expenditure, comprising salaries and
overheads, has increased by 30 percent this
year compared to last year, according to an
analysis of the states' 2014 budget
presentations. The 36 states have proposed to
spend N2.740 trillion on salaries, allowances,
overheads and other components of recurrent
expenditure. This figure is about 30 percent
higher than last year's N2.105 trillion budgeted
for the same purposes" Transparency for
Nigeria.
Early in 2011, I wrote an article 'ethnic
nationalism the elephant in Nigeria'. In the
intervening period, many of the issues I
raised in the article have become reality
and sadly, have become a common feature of the
Nigerian democracy and society. There is no
doubt that Nigeria's democracy is endangered by
corruption, suspicion, and mistrust, which have
their origin in a culture of dishonesty and ethnic
and religious intolerances and prejudices. The
very sad thing about it is that, successive
governments have not focused on these problems
with the view to finding solutions to them, and
they are becoming herculean as the country
continues to fracture along sectarian fault lines.
The result is that Islamic fundamentalism has
taken root in the north, while criminal fraternity
involved in oil bunkering, kidnapping and armed
robbery has taken over the south. Nigeria is
indeed, bedevilled by serious human, social
economic and political problems whose capacity
to bring about its demise can no longer be
ignored. What has emerged is a Nigeria where
politicians preach one Nigeria in public, while in
private they reinforce and appeal to sectarian
constructs to remain relevant and retain their
position amongst their people and continue to
benefit from the rot and misgovernance that is the
order of the day. Consequently, all political
permutations in Nigeria remain on the basis of
ethnicity and religion and nothing is said about the
ideologies, policies and values of the people
seeking power. This is the true tragedy of Nigeria
and why the current segregation of PDP to
metamorphose in APC is a source of worry and
does not represent a future for the country.
Nigeria needs a leadership that would take the bull
by the horn and wrestle it to ground, and not one
who would shoe it a red rag and frighten the
people with how strong the bull is.
It is also disheartening that after giving Nigeria
Shehu Shagari and Alex Ekwueme, himself and
Abubakar Atiku for 8 years, Umaru Yar Adua and
Goodluck Jonathan, and Goodluck Jonathan and
Namadi Sambo, that Olusegun Obasanjo still
believes that he knows what is best for Nigeria
and is plotting to have another say on who
becomes the next president of Nigeria. How does
a country deal with a problem like Obasanjo?
This is unacceptable. A good statesman should
know when to quit the stage no matter his sense
of self importance and how intelligent he believes
he is. It has become a particularly black African
thing, for leaders not to know when to leave the
stage. This is one of the reasons why the world
respected Nelson Mandela. He understood the
ephemeral nature of power and knew when to
pass it on. Very unfortunately, this does not seem
to the case with Nigerian leaders, who never
really believe that the world is a stage and we
come play our part and leave. At 70s and 80s,
they are still scheming to be party chairmen,
Ministers, Ambassadors, senators and presidents,
when there are young and dynamic youth, who
have what it, takes to correct their mistakes and
take the country forward. How can the old, lead
the way to the future?
When they meet, they look more like people in old
people homes celebrating Christmas, instead of
people who want to be trusted with the future of
their country. The result is that they have
governed Nigeria to death and still believe that
they hold the solution to the problems, when
every move they make makes worst. They have a
dog in a manger mentality. They have had their
time but could not solve the problems. Yet, they
refuse to give way for people with a different
mind-set and understanding of the problem to try.
It is either them, or nobody, a scotch earth
attitude to life that is routed in ignorance, greed
and selfishness.
Through corruption and greed, Nigerian leaders
have created a very unequal, unjust and unsafe
society where the rich live and the poor die, the
strong succeed and the weak fail; a society that
measures its morality in its persecution of those
who are different, intolerance and prejudice. They
have left a society where merit is not rewarded
and who someone knows, is more important than,
what they know, can do or their character.
Through the pursuit of discriminatory and unjust
policies which lead to development of good
schools and hospitals for only the army, police,
and politicians, they have created a divide society
where a section of the country benefits, while the
rest is worse off. The result is elitism which
defends injustice, inequality and unmerited
advantages of a few. Politicians, and senior army
and police officers are able to send their children
to private universities abroad, where they pay
exorbitant school fees from money made through
corruption, while they do nothing to create
conducive environment that nurture leaning in
Nigeria and give teachers what they need to do
the work they love very much. They show no
concern that academic staff of universities are on
strike for several months because their own
children are not studying in Nigeria. They show no
interest in research and often do not include it in
the budge, and when they do, they just pocket it.
Yet they are aware that everything that exists
today came from research. They are flown abroad
at tax payers' expense to receive specialist
medical care, while the rest of the people
patronise hospitals that are not fit for purpose.
Many Nigerian politicians, while in power, stole
public funds, which should have been in invested
in laying solid foundation for the education of
Nigeria youth, building and equipping hospitals,
good roads, strong institutions and a more equal
society. Some of them used the money to build
private schools, universities and hospitals where
only the rich can send their children. There is no
greater evil leaders can inflict on their people,
than to worsen the natural disadvantage of the
poor through greed. All these have resulted in a
divided society with fissured moral conscience,
which is about to fall apart. No wonder there is
today in Nigeria, 'a them against us mentality'
which poison the polity and create the need for
scapegoats.
This is why some of the 'have nots' justify crime
and see nothing wrong in kidnapping those who
seem to them to have benefited unfairly at their
expense. Nigeria needs leaders, who recognise
these facts and, are prepared to pursue inclusive
polices that would give everyone a chance, a
sense of belonging, reward merit and ensure equal
opportunity, and not leaders who would differ to
ethnicity, religion or status. Without this, Nigeria
will disintegrate under the weight of injustice,
intolerance, greed, extremism, criminality and
ethnic nationalism. Nigerian seems primed for an
upheaval of wanton destruction of lives and
properties with complete anarchy and confusion.
No government can sustain a country, where only
a few people benefits and the greater majority of
the people live in poverty, suffer, are dispossessed
and have no opportunity to achieve their potential
or earn a decent living. I suppose Nigerians need
to start seeing our problems for what they are:
man made human, social, economic and political
problems; created by a succession of bad and
corrupt governments: instead of ethnic or religious
problems. Of course, those who are currently
benefiting form the status quo, would like the
people to believe otherwise. The poor in the north,
south, east or west of Nigeria and Christians and
Muslims, all want the same thing: security, good
schools, accessible good health care, good
hospitals, good roads, pipe borne water, and
electricity, good sewage system and jobs. These
should be the problems Nigerian government and
people should focus on and not on ethnicity and
religion, important as they are. Nigerians and her
government need to get serious with nation
building or vote to peacefully dissolve this
increasingly impossible union.
It is difficult to see a future for Nigeria at the rate
corrupt leaders is recycled. Instead of expelling
them from the system, successive government
recycle the same old criminals, who have been
destroying the country. If they are not ministers or
special advisers, they are chairmen of boards. If
they are not senators, they are party chairmen.
While many developing countries are restructuring
their armies and reducing defence spending,
Nigeria is increasing her defence spending and
increasing her army. While many developed
country have phased out automatic promotion in
their military, Nigeria continues to operate a
system that sees promotion as right instead of
privilege, and produces many army generals, than
any comparable country needs in peace time.
Nigeria has many army generals, but cannot
articulate an effective strategy to defeat Boko
Haram.
There is no attempt to task them to provide an
effective military strategy to defeat the Islamic
insurgency crippling the north of the country and
spreading insecurity through out the rest of the
country. Daily we hear of Boko Haram ambushing
army convoys and attacking military barracks and
yet, the army seem unable to modify the way it
transports soldiers to stop them being soft target
for the terrorists and how they guard their military
bases to avoid being taken unawares. Does one
need to be a general in the army or have a PhD in
warfare and military tactics to figure out that the
first thing a man who is fighting an unseen enemy
should do, is to become both invisible and
unpredictable. Who is the defence minister, what
does he think of the current military strategy?
It is the way Nigeria is governed that makes me
think that there is something schizophrenic about
the country. It does not seem to conform to any
known rule. There is no pattern to its decision
making. Often it is based not on evidence or
economic principles, but on ethnicity and religious
convictions, which have been demonstrated to be
unsafe constructs on which to base such decisions.
In the midst of serious economic and political
problems worsened by institutionalised
corruption , and poverty of leadership, what some
of those whose past inaptitude , prejudice and
greed created the sowed the seed of the problem
can do, is ask the country to fast and pray. This is
in a world where we know that God always work
when men decided to do what is right. Sometimes
I wonder, if Nigerian leaders are simply naïve or
out right, evil, ignorant and deluded. Why should a
country that should be strengthening its
institutions to hold every body accountable and
enforce the rule of law, resort to praying and
selective justice? What will those who are causing
the problem do when everybody closes their
eyes? Why should Nigeria declare fasting and
praying, when what it needs is criminal justice
reform that would be effective at ensuring certain
retribution for all offenders and that no one
benefits from the proceeds of crime as many
politicians do at the moment?
At present, the same old culprits are ganging up
under a different name. They have not opened
any conversation with the Nigerian people. They
have not published any manifestoes and policies
they would pursue in office. They have not said a
word about how they would fight the elephants of
corruption, religious intolerance and toxic ethnic
nationalism. Rather, they have already shared the
position and outlined the various ways they plan
to siphon public fund into their private pockets
through phantom projects of the kind we have
seen recently executed by the deputy senate
president in his constituency.
I weep for Nigeria. Please, God open the eyes of
Nigerians to see the enormity of the problems and
the future that awaits those who cannot escape,
when the evils days come and help us by at least
ensuring that one honest man is elected as a
legislator, senator, governor and if at all possible,
as president in 2015, so that they can show
Nigerians that governance is about making life
better for all and not opportunity to steal what
belongs to all.
E O Eke is qualified in medicine. At various times
he has been a General medical practitioner,
Medical missionary, Medical Director and senior
medical officer of health in Nigeria. He specializes
in child, Adolescent and adult psychiatry and lives
in England with his family. His interest is in health,
religion philosophy and politics. He cares for body
and mind.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
No comments:
Post a Comment