Akintokunbo A. Adejumo
29 August 2007
opinion
Lagos — Oh Lord, I pray to thee, if the condition of my getting to power is to be corrupt, please don't let me get there. Oh Lord, if I get there and I have to be corrupt, give me the wisdom to get out of there.
If I have to be corrupted by power, Oh Lord, strike me dead before I become corrupt. Oh Lord, let me use the power you give me to the benefit of my people, the human race and the world. Please do not abandon me in a corrupt world. Amen"
"Democracy has turned out to be not majority rule but rule by well-organized and well-connected minority groups who steal from the majority". - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
To say that the country called Nigeria is a conundrum is a gross understatement. To both its people and foreigners, it is a country that is, in its extremity, baffling, frustrating, annoying and uncivilised, yet so full of optimism, goodwill, hope, enormous potentials, understanding. One confounding issue we have is the interaction, or lack of it, between its people and its leaders. Both of them can be frustrating. The leaders are also the people, of course, but the people are not the leaders, as one would have expected in any country, irrespective of political ideology. Political power, they say, is derived from the people, but in our case, it does not work that way.
This is because the leaders often force their way into power, whether by use of the gun or via electoral corruption. And when we know that these people have hijacked power, we, the people, still tolerate them. In fact, we worship them, just because we also want to be like them. So, sometimes, I am wont to agree with the saying that a people deserve the type of leaders they get.
Nigeria is a supposedly Federal Republic. The fact is, it is neither a federation nor a republic. Nigeria is my country and believe me, I am so proud to be a Nigerian and love my country and my people. I don't have a choice, do I? But then, so will millions of Nigerians, inside or outside the country tell you. So will the evil cabal who have been misruling the country for nearly half a century tell you.
So will the boldly, shamelessly and extremely corrupt civil servants; self-serving and greedy politicians; extremely and stupendously rich former heads of state and/or presidents and governors, both military and civilian; the rapacious senators and Federal Representatives; the money-grabbing local council officials, state commissioners and federal ministers tell you. So will the corrupting businessmen out to grab fat contracts from the government, collect the money and then do a runner, or at best, do a shoddy job tell you. And believe me, so will the thousands of fraudsters, called "419ers", both within and outside Nigeria, who have dragged Nigeria's name in the mud all over the world tell you. So we are all proud and patriotic citizens of Nigeria, the so called Giant of Africa, actually more appropriately, the "Sick Man of Africa".
All Nigerians are "patriots". I am yet to see a Nigerian who is not "patriotic". This is aptly exemplified when Nigeria is involved in a football tournament. Maybe this makes us different from the other people in this world. Corrupt officials and politicians and military officers who divert funds meant to make life better for their people into their own personal accounts are of course the most "patriotic" Nigerians. You will see and hear them making speeches (a very popular phrase is "Eschew corruption - Governor tells his people") to the public, tongue in cheek, knowing they are fooling them. And we hear this nonsense and double speak with incredulity and anger, knowing that the same Governor or Minister is a thief who has been looting the treasury, and which you know is meant for the building or refurbishment of a hospital or to supply drugs and equipment which might have saved thousands of Nigerian life, if the money had been used properly.
We know of course that Nigerians are no different from other people in the world, or that only Nigeria has the problem of corruption. But you see, I am not "other people of the world", I am Nigerian, and so I am only concerned, at least for now, about Nigeria. I am also aware that Nigerians all over the world have written thesis, essays, reports, treatises, dissertations, etc that should have appealed to our conscience and made the country a better place to live, but what effect have we seen? A lot of well meaning Nigerians have even given their lives in, the pursuit of transparency, of good governance and better and deserved quality of life for their people. To what end? I am not about to re-invent the wheel here.
The point is: What are we as a nation? When is Nigeria going to be governable? When are we going to have the right people in government? Whose fault is it that these people have been ruling a country like this for several decades? Can we survive as a nation at the rate we are going? And a million other questions. Obviously, I can't answer these questions. There are Nigerians (and even non-Nigerians) who I would think are better qualified to answer these and other questions.
The first Nigerians to gain Western education did very well to establish a nation. We know them as the fathers of the nation. The sad thing is that they failed to pass their knowledge on to the right people, who would have upheld and continued with their values and hard work. In a large part of the country, the educated elite actually used their education and knowledge to oppress, cheat, loot and rape their own people for their own self-interest, greed and selfishness. Just because you don't have a Western education does not mean you should not know what is good for you and your family. You need food, you need good healthcare and other basic amenities that you are aware of, even if you did not go to school. Paramount is that even if you did not go to school, then your children should, so that they will help you later. But the action of the educated elite is such that this basic right to education is even denied to our children. The educated elite even deny the people not only the right to govern themselves, but also the right to food, good healthcare, good water and ultimately, the right to live a good, productive and satisfying life.
The bottom line is that after forty-seven years of independence as a country, basic amenities such as healthcare, food and water, electricity, good roads, housing and a minimum acceptable standard of living should be a foregone conclusion for all Nigerians, given the money we are making from oil. Incidentally, nobody, not even the government of Nigeria, past and present, can actually tell you how much money Nigeria makes from its oil. There are several reasons for this: One, the Government itself does not know because it has little or no control over its production. Two, the Government does not want Nigerians to know even the true estimates, for the simple reason that people in government are making their fortunes from oil and Three, so much of the proceeds is being siphoned off by various concerns, both local and foreign, that it is impossible to know. There are other reasons that the reader may know of, but all of it point to one word: CORRUPTION.
In 2004, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, then Nigeria's Finance Minister, said that Nigeria earned $20 billion the year before from oil alone. Further reports from respected world oil analysts said that so far Nigeria has earned over $400 billion from oil alone since it was discovered. This figure was in 2004. I will guess that three years later, this figure will be in the region of $500 - 600 billion, given the surge in the price of oil in recent years, due partly, ironically, to the Niger Delta problems. This information is enough to drive the average Nigerian to suicide. What? So much earned from what God has gracefully given to us as a people and as a nation, and so little to show for it. And these figures are just the ones declared. What about the billions not even declared by past governments? (for example, the money Nigeria earned from surplus oil during the first Iraq War of 1990 not to talk of how much we earned during the eight years of Obasanjo when the President himself was effectively also the Petroleum Minister and we know how high the price of oil had risen during those eight years). What about the money lost through "bunkering", both para-legalised and illegal? What about the money lost through the oil operators themselves not declaring the right amount of oil that they took out of the ground?
-Continues tomorrow
Back to amenities from this interesting digression. We are not asking for Nigeria to go to the moon or to even produce a car - after all, a country like Canada, one of the world's most industrialised and wealthy nations, does not even build its own car - all we are asking is for water to flow in the taps, food to be affordable to everybody, constant supply of electricity, a basic but effective healthcare system that will prolong our lives and reduce mortality rates, and a good transportation and communication system that will stand the test of time and make life easy for Nigerians. There are more of course, but dare we ask these "patriotic leaders"?
What is the point of siphoning and embezzling so much money and then burying it under the ground or sending it abroad to foreign banks? These patriotic thieves are even afraid to spend the money. Take a top official ostensibly in charge of our sports development. This official has made so much money over the past few years and has almost everybody in his pocket. He has his hands in every sports program in the country and he is super-rich. They also say he has very serious high-blood pressure. So, I asked, why didn't he retire and enjoy his ill-gotten gains in retired bliss? I was told that the man can not afford to retire, because if he does, he fears that his replacement will expose him. He also thinks he is the only person in Nigeria who can do his job, despite not achieving anything for Nigerian sports during his tenure. What a greedy bastard?
I was once in the presence of a former deputy military Head of State or whatever he called himself and he was bemoaning the state of Nigeria's sports in particular and Nigeria in general under one of his successors. (By the way, his administration had previously been booted out or forced to leave in disgrace.) He was saying how he would do this and would do that if he was in power. I could not believe what I was hearing. It was all I could do not to interrupt him and say "Oga, but you had your chance for eight years when you were there, why didn't you do it? What did you do for Nigerians during your tenure except rob them?". This was the same man, it was rumoured, who in November 1994, came to London to watch England play Nigeria at Wembley Stadium and was looking for free tickets instead of buying them with his ill-gotten gains when he was in power. Can anybody fall that low?
So why does it seem like there is an abundance of corrupt Nigerians and a dearth of honest, well-meaning and dedicated Nigerians? If I knew the answers to Nigeria's problems, I should be a genius, but we should look at it this way: The corrupt, who are actually in the minority, are so powerful and deadly, that the honest and well-meaning Nigerians do not have a chance in heaven of changing anything. Think of all the "juju" and the hired killers. The corrupt have such a stranglehold on Nigeria, it will take the Almighty to prise us loose from them. This, however, cannot go on forever because one day, like the late Bob Marley sang, "the bottom will drop out".
Another answer, if I may venture into controversy, is that we as a people are too apathetic and too optimistic - nothing wrong in the latter, but without any basis for being so. That is why Nigerians spend so much time praying in churches and mosques asking God to help. Please I am not against being religious. But you know why God will not help just like that? The churches and mosques where we go to pray are also corrupt. The priests and the mullahs know that those who sponsor their places of worship stole this money from the Nigerian people, but they will never condemn them in front of God and Man. The corrupt officials also go to these places of worship, and believe me, I wonder what prayers they are saying to God. I wonder whether they are asking for forgiveness or they are asking God to give them more chances to steal more or asking God to prevent them from being discovered. I don't know and can't even imagine it. But the fact is they are in the same mosque and church as everybody, 'praying, The corrupt Nigerian is so brazen. Nowadays, they don't even give a damn about being discovered. They bask in their corruption. They are arrogant with it. They are shameless because people do not let them realise it is a shameful thing to do to rob millions of people and a crime to deny Nigerians a good standard of living and a sin to be directly and indirectly responsible for the death of thousands, if not millions, of Nigerians. They are confident in their dishonesty because they may eventually get away with it. And most importantly, they are certain in themselves because they are the rulers, they have the power and they have control of the government apparatus and thereby the resources which belong to all Nigerians. But they want it all for themselves. Damn the rest of the Nigerian people. They are a selfish and vicious clique, with no interest of their people in mind. Despite what they have stolen, they are never satisfied. They want to steal everything in sight that can be stolen. Yet, they are "honourable and patriotic" Nigerians.
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