to abdicate government responsibilities by
contracting out state services and functions to unqualified “private investors”
who have no expertise, no capability, and no capacity. Then they turn around and
bail out their fictitious “investors” with more public funds without either
realizing the original “privatization” objectives or reducing the bloated
government size. So one after another, they end up confiscating public assets,
scuttling national progress and killing citizens’ hopes.
We, the
people, have got to find a way to remove impunity from the absolute power that
we keep entrusting in the hands of unconscionable citizens who trifle with our
affairs, tyrannize our present and impoverish our future.
Apart from
picketing every national stupidity that they display or roll out as public
policy, it seems we could use the constitutional provisions on “electoral
recall” to change our fate.
Nigerians, I
say we begin monitoring the stewardships of all elected politicians! Every
single one of our political freeloaders - from the councilor to the president –
should be adopted and shadowed.
It should no
longer be acceptable to have a politician in office while answering to a case
of corruption in the courts. It is complete nonsense and national foolishness
that we have governors turned senators who are collecting double salaries in
millions, thereby starving the neighborhood schools of funds. Communities,
cooperatives and ordinary citizens in the districts and wards should not have
to tolerate having crooks and charlatans making laws in the land or absentee
presidents or truant legislators.
Let a new
era of signature hunts and filing hundreds of recalls with the electoral
commission begin. Social media and the various NGOs can assist every local
group through its recall process.
The new wave
of mass recalls by the citizens will take the fight for change to the doorstep
of the LG chairman, state and federal legislature, governor, presidency and
their collaborating compromised judiciary.
It is bound
to shake something down from our rotten national tree.
Time to
drain our power corridors of vagabonds!
Dr. Salako
writes from Boston, MA. USA. He is a frontline social critic and commentator on
Nigeria and Africa. He may be reached by email at kanzi345@gmail.com.
Saharareporters
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