Still on Presidential Nomadism and National Priorities

By

Zulfikar Aliyu Adamu 

[SAUDI ARABIA]

zulfikar@kfupm.edu.sa

This time around, our agile president was most likely visiting the Republic of … just a minute, aha; he was over the Pacific Ocean a month ago when a sensational CNN program was aired about Nigerian fraudsters, a.k.a. financial terrorist. On behalf of the president and people of the Federal(?) Republic of Nigeria , our ambassador to the United Nations made a spirited attempt to redeem as much National image as he could. Greed, on the part of the victims, he pointed out, should be blamed for making people especially foreigners, so gullible.  The main thrust of this article remains the restlessness of our president and the insensitivity of his government to the plight of the common Nigerian. But kindly allow me, dear readers, in the manner of introductory continuity of the last publication, to sort of digress on the aspect of national image and international perception- even though, my concept about this series is primarily based on national priorities and the roaming tendencies of our number one citizen. It is well known that Obasanjo was a renowned farmer and not a tourist before he was elected into office three years ago, but today, while he is wining and dining in foreign lands, the cost of food is sky rocketing at home. And, more Nigerians are leaving the country today than they were during military dictatorship. So desperate is the desire to seek greener pastures by hook or crook that imagine a Nigerian woman named Fatimo Atanda, sought for and was granted refugee/asylum status in Cyprus because she is pregnant, unmarried  and would be ‘stoned to death’ in Nigeria. This was after she was deported from Ireland because of her forged British passport. Mind you, even without a Yoruba surname like Atanda, Fatimo… (not Fatima ) is obviously from the south west where you and I know that the states there, are NOT enforcing Shari’a law. It all goes to point that some Nigerians are capable of doing and saying anything to leave the country. Forging British passports and telling lies about Shari’a prosecution are only tools for achieving same. What could Fatimo Atanda care about patriotism and national image when her (and her president’s) priority is to escape from the problems in Nigeria ? But let’s not waste time on another crooked Nigerian woman who is probably on her way to become a sexual diplomat in Europe .

You may recall that wasteful efforts on economically diversionary issues like building stadiums and hosting international sporting events (in a poor country) receiving some bashing on a BBC program- and on the second paragraph of my first article on executive nomadism and national priorities. However, I don’t know how many of you readers can recall that presently, our Minister of Sports has declared that Nigeria will run for the hosting rights for the Soccer Mundial of 2010. That decision has now pitted us against the South Africans who were hitherto, clear favorites to host the world cup in Africa . But when queried about the issue of insecurity and Nigeria ’s crime problems, hear our sporting minister: “ South Africa is not more crime-free than we are. I used to be the Minister for Police Affairs, so I can see it from both sides, and I can tell you what our men can do,” Haba, Mr. Stephen Akiga! Are you unaware that our policemen went on strike early this year because of the insensitivity of their leaders to the plight of the rank and file in the same police force, which YOU were once a minister? Even if South Africa is no less crime-free than Nigeria, I will have you know Mr. Akiga, that South Africa is building more affordable houses for their citizenry, has better road networks and other civil infrastructure like water and electricity than we do; more telephone lines than the rest of black Africa put together, a more thriving economy than we can hope for presently and the respect of the international community to cap it all. Instead of touching the security criterion (thereby indirectly exposing your immediate past failures as Minister of Police Affairs) and embarking on hosting the world cup, kindly tell us how many jobs you have created in the sports ministry since you took over. You were in the police ministry not long ago and now the police have learnt how to organize Aluta, like our university students. You are now the Minister of Sports, haba; no wonder our footballers have been dumping the interest of the nation as witnessed in the last nation and world cups. I am fervently praying that you don’t end up in the Ministry of Agriculture because food crops and livestock will also go on strike. At least, so that we don’t join the ranks of countries like Zimbabwe that are currently facing famine. Talking about agriculture, while our ex-farmer president is competing with the Pope for frequent flier awards, Cote d’Ivoire (the world’s largest cocoa producer) has just recently raised export taxes on cocoa beans by 22 percent, simply to take advantage of high world prices and demand. This was a country that in the 60’s, ranked fourth in cocoa production behind Ghana , Nigeria and Brazil . So while Pope John Paul is canonizing saints and keeping in touch with his understandably borderless constituency of Catholics, our farmer-turned-tourist president (who won the World Hunger Award last decade) is busy setting up international branches of Aso Rock; meanwhile the national grains reserve has been coughing up its contents recently in order to keep food prices down. Where art thy priorities O president?

The last quarter of the year is at hand and we neither have an operational budget for 2002 nor has the budget for 2001 been fully accounted for. Therefore it is not out of place to say that this government is running the country in arrears. While other countries are busy trying to conquer time, want, distance and space, our government is speaking in past tense. Simply put, come the time when OBJ is vetoed out of office by the legislators or voted out by the electorate, his government will owe the people of Nigeria one year’s budget. By the time Abacha’s body was consigned to mother earth, 80 Naira exchanged for a dollar. As of today, you need 130 Naira for the same dollar officially, that is. Even when the late dictator increased the domestic cost of petrol products by reducing subsidies, at least he was able to set up PTF with the extra profits that were accrued. This Obasanjo government cancelled the PTF; which paved so many roads in villages like mine and cities like Lagos , provided drugs in hospitals that the same PTF rehabilitated. PTF supplied books in schools that it renovated or built and… in a nutshell, carried out the numerous responsibilities that established ministries failed to do. Agreed that PTF may have no role in a constitutional democracy, but my point is, Obasanjo has scrapped the PTF, increased the cost of petroleum products by as much as three times Abacha’s increment and today, we are poorer and hungrier than we were four years ago. We still do not know what happens to the extra cash being generated by the increment in cost of fuel. According to the Corruption Indices of Transparency International, Nigeria has just lost the Corruption World Cup in a final match with Bangladesh. Therefore, If, in the paraphrased words of Wole Soyinka, Abacha’s government was a monster then I tell you, dear readers, that Obasanjo’s government is a whole damn zoo!

True leadership in Nigeria , the West African Subcontinent and possibly Africa as a whole can only be practiced by listening to the voices and cries of the people and not by flattening villages like Odi and Zaki-biam or strong arming rebels in far away Liberia and Sierra Leone . Understanding a problem and its roots is half way to solving that problem. So in terms of regional integration (call it NEPAD, AU, or West African Central Bank or whatever you like) removing the speck in our eye will go far in making us better prepared to remove the log of wood in other peoples eyes. Take the European Union for example, where membership is based on strict adherence to laid down democratic and economic guidelines and not by mere geographical location. But what do you know? Our information minister has just informed us that the take off of the West African Monetary Union has been postponed from 2003 to 2004. This is to allow member countries to meet the requirements for adopting a single currency. But really, aren’t we just trying to copycat the Europeans, who themselves are still experimenting with the Euro currency? Personally, I am of the opinion that most of the West African member countries (with Nigeria toping the list) are not in a position to begin to implement single regional currencies. Of what use will be a single currency for (I presume trading) when after every three countries you cross, the fourth is a rebel zone? Okay, agreed that most conflicts in West Africa are on the threshold of resolution but what about economic discipline and poverty alleviation, sorry, eradication? I am no pessimist, but I don’t see the single currency idea working right now. How many Nigerian factories or cottage industries are producing goods for the patronage of Guineans, Malians and Senegalese entrepreneurs and vice versa? Are we producing enough rice, garri, yam and palm oil to feed ourselves and sell the excess to our West African neighbors? One of two things is possible. Firstly, it is either we get fed up and drive away these people when (and if) they come to Nigeria (thereby reinventing new bags called Guinea-Must-Go, Senegal-Must-Go etc), or they drive us away from their counties in frustration with Nigeria-Must-Go bags. Oh, I almost forgot, our 419 schemers will probably milk the living daylights out of any foreign investor (African or Westerner) anyway, unless security issues and unemployment are seriously addressed. Strengthening the micro-economic aspect of Nigerian economy, putting more food on people’s plates, and fighting crime and corruption should be our priority because we can barely feed ourselves now.

It is the level of our government’s lack of simple economic aptitude that makes the average Nigerian head for the seaport of Cotonou in order to purchase a ‘tokunbo’ car. One wonders sometimes whether we are landlocked like Niger Republic , or we do have our own seaports at all. I don’t really blame those who go to Benin Republic to buy cars since the few cars that arrive at our ports end up departing without engines, tyres or headlights, hmm, talking security again! Instead of Obasanjo’s government to figure out ways of livening things up at our ports so that international car dealers will dock their ships on our coast, the president preferred late last year, to cancel the importation of used cars, as if he was going to subsidize the cost Peugeot from PAN in Kaduna . In short, but for the intervention of some smarter advisers, more Nigerians would have their dream of having vehicles squashed. And the president had the audacity to count increased salaries and car ownership by civil servants as some of his achievements so far.

As I draw the curtains on this second and probably last article on presidential nomadism and the needs pf the people, I shall conclude by hoping that our police will not go on strike again for who knows, next time it may be mutiny. The soldiers may then follow suit. Let us collectively, hope and pray for better leaders, icons and role models and not have to reminisce at the minted images of our past heroes on our devalued monies. Let’s work for a country that understands the needs and values of human resource as more important than owning oil wells in every backyard. So that our university undergraduates will sit down to study in order to blend well into this digital age instead of hijacking buses and deputy governors. So that our women folk will not have to wake up in the mornings, tie their scarves around their waists and barricade premises of oil companies, chewing-stick in mouth. So that civil servants realize that this absentee president is simply taking them on a ride each time extra zeroes are added to their salary digits on workers day; and that they should instead press for more economic measures for better purchasing powers. By insisting on an Obasanjo candidacy and electing him (when his tribesmen refused to touch him with a long pole), I hope the northern political class realize that they built a glass house and alas, now they are throwing stones. As we shop for a new, nay, better president I hope that Nigerians have collectively learnt some valuable lessons from the despicable failures of this government, which is of unparalleled magnitude. Thank God I did not vote for any of them!