FEATURE ARTICLE

Leburah GanagoFriday, October 2, 2009
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Atlanta, GA, USA

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NIGERIA AT 49: PARADOX OF TALENTS

erhaps I was still too green to fully absorb the contents of the message when Tekena Tamuno, Professor emeritus and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan delivered a convocation lecture he titled PRADOX OF TALENTS, sometime in the late 1980s at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt. But now as a mature and overly experienced observer of the wasting landscape called Nigeria I can fully appreciate what the erudite historian was talking about. There is no debate concerning the claim that Nigeria is a land blessed with an enormous amount of human and material resources.


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In a piece aptly captioned THE GLORY AND TRAGEDY OF NIGERIA which he published in Africa Today magazine of September/October 1995, former US Ambassador to the UN Ambassador Andrew Young remarked: “ I have always thought of Nigeria as a place that produced highly talented people. They say everybody in Nigeria is a chief. But what that means is that everybody there thinks of themselves as a strong, independent individual. That creates a kind of ethos in the community that makes it very hard to govern, but it also makes it a very free, vibrant place with an enormous political and economic potential”. Bemoaning the missed economic potential of Nigeria, Ambassador Andrew Young noted: “ The fastest- growing stock markets in the world are on the African continent: South Africa, Zimbabwe and Tunisia. If it weren’t for the military situation , Nigeria would be one of those, for Nigeria has more capitalists per square inch than, may be, any other country in the world. Yet, capitalism is being repressed temporarily by a military government”.

Recall, Andrew Young wrote this piece in 1995, during the nightmarish years of General Abacha’s reign of horror. So you would naturally think that 14 years after, in a civilian dispensation, the situation would have changed. Well, not much has changed. For what we have in Nigeria today is glorified dictatorship which passes for “democracy”. It is a government in paralysis, incapable of creating an enabling environment for economic growth. I do not see how there can be economic growth in this age without industrialization. And the present reality in Nigeria stifles industrialization. Nigeria has been described as a nation in darkness as electricity is hard to come by, in a country that is counted among the world’s first eight leading petroleum producing countries. Vested interests including, I am told, power generating plants importers have crippled government’s plan to provide electricity in the country. In like manner, some well-connected persons –past treasury looters some of whom are so rich that they are alleged to owned oil refineries abroad have conspired with certain people in government to sabotage oil refineries in the country. So the world’s 7th largest producer of petroleum today remains a perpetual importer of gasoline and other refined petroleum products.

Let’s return to the political situation: Governments in Nigeria are always illegitimate. They either emerge through military coups or scandalously rigged so-called democratic general elections. And election rigging in Nigeria has become increasingly brazen. Presently votes are criminally allocated to designated “winners” even where no voting has taken place. This is how Obasanjo “won” re-election in 2003. This is how Umaru Yar’Adua purportedly won the 2007 presidential election, after Obasanjo has designated him his successor. Perhaps no state in the federation masters the art of electoral robbery better than my own state , Rivers. For instance, in 2003 the ‘golden” treasury looter and butcher of Port Harcourt Dr. Peter Odili was alleged to have won re-election as governor of the state with over 2 million votes, on an election day that a torrential rainfall and endless booms of gun shots combined to keep most residents of the state indoors. Nearly the same figures were allocated to president Obasanjo on the same day!.

What has baffled observers over the years is, how a nation with such an awesome potential for greatness continue to flounder and sink deeper and deeper into a state of underdevelopment and paralysis. Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, provided the answer to this puzzle when on her recent visit to Nigeria she emphatically stated: "without good government even oil wealth cannot guarantee development. The US Secretary of State bluntly rebuked Nigeria leaders for their tolerance of corruption. She noted that “ corruption has robbed Nigeria of opportunities to lead Africa and indeed the world”.

It is world knowledge that Nigeria is a country perennially run by thieves and bandits. Government is a bazaar. The oil money is always there for all-comers to loot. So the culprit for Nigeria’s woes is oil-petroleum not just leadership, like literary icon Professor Chinua Achebe had since diagnosed. Petroleum oil ensures that there are surplus cash to steal by whoever shot or rigs his way to power. One can safely argue that it is the oil wealth that breeds corrupt leaders in Nigeria. And impunity and unaccountability are the guiding principles of state policy. Public office holders are virtually unaccountable to the people. Those who loot the public treasury are neither prosecuted nor punished. They continue to use their loots to buy back political power and recycle themselves in power.

The Obasanjo administration established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC ,to fight corruption. However, the Obasanjo’s anti-corruption war became a scandal of its own when it came to light that its prosecution was selective. Only those public office holders who are known to have crossed path with emperor Obasanjo , especially those who opposed his Third Term plot ,were arrested and a few prosecuted.

President Umaru Yar’Adua was supposed to have continued with the anti-corruption war of his predecessor but he chickened out ; removed the man appointed by Obasanjo to head the EFCC, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu and somehow froze the anti-corruption commission. While Obasanjo managed to prosecute or persecute his corrupt political opponents Yar’ Adua could not prosecute any of the thieving former state Governors and Ministers who are roaming free the country and flaunting their loots. The US Secretary of State seemed to be directly rebuking President Yar’Adua when she remarked : "capacity for good governance exists in Africa and indeed Nigeria," and that government should strengthen its capacity to "punish wrong doing and prevent future wrong doing."

She however, regretted that "EFCC has fallen" and needs to be revived to do what it used to do, to strengthen the anti-graft war. ( The Guardian, August 13, 2009)

Like the Foreign Affairs magazine and several others have reported Nigeria is already a failed state .Yes, it is a failed state run by a gang of bandits. Or like the late Environmental and Minority rights crusader Ken Saro Wiwa noted what operates in Nigeria is: “ organized banditry that goes in the name of government”. See the lunacy going on in the country today. There is a state of anarchy . No one is in control; as organized and sundry bandits overrun the country. There is a perpetual eclipse on the Nigerian horizon. Obasanjo in a desperate attempt to cover up his bloody tracks foisted on the nation a sick and inept surrogate who has brought governance in an otherwise vibrant nation to a standstill. While world leaders were meeting at the UN Security Council meeting in New York, Nigeria’s President Yar’Adua decided to attend a lowly university commission ceremony in Saudi Arabia . As bewildered Nigerians wonder what manner of leader would avoid an august Assembly of world leaders to honor a private invitation from an oil rich kingdom ( Nigeria, a major oil producer does not need Saudi oil) they miss read Yar’Adua’s mind. Yar’ Adua goes to Saudi Arabia for treatment and so considers that kingdom the land of his salvation. And this is Obasanjo’s fault. He knowingly unleashed a sick man on the country. Yar’ Adua’s sickness has no doubt taken a toll on the governance of Nigeria. However, Mr. Yar’Adua should have helped himself by taking a leave of absence and gone to take care of his health and helped the Nigerian people to go on with their lives.

Today in Nigeria it is worthless trying to teach our children the virtues of honesty because what the system tells them is that honesty does not pay. In that part of the world only crooks “succeed” .In the civilized world prisons are for criminals but in Nigeria prisons are for decent men while executive mansions are for super criminals. All those past public office holders who looted the treasury and who were complicit in the multiple murders- General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr. Peter Odili, Chief James Ibori et al are freemen today.

The real bad news for Nigeria is that the old generation activists who could hold the corrupt and criminal rulers to account have had their ranks depleted. Veteran fighters like the Wole Soyinkas, the Anthony Enahoros , the Arthur Nwankwos no longer have age on their side; they are in their various stages of retirement from the scene while the new generation of activists have shown that they lack the temerity of the old guard. The new generation activist leaders have shown great affinity for the “good life” of the corrupt and morally bankrupt politicians. There is what I may characterize as a monumental betrayal of the masses of the Nigerian people by the new generation activist leaders. They have conveniently abandoned the suffering masses and sought accommodation with the stinking political class they claim to be opposing. They have fallen for the juicy carrots the looting politicians are dangling before them. The present day flamboyant activist leaders are incapable of leading the urgently needed revolution. They lack the credibility and moral courage to lead us. While they harangue the party politicians in power for being irresponsible and corrupt, they go behind closed doors to cut deals with them and come out as multi-millionaires.

While Ayikwe Amah would say the Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, one would conveniently say of the Nigerian activist community, the Beautiful Ones are all gone. The Tai Solarins, The Ayodele Awojobis, the Obi Walis, the Ken Saro Wiwas, the Claude Akes, The Dima Denni-Feberesimas, the Beko Ransome-Kutis, the Gani Fawehinmis The betrayals are understandably more pronounced in the Niger Delta region , the hotbed of current activism in the country- from Ogoni land to Ijaw land , you find activist leaders who double as government Advisers or holding other political positions in government. Divided loyalty, you would charge. But my guess is that greater loyalty lies with the one that pays the piper .

Perhaps the only remedy that could salvage the situation is a brutal sanitization of the polity. Call it a sweeping revolution. Because the way things are going now hoping for any dramatic change in the future is sheer illusion. In fact, hope has no place in Nigeria’s future. In other words, as things stand now, the country has no future.

Like Ambassador Andrew Young submitted: “ So, Nigeria is a place of great glory and also at present a place of great tragedy”. However, it is an obligation for all true patriots of the country to ensure that Nigeria reclaims her glory. But this can only be done when in the words of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, we have found the will and “ capacity to punish wrong doing and prevent future wrong doing" on the part of those who are now imposing themselves on us as leaders of the country. Or we must be determined to flush them out.

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