By Tabia Princewill
ONE of the side effects of being a population
with an acute experience and understanding of
injustice has been the sense of entitlement
these feelings produce. Successive
governments had little impact, so we began to
feel we were owed everything, whether we were
ready to contribute and work for those
advantages or not.
The political class taught Nigerians that one
could become a millionaire over night and
most were eager to wait their turn for the
opportunity to carve something for themselves
out of the national cake. Corruption thrives
because we are all complicit, from the media,
which celebrates those with dubious pasts, to
the universities rewarding fraudulence with
honorary degrees, to every voter who either
abstains or returns inefficient, short-sighted
men and women to the National Assembly.
Access to opportunity
Life in Nigeria has become a zero-sum game
where individual benefits exist at the expense
of others’ access to opportunity. Zoning,
cabals, ethnic mafias, Niger Delta Avengers,
“killer herdsmen”, are evidence of larger
unresolved issues in our society: how is
wealth to be shared, distributed and what
mechanisms exist to guarantee favourable
conditions for enterprise, fair chances and
prospects for anyone willing to work hard?
Nothing in Nigeria supports initiative or
creativity.
Those who dare to be original, those who
possess the get-up-and-go boldness that
built America, are routinely discouraged and
ultimately swayed by the realization that the
only functioning business in Nigeria is
corruption.
Part of the opposition to the anti-corruption
war comes from the inability, in so many
quarters, from the media to the political
establishment, to imagine a Nigeria free from
graft. What would it mean for men who need
free money to impress girlfriends, for a
generation of women that has been raised to
see independence as un-African or a White
woman’s whim or finally, for everyone in the
society propping themselves up with public
office funds, knowing full well they cannot
compete in a level playing field? So many
things have been done to trick Nigerians into
apathy, to feed our cynicism and belief that
the status quo is our only option.
Fuel subsidy is an illusion: we believe we
benefit yet subsidy was turned into a scam,
fuelling millionaires who sometimes didn’t
even import the product they were paid for,
where crude oil swaps were conducted (in
exchange for refined products), yet amounts
don’t tally and our coffers remain mysteriously
empty.
Rather than make millionaires of a few
politically connected people, this government
proposes to use subsidy funds for
infrastructural necessities with an almost
immediate impact on all our lives. Things are
tough but this could have been avoided if
previous governments had done well by
us.Why don’t our refineries work? If the huge
sums earmarked for Federal roads had been
properly spent the cost of transportation
wouldn’t be skyrocketing. If young people
could get a globally competitive education,
they would be equipped to deal with a fuel
price increase, having the inventiveness to
create technologically based industries,
provided of course they had electricity.
Why, under the guise of privatisation, have we
sold key assets only to politically exposed
persons without the ability to manage them
effectively? What happened to the River Basin
Authorities, RBAs, that were supposed to
manage grazing reserves for cattle, as far
back as the '70s?
Why do we keep treating our problems as if
they were new, as opposed to resurgences of
the same old unattended issues? RBAs were
supposed to ensure food sufficiency (now
virtually everything in Nigeria is imported),
instead they sold farmlands to politicians;
they didn’t provide water to irrigate and with
scarcity of resources comes conflict: by
ceasing to combat desertification (the same
desertification which turned Boko Haram into
a recourse for destitute Nigerians), they
impoverished herdsmen, sending them further
down south with their cattle. These same
RBAs were meant to stop pollution of the
Niger Delta, create fisheries and support rural
electrification.
Anyone who still misunderstands the situation
and thinks corruption is not the number one
issue which deserves an honest, sincere
President’s attention must review 16 years of
malfeasance, plus another 30 under the
military where we ourselves bought into
economic slavery under the new social
contract promising that one day, we too would
be allowed our time to steal. We are indeed
fantastically corrupt.
Corrupt institutions
The fact that foreign powers have assisted us
in laundering money, etc, is another
discussion entirely. No one forced us into this
mess; even if it is true we inherited corrupt
institutions and government processes from
colonisation.
Cynicism is a privilege we shouldn’t want.
Those who don’t want change have enough
stolen funds to isolate themselves from the
issues their negligence and stupendous greed
caused. Most of us don’t. Let us not play into
their hands or cause them to laugh at us any
further. Hope is an act of survival, particularly
when the signs of something great to come,
are all there. Let’s stop dumbing down public
discourse with ethnic slurs and politicised
rants defending the indefensible.
Without corruption, who could you aspire to
become, in a country that accepts, encourages
and rewards your talents? Only the talentless
or those allergic to hard work and merit would
want to fight such a dream.
NLC
Labour unions’ effectiveness over the years is
doubtful: brown envelopes allegedly curtail
strikes. The NLC should strike to protest the
inefficiency of state governors, past and
present, who have done little to develop their
states. We have focused so much on the
Presidency’s policies and forgotten to
interrogate our governors. Why is the NLC yet
to ask state governors not only what they did
with the bailout funds meant for salaries but
what mechanisms they have put in place to
boost states’ economic output and
productivity so they can pay workers salaries
in future and create an enabling environment
for us all.
The NLC seems to have little real
understanding of public policy and even less
of an appreciation for the political and
economic circumstances which ought to call
for a strike or not. Hopefully the cynics and
the morbidly corrupt haven’t gained too much
ground. For the first time in a very long time,
a leader means well. Let’s tighten our belts
(easier said than done, indeed) and finally
correct man-made problems we once
endorsed. Nigeria, wake up.
Niger Delta Avengers
THE National Coalition of Niger Delta Ex-
Agitators, NCNDE-A, alleged the new Niger
Delta Avengers militant group was founded by
former President Jonathan to destabilize the
country.
In a country where conspiracy theories aren’t
implausible, only security agencies would
know the truth. I won’t dwell on both group’s
names: one seems reminiscent of a cartoon,
the other’s existence itself is just plain
ludicrous.
Despite all this, the president of the improved
militant’s group made one comment which
should draw our attention: “Our common
enemies in the Niger Delta region are those
governors, ministers, senators and other
representatives from the region who
participated in government and use their
offices to enrich themselves at the detriment
of general good.
We must redirect our anger to those who
cornered the dividends of democracy in the
region buying fleet of aeroplanes, building
mansions in choice cities of the world while
their people live in abject poverty.” Let every
militant andseparatist organisation wake up
to this fact. He further concluded: “President
Buhari isn’t our problem our leaders from the
region are”. Nigerians, demand more.
Obasanjo
HIS comments on Buhari are preposterous, like
his self-congratulatory stance on fighting
corruption (how was the recovered Abacha
loot spent?)
Perhaps there is something to be said about a
jealous impulse. Why disown those he hand-
picked for office? Why did he attempt a third
term, does that still count as
“statesmanesque”?
One might have to blame the media for
becoming the platform for remnants of
undistinguished times past.
