The Missing Though in Obasanjo's Heart

By

Zayyad I. Muhammad

zaymohd@yahoo.com

 

 

The Obasanjo reform program was meant to positively transform the lives of ordinary Nigerians, renew   the civil service, restore public confidence in the system, and revive moral and enthusiasm of the civil servants; and paved the path to healthy and participatory democracy on the Nigerian polity. But it only succeeded in re-echoing the same old civil service bureaucracies and procedures in different nomenclature: Servicom, Due Process, etc; it has increases unemployment and homelessness in the name of workers rationalization and monitisation; it designers claimed it would improve the common man’s life, but surprisingly the commoners are not even aware of it existence; the reform only succeeded at the macro ladder of the society’s economy, with beautiful words on papers and the emergence of ‘few selected’ billionaires, and on the polity, it has  led to  leadership insensitiveness; the upshot, one dangerous idea, the third term project.

 

In Africa, international agencies doctored economic programmes, and western styled democracy are wholeheartedly being experimented and used by African leaders as a vehicle in freeing Africans from the aged long perpetual prison of poverty and freedom. In Nigeria, president Obasanjo’s heart is so gummed to the international monetary agencies monitored economic reform, to a point that, the contemplation of integrating true local content into the reform is absent. In Eastern Europe, some former Soviet states, China, the Asian Tigers and some Latin American nations, World Bank and IMF backed economic program have brought ‘Rice and Beans’ to the table of the commonest people in these countries, and this writer is of the believe that, these successes were mainly due to the ability of the headship there to genuinely placed local content in a premium position into those reforms, and also complement their reforms with open democratic processes, though there is little or no correlation between economic progress and western styled democracy, as can be vividly seen in China and some middle east countries; vis-à-vis  democracy and economic improvement; as it can be seen in most sub-Saharan African countries; despite the  blew of  wind of democracy in the early  90’s, most of Saharan African nations are still dangling  on the fulcrum  of poverty; though the international community is to be blame to a certain degree , for deliberately  allowing A frican leaders to continue with notion that democracy is just about the masses coming out to queue on the hot sun in the naming of voting, while superior economic program is  bringing into government: Harvard, Oxford, world bank or IMF  trained Africans, who have no or little knowledge of what is on ground in African villages and towns; and whose  thinking and perception are at poles apart with those of common Africans, to draw the  blueprint and watch over  these reforms, though this is not an attempt  at paying no heed to those experts; but results of their calculations are at far away with the expectations of African masses, nevertheless one has to admit that, we are in a situation where when we criticized government programmes, we delude from proffering best alternative programmes or solutions to the grey areas, and also when we laud government programmes we don’t endeavor to envisage their possible future failures.

 

Every thing we do in life is science; meaning, we think before doing it; the little algebra we leant at school are meant to make us use our heads, even to differentiate between a carrot and a stick; has President Obasanjo ever ask his reform team the pertinent question of: How, Where, When, What, Who, Which, etc of any of their plans; for instance, does Obasanjo ever ask Soludo, the short and long term repercussion of his banking consolidation; today, hundreds of jobs were lost and more jobs are continued to be under threat. One might not be a financial expert, but believe mega banks do naturally emerge, but also believe, since the CBN children in Nigeria refused to grow naturally, the ‘prefect’ has to drop catalyst in them to help them grow, however adequate arrangement most be put in place to accommodate the after–shot of the consolidation.

 

There is overwhelming consensus among Nigerians that we need to reform, particularly in the area of: education, roads and infrastructures, health care, employment and the polity. For instance our educational system, where passing classroom examin ation is much accentuated need to be massively restructured, this will propels research, inventions and innovations; at the long- run, we would have a knowledge driven economy; today India is massively recuperating the benefits of her investment in education.

 

Serious government placed the populace at foremost in taking any crucial decision, the local content we are talking about is, strongly involving the problems owners in any reform program, Nigeria’s, masses are the problem owners; no solution can go on to solve Nigeria’s problem without the greater participation of the problem owners, at the last stage of the reform, i.e. the implementation stage; because the masses know what they want, how they want and the way they want it; the usual problem definition and identification, techniqu e selection, model designing, simulation and the rest can be left to the experts, but we most strongly keep in our minds that any reform program can only bring fruitful result, when   sincerity   and  patriotism are made to be the guiding principles;  but with advent of third term project, these appeared  completely missing in Obasanjo’s heart, because today’s Nigeria  is like Obasanjo Otta farm, where the Nigerian masses are the caged chickens, ducks and rabbits; who Obasanjo can pick any occasion of his wish, slaughter  and have a delicious meal, or sell to a willing buyer, without being troubled, because they are all his, while th e political class are like the pigs in his farm who are always  in a ‘muck’ call corruption; he is sure of their rapturous applause by a throw of a little ‘hay’ and can come down like a ton of bricks on them at will; only those who proved  to be radical, not- easy- prey, and have at tip of their palms, account  his rambling  illegalities,  can escape booting from his dusty legs.

 

Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from 5B Abeokuta Street, Jimeta-Yola

zaymohd@yahoo.com