Nigeria’s Prestige Project – UN Security Council Seat

By

Peter Opara

Peter_O'Para@tufts-health.com

It is not unlike what peoples of Nigerian nations are used to about Nigeria, White Elephant Projects.

George Orwell might have coined the term – “White Elephant Project”. The term has all of Orwellian socio-political construct or semblance, having to do with obfuscation, deceit and lie by leaders to all and sundry, especially deprived, needy citizens.

Look, the leader will say, see that huge structure there, the country is doing well. He would follow with a rhetorical poser – how would we afford that huge project, if we were not doing well? 

About the leader at such time, and always, will be an ever present, ever fidgeting, brown nosing sycophant that affirms with nervous grin, every lie, every nonsense that comes forth from the leader’s mouth.

But the truth is, peoples on whose land the huge structure stands, have no jobs, no food to eat, no clean water to drink, no light with which to see, no road on which to ply or walk or ride; they are ill and disease ridden, with no health clinic around to care for them.

Truth is still, everything the peoples lack, the leader sumptuously possess or access with ease. The leader feeds so well that he has swollen belly and swollen neck. Big man.

The leader and those about him, have attending to them, clinics and physicians abroad – London – always. Even in dying, the leader and those about him have a choice where to die - London. Look for and read veteran Sonala Oluhense’s “Dying in London” about Nigerian leaders.

While Nigeria is historically riddled with tangible white elephant projects ranging from the all important 40-year-old-yet-to-be-completed iron and steel industry; unfinished roads, abandoned bridges, abandoned fertilizer scandal riddled “Operation Feed the Nation” – code named Obasanjo Fool the Nation of the 70s – the country has been gunning for intangible white elephant projects ever since Matthew Okikiolahan Aremu Obasanjo began finding himself at its helm.

Since his second coming (after his accidental 1975-1979 tenure) and his current 419 tenure, Aremu’s white elephant project has been image, image, image and more image. And for the six years he has been on the image project, virtually attending every house party in Atlanta and everywhere else in the world, the one-man public relations and lobbyist lobbed together, Big Aremu has nothing to show. Nothing!

Now, the millions of Dollars Aremu’s friend, Andrew Young has been receiving since Aremu went from jail to Aso Rock, are they not for Nigeria’s image and being on America’s good sides?

Only a few weeks ago, the U.S. government issued travel warning to her citizens visiting Nigeria. The adjective “Dangerous” is now synonymous with Aremu’s Nigeria. Again, I ask, what is his friend, Andy doing with the millions of Dollars of my money that Aremu pays him daily?

Then the hammer fell, a week ago. An intelligence organ of the same U.S. warned that the same Nigeria has no chance of survival, past the next 15 years.

So Andy, and his friend Aremu are feasting on a body comatose!

Then debt relief, another of Aremu’s darling project; that too, President George Bush with whom Aremu held hands the other day in Washington DC, reportedly said, “Nobody wants to give money (say forgive debt) to a country that’s corrupt, where leaders take money and put it in their pocket.”

Do you doubt that Bush did not have Nigeria in mind?

Squirreling and pilfering of public funds is what Nigeria is known for. It is worse that the master pilferer, the squirrel himself, Aremu’s political mentor, Ibrahim Babangida is poised to return to Nigeria’s helm to continue his practice, and Aremu is all for it.

So there went 6-years of Aremu’s image junket around the globe, investments junket around the globe. Image is for the long haul and so is investment. Investment is indeed for the long haul, and as far as Nigeria is concerned, who commits money to a dangerous and predictably collapsible investment tool, a tool where leaders are sure to pocket accruing cash.

Only a fool could not see the danger in the horizon that is articulated in the Nigeria collapse analysis by US intelligence. There is a house that is not in order, the owner or minder is unable, in fact fails to put it in order, but he goes inviting Dick, Tom and Harry saying to them - Come On Down! That his house is safe and comfy for all they are worth – sweat, blood and tears – otherwise, hard earned Dollars, Pounds etc.

Dick, Tom and Harry are not blind, they can see; they did see that the house is not all that it is cracked up to be. Also they have all read the book titled – This House Has Fallen.

Now comes the biggest white elephant chase of the time, Nigeria’s Prestige Project, a seat at the United Nations Security Council.

Peoples of Nigerian nations are hungry – not enough food to eat; they are disease ridden – no doctors and no health clinics to take care of them; they are not safe or secure – robbers and assassins rule; death lurks around every corner, but the leader must find a seat in a sitting in far away Oyibo land. Then he can say to his people, look, see where we dey siddon yonder with America, France, Britain…those strong, big countries. Ah, our country strong, too, we be big people o; we dey kamkpe!

This virtually sick country whose every social, economic and political aspects its leader is unable to manage, yet the leader seeks to place the country in a position to cater to affairs of the world in the specific areas in which he has demonstrated nothing but failure!

The way the papers described the evening of the beginning of this white elephant chase – a seat at the UN Security Council, Aso Rock was sealed up; there were security agents all around, and guests at the super secret, super sensitive gathering were governors, service chiefs, ex- heads of state and every other exs…so many that abound in Nigeria.

Former Head of State Muhammadu Buhari was not there.

Onlookers wondered what was amiss. What could be taking place this evening?

Voila! Nigeria is gunning for a membership in the UN’s Security Council.

Aremu mandated his hirelings to get any and every exs to his villa, so according to reports, there will be a united effort behind this project, Nigeria’s Prestige Project. This is the biggest of the intangible white elephant project….all for image and nothing more.

Nigeria must play in the big league with the United States, Britain, France, China…and such as far as determining the way of world affairs.

Determining the way of world affairs in these times is certainly an enormous responsibility. It is a responsibility that demands the undertaker to be focused and unencumbered by intractable mundane matters within.

Is Nigeria such an undertaker? Not if Aremu’s reason for gunning for this white elephant project is based only on the population of Nigeria. Is it a population whose restiveness he is unable to manage? Is it a population whose well-fare he is unable to fashion, talk less manage?

Yet of the big leaguers – which Nigeria is far from being or becoming – mentioned, only China is having a teething problem, not from anything else other its struggle to emerge from failed eco-political ideology - communism.

Even then, China has long been a political and economic force to reckon with. This is to say that China has the capacity, where it matters – leadership – to manage her mundane concerns for teething into a new socio-political order, such that it is embarked – capitalism. Add to this is the faith reposed on China’s economic acumen and capacity by old capitalist nations of Europe and America.

What is one to say about Nigeria that for 45 years of its existence as independent sovereign nation has demonstrated profound inability to shoulder its internal affairs – social, political and economic? Is Aremu to showcase his presence and Nigeria on this vaunted seat in his typical fashion of what-I-say-not-what-I-do matters? Only mutt peoples of Nigerian nations can countenance such nonsense in a world where now peasants and market women band together to chase away bumbling, thieving, ineffective leaders.

Here is Nigeria, a country that was billed as “the showcase of African democracy” at independence in 1960, that soon embarked on political and economic chicanery that remains its bane to this day; Here is Nigeria that six years following her independence, its leaders embarked on a bloody carnage against one of its constituent parts; Here is Nigeria that is a major debtor nation – 45 year later; Here is Nigeria, presumed “showcase of Africa’s democracy, whose present leader that wants to take her to a world seat violated all known norms of electoral franchise in 2003; the political party over which he holds sway, killed, maimed and robbed to remain in power, and under this same leader and 45 years into the country’s life, its peoples have no security, they are hungry, they are diseased, they are deprived, they are hopeless.

There we see the soft underbelly of this elephant that seeks to position itself to lead other nations, when it cannot lead itself. Or when it should focus on remedying itself.

It is easy to recall the excitement among Nigerian elites of course, that follows Nigeria’s attainment of President of the Security Council. What is the big deal? I always thought. Does this translate to food on the table for hungry peoples of Nigerian nations; transportation for peoples of Nigerian nations; jobs for the peoples of Nigerian nations, light, water and sundry other unmet mundane needs of peoples of Nigerian nations.

Peoples of Nigerian nations should organize and demand Obasanjo to stand down in his international grandstanding. All this Aremu magah, magah, as the Igbo would say, is all about Aremu the man, not the peoples of Nigerian nations.

People of Nigerian nations should further demand that the current members of the Security Council visit Nigeria to witness the suffering peoples of Nigerian nations endure daily.

Then they will see every reason why Obasanjo must not be accorded the regard he seeks in the international arena.

If an African country deserves a prestigious position, it is South Africa. Let Mandela be the one to take his country to the UN on that date. Mandela set the pace for respect for citizens’ franchise.

Next door to Nigeria is Ghana. Though a smaller nation, Ghana has historically led Nigeria by the nose in a show of what a nation of pride to her people should be. Ghana deserves international regard.

Even as Aremu’s National Distraction Talk-Shop goes on, it must be realized by every man, woman and child of the Nigerian nations, that it was in Aburi Ghana under the auspices of then leader of Ghana, Lt. General J.A. Ankrah, that the first genuine attempt was made with success to make Nigeria a nation at peace with itself, with progress as patrimony for its citizens.

But that was not to be, as leaders of the same Nigeria turned against the success. Very Nigerian, isn’t it? 

Nearly 40-years later, Nigeria is still bumbling about like a tired white elephant project itself, still gunning for prestige project, white elephant project, this time a seat at the UN Security Council.

What is more important, national prestige or people’s welfare? A two-year kid has a ready response to this question – the latter precedes the former.

But those that rule Nigeria make no mistake about the fact that for nearly forty-years, they have been playing catch up with all two-year olds out there, and dashing and quashing the future of peoples of Nigerian nations in the process.

June 16, 2005

Peter Opara is the author of Understanding the Nigerian Nation Tribes – Why they Boil; Think In Time – Essays and Encounters of the Last Quarter of the 20^th Century; The Man of Biafra in the City Where America Began.