Ihenacho�s Home Truths


...the real motivation informing our advocacy for a UN intervention in Nigeria is the forthcoming election. ...It has become abundantly clear that left to herself, Nigeria cannot organize a free and fair election.
Monday, March 31, 2003



David Asonye Ihenacho
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WANTED:
A UN VOTE ON NIGERIA'S WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION

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do not think it is worth repeating ad nauseam that current events in Iraq have dealt a potentially deadly blow to the umbrella organization for the nations of the world: The United Nations Organization (UNO). This body whose reputation skyrocketed to the high heavens during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when it adroitly negotiated the world out of a potentially cataclysmic nuclear holocaust between the US and the then USSR, has suddenly nose-dived into the abyss of irrelevance as a result of the ongoing American-led unilateral military adventure in Iraq. Nothing has proved as "shocking and awing" as watching this once acclaimed fire-brigade-like organization reel with pains as it stands helplessly idly by while the most important element of its foundational charter is being torn to shreds and violated with impunity. How has the mighty fallen! The "shocked and awed" world has been asking.

But I have an idea towards the immediate resuscitation of the mortally wounded UN. It springs from my belief that this indispensable world organization needs an immediate lifeline along the lines of a quick political victory in order to recover some aspects of its lost glory and reputation. In my view the UN's instant therapeutic victory is there for its taking in my native country Nigeria. Nigeria, like Iraq, is notorious for her mass production of the Weapons of Mass Distraction (WMD). It is my sincere wish that the UN should move quickly to disarm Nigeria and remove those dangerous weapons from her arsenal. It is this type of the dangerous WMD that has been sabotaging Nigeria's democracy for the past four decades and endangering the lives of our innocent compatriots. The earlier these weapons were removed the better would normal human life resume for the majority of the citizens of our nation.

Although Nigeria's Weapons of Mass Distraction are a less destructive species of the feared WMD Iraq is accused of harboring, they are nonetheless dangerous for the safety and welfare of the innocent Nigerian civilians in particular and human existence in the world in general. So I suggest that the consensus-searching UN Security Council should immediately vote on a resolution, perhaps resolution 1442, directing the Nigerian government led by Olusegun Obasanjo to immediately disarm and rid itself of this brand of the deadly WMD. Kofi Annan, who has become the most victimized UN secretary general in recent memory, should consequently send his currently unemployed Weapons' Inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohammed Elbarradei, to Nigeria to supervise the removal and destruction of these dangerous weapons, which are frustrating democracy in our nation.

Since Nigeria does not have a diehard dictator like Saddam Hussein, a quick move into the country by the UN will yield a sure result that could help restore the battered credibility of this rather indispensable world body. Moreover such a move, perhaps accompanied by the adventure-seeking US and Britain, could provide them a good opportunity for a real "cakewalk" across a foreign nation which the Iraqis have managed to deny them for the past twelve years especially in the last few days of the war. I believe that both the US and the UN need the type of a "cakewalk" Nigeria could readily provide them at least for the sake of their shaky and depleted credibility.

But why would Nigeria need a UN intervention along the lines of weapons' inspection? Why would a bona fide Nigerian like me advocate a UN intervention in Nigeria? And what gives me the confidence that the UN with its ebbing credibility could effect the necessary changes in Nigeria? The answer to these questions may be simpler than you think. It is in fact my own way of expressing my frustration with the way things are evolving in both Nigeria and at the UN. With the way our nation is headed it is hard to see how she could help herself overcome her endemic problems. I am therefore on the one hand grasping for straws for whatever is available out there to help our country move forward, and on the other searching for an easy and a quick victory that could help restore the integrity of the United Nations. I believe that both Nigeria and the UN have this potential synergy to help each other a little in this time of their great need.

In my view the UN's instant therapeutic victory is there for its taking in my native country Nigeria. Nigeria, like Iraq, is notorious for her mass production of the Weapons of Mass Distraction (WMD). ...sabotaging Nigeria's democracy...and endangering the lives of our innocent compatriots.

We believe that the source of Nigeria's endemic problems is these weapons of mass distraction (WMD) hidden all over our nation. In our view the work of the UN in Nigeria will be to help the government of Nigeria unearth, address and eliminate some of these problems so as to enable our country make a clean start on democracy and human promotion that have always eluded her. There is hardly any conceivable way Nigeria could move forward with these distracting weapons in place. Since the government of Obasanjo has found itself incapable of addressing some of these intractable problems, we believe that an external body, even the ailing UN, could make all the difference for our nation.

But first, how do Nigeria's weapons of mass distraction stack up against weapons of mass destruction in other nations of the world? It seems a basic fact that every nation has one form of weapons of mass distraction or the other. Some are absolutely deadly and destructive of a good number of human beings in a single instant hence they are called weapons of mass destruction, while a few others are just social irritants that prevent people from attaining to and enjoying some modicum of responsible human existence in the world. The latter category we have chosen to describe as weapons of mass distraction, which could in fact within some special situations be as deadly as the famed weapons of mass destruction that are allegedly being hunted for in Iraq with "shock and awe" military force.

The super nations of the world have appropriated for themselves the exclusive right of possessing and retaining the nuclear, the chemical and the biological maximum weapons or weapons of mass destruction per se. They have therefore established a club or a clique to preserve their privilege in this regard. It is the senior members of this club or the five permanent members of the Security Council of the UN: USA, Russia, China, Britain and France, who decide the nations that are mature and responsible enough to party with them. The small Third World nation of Iraq arrogantly thumbed its nose at the big boys by trying to gatecrash into their exclusivist party as India and Pakistan would later accomplish only a couple of years ago. America and Britain have chosen not to see that happen. And that is why the world is currently engulfed with this unprincipled and unnecessary war.

But as the Iraq war rages on in the Gulf it is important for patriotic Nigerians to look inwards to rid their eyes of some grains before venturing to remove the planks in the eyes of the world. Though Nigeria is not at the moment being threatened or invaded by any foreign nation, it has real problems that are as severe as sanctions and military invasion. There are many dangerous weapons of mass distraction that are hidden in our country today. And these have the potential to implode our nation at any given moment in the future. If we act fast, we could avert such implosions that could spell doom for our nation. We believe that for our country to survive as a nation, she must disarm herself, or, be encouraged, or forced by an external body to get rid of these dangerous weapons. Also, we believe that considering the type of leadership in Nigeria of today and Nigeria's strange political structure, she does not have the capacity to rid herself of these dangerous weapons. Hence there is the need for some external intervention, even from a body as ailing and incapacitated as the UN.

Nigeria of today is completely disorganized and distracted. The level of the havoc being wreaked by these distractions could rival that posed by the notorious weapons of mass destruction. The history as well as the intensity of these distractions makes them a veritable threat to survival in our nation. It is our conviction that respective governments in Nigeria, whether civilian or military, have proved themselves incapable of dealing with these problems. Hence we are asking for an external help. Moreover, we believe that Nigeria's problems could prove to be a "cakewalk" for both the UN and the US that are desperately searching for a political victory in faraway Iraq. The way things stand in our country today it may not be an overstatement to admit that Nigeria urgently needs an external intervention. A divine messianic intervention will not hurt in the least. While we hope and pray for an urgent intervention of a messianic figure from above into the near-irredeemable situation of our nation, we believe that the UN intervention can help serve as John the Baptist to prepare the way for the arrival of Nigeria's messiah.

Take for instance the Nigerian general election that is less than three weeks away. On April 19, 2003, Nigeria is hoping to embark on a very crucial election that is bound to have far-reaching consequences for her future. But facts on the ground suggest that she needs a miracle to be able to pull that off. The countdown to the election cannot look any bleaker. The so-called Independent Electoral Commission seems to be in a state of a veritable quandary. All indications to a chaotic election seem too glaring to ignore. Voters' registers are yet to be credibly certified. Consider the credibility of a voters' register, which neglected to record the names of the leader of the second biggest party in the country, Don Etiebet of All Nigeria People's Party. If the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission could so shabbily treat such a big fish like Chairman Etiebet, imagine what will happen to the average Nigerians when they show up to vote on April 19. Of course many of them will not find their names in the voters' register. That is called rigging in Nigeria's electoral parlance. This system of deleting names of opponents and their supporters proved quite lethal in 1983. It is absolutely not surprising that it is making a comeback in this election year.

The question of logistics has hardly been fully addressed by the Nigerian electoral body. Nigeria appears to be rushing to hold a general election on April 19 like a little child running sheepishly in a dark blind alley. Security of electoral materials and results hardly appears among the priorities of the electoral body. Election rigging seems to be openly planned and canvassed by the rival political parties. One hardly hears or reads of any elaborate plans to give Nigerians the free and fair elections they have been longing for the past four decades. Rather as it is shaping out to be, the election of 2003 might turn out to be one of the worst in Nigeria's history. With the number of candidates and the terrible preparations INEC has so far made, Nigeria is most likely headed towards a stalemate in the forthcoming election. Many responsible Nigerians have begun to warn about the potential stalemate Nigeria faces on the days after the April 19 elections. But not many Nigerians appear to be willing to listen to such voices of caution. The Arewa Consultative Forum, M.D. Yusufu, Jim Nwobodo, to mention but a few, have all warned in the last few days that Nigeria was heading towards a chaotic election come April 19. The prospect of another crisis-ridden election in our history should be quite frightening to every patriotic Nigerian. Why is it that a democratic Nigeria is not capable of organizing even one single credible election? Is this the way life will continue to be lived in our nation for the foreseeable future?

Yet the terrible preparations of INEC seem only a miniscule in the long list of Nigeria's distracting problems. First, there is terrible insecurity in the land that has resulted in numerous high-profile political assassinations in the recent weeks. Besides the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, Nigeria is perhaps the most insecure nation of its size in the present world. The Obasanjo administration obviously has no answer to the acute problems of insecurity in our nation. She would rather wish it away than embark on decisive actions to ensure security in the land. The whole insecurity in our nation also rubs off on her politics. Nigeria is today bleeding because of a do-or-die vicious politics that has claimed many precious lives in our nations. Nigerians have not been well educated to view politics as a kind of sports for which one can lose once only to bounce back in the next election. There is absolutely no tomorrow in Nigerian politics. Many Nigerians still view national politics as an extension of inter-ethnic warfare. Hence the forthcoming election is shaping up to break the record of election-year political assassinations held by the 1964 general elections.

Take for instance the issue of the Sharia law in a multi-cultural and multi-religious Nigeria. The operation of a religious code on the same par with the constitution is a recipe for a major disaster in a constitutional democracy anywhere in the world.

Second is the enduring prevalence of bribery and corruption in Nigeria. Closely allied with insecurity in our nation is the issue of bribery and corruption. President Obasanjo won acclaim for himself when at the inception of his administration he declared himself as the messianic figure sent by God to rid Nigeria of bribery and corruption. But what has happened in the last four years of his administration is that Nigeria seems to have become far more corrupt than ever before. This administration has managed to supervise a mind-boggling four-years of unmitigated pillaging of the nations as the recent audit report of Auditor General Vincent Azie had exposed. Nigeria has retained her premier position in the Transparency International's list of corrupt nations of the world. There is hardly any yardstick that suggests that the Obasanjo administration has made any dent on the cottage industry of bribery and corruption in Nigeria. Perhaps most disappointingly, the self-acclaimed fighter of corruption could not win the nomination of his party without closing his eyes to broad-day acts of corruption in his party. All these give the impression that our nation is perhaps irredeemable along this line by its own efforts alone. She needs a lot of external help.

Third, our nation's educational system has completely collapsed. It is absolutely debatable whether Nigerian university students have completed one full school year in the last four years of democratic administration under President Obasanjo. Many of them have sat out the last four years at home in lieu of classes. It is a very pitiable situation. Democracy a la Obasanjo has almost completed the destruction of the once enviable educational systems and standards of Nigeria. It is four months into the year of Our Lord 2003, yet Nigerian universities have not reopened for classes even for one day. Students have remained at home jobless and idle. What country on earth is being run in this manner? Our universities are among the most ill equipped in the whole world. Libraries are non-existent. Laboratories operate with reagents and instruments of the sixties and seventies. Ours is the most unacceptable tragedy in education the free world has ever known. The other levels of education are not faring any better either. Primary and secondary schools in Nigeria have all met their ruin in the present democratic dispensation. Teachers and administrators, despite claiming to be receiving better remunerations under the present administration, have been embarking on sporadic work-to-rule actions because of the lack of payment of outstanding salaries. As it is often said among the civilized nations, the worst political leader of a nation is the one that fails to properly educate the youth of the country. And by that selfsame measure, the Obasanjo administration has failed Nigeria.

Fourth, Nigeria's economy is comatose. Only recently did a pre-eminent economist, Professor Anya O. Anya, alarm many Nigerians with the news that their economy was on track to belly-up as a result of a depleted foreign reserve. The Naira is almost worthless both at home and in the international market. The economy tends to look worse even as revenue from oil increases tremendously. The government appears not to have any idea on how to revive the country economically. Nigeria may be the only country in the world where healthy economic indices hardly ever translate into a good economic outlook. Hence the country remains permanently an economic non-starter. There are hardly jobs for school-leavers and no blueprint towards generating jobs for the populace. There is no coordinated way to generate revenue internally. A few days ago I spoke with a Nigerian who has a five million Naira business in one of the biggest cities of Nigeria and he told me that he had never paid taxes in Nigeria before. Nigeria is a tax haven for all the nations. And the administration of Obasanjo has not been able to figure out how to generate internal revenue from the 120 million citizens of our nation. And revenue collectors share with impunity the little they generate at the point of collection. It is needless to say that our nation is not being run properly. It is a pity. Nigeria clearly needs an external help, even when such could be interpreted as re-colonization. It will not be a bad idea to start thinking of contracting out Nigeria's political administration. Let us turn the whole thing over to a Swedish, or a German or a French political consultancy firm for four years. That might serve as an opportunity for us to understudy them. There should be no shame in this if for forty years we cannot still get our acts together.

Fifth, Nigeria's hopelessly run economy condemns about 95% of her population to perpetual poverty. The level of poverty in Nigeria is unacceptable. Nigeria is a country of destitute and permanent destitution. The Obasanjo administration has almost wasted the last four years evading its primary responsibility of attacking poverty with the abundant resources of our nation. The administration has almost done practically nothing to alleviate our people's tragic poverty. Hence our people have continued to die in misery as a result of abject poverty. The problem is not that of lack of resources to address the issue of poverty as has often been claimed. It is that of good management skill and vision. The Obasanjo administration lacks both management skill and the vision to translate our abundant resources into a viable poverty eradication program. It is almost unimaginable that a country that makes nearly 70 million dollars a day from oil alone cannot provide enough food to the majority of her citizens in a country of 120 million inhabitants. As we said, the problem remains that of proper management of our resources. Nigerians in the present administration of Obasanjo cannot manage our country. This has been proved over and over again in the last forty-two years of Nigeria's independence. We are too ill equipped to manage our affairs. Left on our own we will continue to live with these disorganization and distraction for the next one hundred years. All it translates to in my view is that Nigeria needs an external help.

But I dare to say that these malignant problems are only a symptom of the underlying ones, which we have chosen to describe as Nigeria's weapons of mass distraction. Underlying Nigeria's intractable problems are some structural defects, which must be removed before enhanced human life can be achieved in Nigeria. The greatest failure of the Obasanjo administration is that it chose to ignore all such defects rather than address them. President Obasanjo wishfully believes that time has the capacity to cure Nigeria's structural defects. So rather than attack the problems head-on he chooses to ignore them entirely. The evasion of the problems facing our country is the main reason why we are praying for an external body to come to our help. Perhaps a UN intervention will help encourage our president to confront Nigerian problems rather than evade them.

Take for instance the issue of the Shariah law in a multi-cultural and multi-religious Nigeria. The operation of a religious code on the same par with the constitution is a recipe for a major disaster in a constitutional democracy anywhere in the world. Shariah is one weapon of mass distraction that holds the ace in upsetting the whole Nigerian polity. The president of Nigeria has no answer to this weapon that is being wielded by many Islamists and fundamentalist Muslims to make the Nigerian project a mission-impossible. If the president had been out to give Nigeria some leadership he would have long convoked an all-Nigeria conference to discuss the issue of the Shariah law and its repercussions for the Nigerian projects. Rather he chose to paper it over believing that time would heal everything. But rather than heal the problems time is making them look worse everyday for our country. It seems that Nigeria cannot make any real headway without some groundbreaking agreement on the issue of the Shariah code in Nigeria. As the day for nation's all-important elections draws near it is becoming clearer than ever before that the issue of Shariah holds the ace in the achievement of a free and fair election. It is one weapon of mass distraction that is bound to engender a stalemate in the forthcoming election. There is no doubt that the Northern Islamists will have their way in persuading majority of their kith and kin to vote in favor of their preferred candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, while the remainder of the votes will be splintered among the numerous non-Shariah candidates. Since the Northern votes alone cannot make Buhari president, neither can the Southern votes make Obasanjo, or Ojukwu or Fawehinmi president, Nigeria seems inexorably headed towards a deadlock in the forthcoming elections. President Obasanjo needs some external help to bring the controversy of the Shariah to a solution acceptable to the majority of Nigerians. If Obasanjo had been a visionary leader confronted with the challenge of the Shariah law, parameters could have long been established creating acceptable boundaries for the Shariah vis-�-vis the Nigerian constitution. But the Nigerian president preferred to ignore the whole controversy. And now, it is threatening to wreck the all-important presidential election in our country. That is leadership according to Olusegun Obasanjo. And that is his credential for seeking a second term of office. Good luck to him!

The same also holds true for the structure of the Nigerian nation. Nigeria was conceived from as far back as 1914 as a federation of many nationalities. It achieved independence in 1960 under this principle. It was only in 1966 that the ill-fated military administration of Johnson Thomas Aguyi-Ironsi decreed the abrogation of this principle replacing it with a Soviet-like straitjacket and unitary administration. The hope has always been there that a democratic government would ultimately return Nigeria to its original conception as a country of a loose federation of numerous nationalities. But the military have been suppressing this desire to return the country to its original conception. In furtherance of their desire to see Nigeria retained with its cloak of a Soviet-like totalitarian administration, the military have been drawing up successive Nigerian constitutions to reflect their desire to prevent Nigeria from ever reaping the rewards of her democratic ethos. So our democracy has been so only in name. The truth is that we are running a quasi totalitarianism in Nigeria. The federal government in Abuja is everything while the state governments are reduced to agencies for delivering federal government-donated salaries to the local workers. This is absolutely unhealthy. It is a very inefficient way of administering a country as big as Nigeria.

...the real motivation informing our advocacy for a UN intervention in Nigeria is the forthcoming election. ...It has become abundantly clear that left to herself, Nigeria cannot organize a free and fair election.

President Obasanjo came to power with the full realization that Nigerians thirsted for a true democracy in a real Nigerian federation. It became his onus and number one duty to help Nigerians achieve their desire through a meaningful restructuring of the federation and a re-writing of the skewed Nigerian constitution. But the leader of Nigeria has failed in every count of this movement towards restructuring the nation. Rather he chose to show allegiance to his military past that insisted on giving Nigerians a limited democracy that was permanently undercut by a totalitarian and over-centralized administration. He closed his ears and eyes to the numerous calls of well-meaning Nigerians all over the world to help facilitate the restructuring of our nation so as to make it governable and efficient. All this in my view clearly suggests that the president needs some external help. Perhaps he needs the UN to help him realize that democracy is almost synonymous with a true devolution of power by which the different segments and nationalities of a federation are empowered to participate in the governance of their areas and to develop with their own pace. So the issue of a totalitarian Nigerian nation has remained a weapon of distraction that is upsetting every segment of the Nigerian polity. Every one in ten Nigerians wants to be president because he or she wants to be in charge of the Nigerian wealth. But this cannot happen in a decentralized Nigeria. The man or woman at the center would not have all the resources to himself or herself to dish out to the federating nations according to his/her own whims and caprices. This is the indispensable advantage of running a true federation. But the ex-military head of state Obasanjo has been more of his old military self, grasping the center so as to determine the fate of the different segments of our nation.

However, the real motivation informing our advocacy for a UN intervention in Nigeria is the forthcoming election. As we earlier indicated the Nigerian election is less than three weeks away. Our country has never had any successful civilian-organized election in her history. And the forthcoming one is on its way to the drains long before it is conducted. The last weekend newspapers from Nigeria sounded terribly ominous. From all indications the election of April 19 is doomed to fail. Nigeria is not likely to have a presidential election with any shred of credibility any time soon. Facts on the ground more than indicate that it will take a divine intervention for Nigeria to achieve a free and fair election in the next couple of weeks. The current atmosphere of Nigeria is not likely to engender any free and fair election right now. Workers are on strike. Teachers of Nigerian universities are on an indefinite strike. Students are at home without any hope of returning soon. There is fuel scarcity all across Nigeria. There is chaos in the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission. Political parties are too numerous for the electoral body to manage. There is a mini-civil war in the Niger delta area. Warri in Delta State has been hosting a Brasra-type pitched battle between the Nigerian armed forces and the indigenous militia. Oil companies in the area, Shell and Chevron have shut down. And Nigeria is losing more than fifty million dollars accruable from petroleum products daily. All is not well with our country right now. Elections under such an environment are doomed. All these in our view qualify as weapons of mass distraction too close for comfort in this supposedly election month. So what do we do?

We have a few suggestions. It is more than clear that under the present cloud of uncertainity Nigeria is not likely to produce an acceptable election in the next couple of weeks. So the proper thing to do in our view is to postpone the elections until it is clear that adequate arrangements can be put in place to guarantee a free and fair election to our people. It will be absolutely foolish to rush into an election that will not be credible at the long last. It is not helpful to embark on an election that has obvious potentials of destabilizing and rendering the whole nation moribund. Both the electoral body and the Obasanjo administration have shown that they are incapable of holding a credible election in the next two weeks or even in the foreseeable future. If they try it, they are most likely to fail and leave many Nigerians disenchanted and disillusioned. From all indications the forces and factors that resulted in the failure of the second republic are at work again. Nigerian democracy might yet fail again. We could sacrifice a few more months to make sure that we get it right this time around. Elections under the present clouds of uncertainty in our nation are most likely to produce destabilization and chaos.

Our second suggestion is for the United Nations in collaboration with the United States, European Union and African Union to come together and help Nigeria organize one credible civilian election in our lifetime. It has become abundantly clear that left to herself, Nigeria cannot organize a free and fair election. Both the facilities and the expertise are not in place in our country yet. We need help from anybody and from any country that is willing to provide it. We have been false-starting in our elections for the past forty years. It is time we realized that we could use some international help. All we are searching for is a well-organized election that could be seen as credible and fair. So for the United Nations and the United States who are currently in search of a redemptive adventure in faraway Iraq, there is one easily available for you in Nigeria. Come over to Nigeria and help us with our jinxed elections!