Why Nigeria is a Basket Case By Chido Onumah

Why Nigeria is a Basket Case
By
Chido Onumah

About a week ago, I received an article from an Internet newsgroup. It was a political commentary by Dr. Patrick Wilmot, eminent sociologist and former lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State. In his piece, Wilmot castigated Nigerian leaders, accusing them of fiddling while more than 200 of the nation’s citizens perished in a petroleum fire. He noted that while Nigerian leaders specialized in accumulating wealth, becoming richer every year, the citizens sunk deeper into poverty. According to Wilmot, "in 20 years China's absolute poor sank from 56 per cent of the population to 12 per cent. In 30 years Nigeria's rose from 20 per cent to over 70 per cent. Today China is a world power, Nigeria a basket case".

Wilmot was not done. "In no other country in the world, with the possible exception of George Bush's America, do leaders show more contempt, less compassion, for their poor citizens," he said. "If a man who has stolen billions from the nation announces a party to celebrate a successful operation on his ingrown toenail in Europe, every Big Man from the farthest corner of the country rushes forth like rats from their holes in search of cheese. An explosion at one of these ‘society’ weddings, naming ceremonies or funerals would decimate the entire ruling class . . . Many Nigerian politicians, especially those with a military background, possess modern farms where they raise livestock. They provide nutritious food, clean water, sanitary housing, the latest medicine and the best veterinary services. They have an interest in the welfare of their animals because they want to make profits. If they had the same interest in their citizens, Nigeria would be a far better place and 70 per cent of the population would not be classified as dirt poor."

Wilmot has enough reason to be angry at Nigerian leaders. In 1988 the Jamaica-born writer and activist was kidnaped and forcibly deported from Nigeria to the United Kingdom by the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. But I don’t think that is the cause of his anger. For one who lived in Nigeria during the oil boom and the attendant wastage, Wilmot knows the trouble with Nigeria. This is not the first time he has had reason to take a swipe at Nigerian leaders. In February, Wilmot was in Nigeria where he urged civil society to take action to save the country. Then he had remarked in an interview that he came to Nigeria many years ago after his studies at Yale University in the U.S. because he thought "Nigeria had the possibility of becoming a great country that would transform the whole of Africa".

Wilmot like many Nigerians and non-Nigerians believed that Nigeria with its vast resources would be the "Great Black Hope". It has turned out to be a forlorn hope. "I saw that the leadership, except for General Murtala Muhammed, was without ambition, Wilmot noted. "It was without vision, it was without intelligence, it was without competence, it was without integrity. People were not going into government to transform the Nigerian economy or to benefit the ordinary Nigerian. They were in government for one purpose only: to control power and to use that power to steal. They take the money outside Nigeria and put it into banks and institutions. This is totally opposed to every other nation in history of the world. In a normal nation, corrupt, powerful brutal leaders go out and plunder other countries and bring it back into their own country."

I have taken the liberty to quote Wilmot extensively because he captures the tragedy of leadership in Nigeria. There is very little to add to his comments. The problem is that we have become too inured to suffering and mediocrity that we are in awe of any palliative that comes our way. We expect so little from our leaders that we tend to lose sight of the larger picture. Those who criticize our leaders for doing too little, in the midst of so much wealth, are accused of being impatient and ungrateful. Recently, Nigeria celebrated Democracy Day, seven years since the country returned to civilian rule after 16 years of military dictatorship. There was a lot of backslapping by the Obasanjo administration. We were told that Nigeria had been repositioned and that democracy had brought remarkable and measurable progress that reverberates in all sectors of the economy

How do we measure progress? This is the president’s response: "In 1999, there were 400,000 telephone lines, now we have about 20 million lines. Expenditure on water supply has increased by 65 per cent. And as a testimony to our growth, viewers especially in Europe, the United States and others in the Diaspora will be able to receive the signals of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) effortlessly soon. The agriculture sector has taken a quantum leap with a growth rate of eight per cent and set to reclaim its status as a major revenue earner, just as the health sector has shed its hitherto moribund garb and industrial capacity utilisation is picking up. We have also witnessed remarkable changes both in number and quality of our roads and transportation systems."

Obasanjo’s success story comes on the heels of a report by finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that the federal government received and disbursed 11 trillion naira from June 1999 to December 2005. This figure doesn’t take into account money generated by other tiers of government (state and local). I don’t know which country the president was talking but Nigeria doesn’t show any sign of a country that has received and spent so much. As the Guardian noted in its editorial, "What happened to 11 trillion naira?" April 27, 2006, "The publication has shown in black and white what has snowballed into the worst kept secret in Nigeria - that naira for naira value - there is not enough to show for the largest and longest-running income boom since the foundation of this country. Physical infrastructure is decrepit and social infrastructure is febrile all over the country and yet we appear determined to budget huge sums at Federal, state and local governments year on year".

According to the Guardian, "Destination Nigeria would have become a haven if 11 trillion naira was truthfully spent in the public interest within six odd years. This publication is a rueful commentary on the size of our collective greed. It is all so very sad at the thought of what could have been: A chance to build a prosperous, responsive and republican society that would push its civilization in all directions of the new world order. Instead, Nigeria can, at present, be rightly characterized as a society unconscionably corrupted by its elite, where ‘prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the masses’ has been evident and life expectancy in the mid-40s".

What is the true position of healthcare in Nigeria? Why do public officials still fly overseas at the slightest discomfort (it has become the fad to die in a London hospital) if as the president noted "the health sector has shed its hitherto moribund garb"? What is the infant mortality rate? What is the doctor/patient ratio? How many Nigerians can afford to see a doctor once a year? How many graduates are able to find employment in Nigeria today? I don’t have the figures, but I am sure they are really troubling. What is the living condition of the average Nigerian?

Is life better today for the poor and disadvantaged than it was seven years ago? Of course, not! Nigeria produces crude oil, yet we pay more for petrol and petroleum products than other countries that get their supplies from Nigeria. Let’s forget potable water and regular power supply, (we are used to "pure" water, generators and candles) the daily loss of lives on our highways does not support the president’s "remarkable changes both in number and quality of our roads and transportation systems". What about education?

Recently, the Punch newspaper reported the Kwara State Police Command bemoaning the involvement of undergraduates in criminal activities, especially armed robbery. "Most of the armed robbery suspects arrested since January and kept in police custody were undergraduates from tertiary institutions across the state," the police said. "We are surprised at the trend. In the past, we had always presumed that only the jobless went into armed robbery. But these days, we discover that undergraduates have taken over robbery in the command."

Armed robbery is no longer the "preserve" of the jobless. How reassuring that those who are training to take over from the current crop of leaders have started so early to learn the ropes! This is the legacy of the marauding band we call leaders. The only thing they have done is steal from us and mortgage our future.

It would probably take a lifetime to detail the difference 11 trillion naira would have made in the lives of Nigerians. The lesson from all this is that we need to hold our leaders more accountable. So when next you hear someone talk about reforms, the dividends of democracy and the progress we have made, you need to ask: progress in relation to what?

conumah@hotmail.com