Cautiously Optimistic That Nigeria Will Survive Us All

By

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa

faroukomartins@aim.com

 

 

Nigeria stands a better chance of surviving all the onslaughts we throw at her than each and every one of us. The wind of change has been blowing for some years but we refuse to accept it. Whoever stands in the way will be crushed as men of timber and caliber have been. Many of them are still nursing their wounded egos, crying to be relevant in their constituencies while old age and menace they created in the society catch up with them.

 

As we tread forward, many achievements have gone unnoticed. While Etteh distracted us by good riddance to bad rubbish and those in their old age have turned world possession into ecstasy; our men, women and children are reaching higher at their chosen endeavors. Few great grannies think we are in the days of ancient Egyptians when their riches get buried with them to open the gate of heaven. Surrounded by glamour too old to enjoy, the godsons, beneficiary of their affluence do. Any Adedibu is unmoved by police or AG.

 

There was the story of the boy in the North who turned scrap engines into helicopters. Do you think any of those governors who are ready to pay anything for their helicopters and small planes will patronize him or Prof. Nnaji’s Aba Power plant? They will rather nickel and kobo their achievements into oblivion with imports. These are great improvisations that come from our backyards rather than from big government grants to realize dreams.

 

We also heard from those trying to produce abundance of cassava. Nigerians went back to the farms and produced large quantities of cassava to make us not only self sufficient but to be able to export food as we did in the sixties. There were also some intentions to make sure that a certain percentage of our bread contains home grown cassava. Alas, we can not link production and market together. Our competent planners are busy chasing loots at the government circles in the states and Abuja, wasting their god given talents.

 

We tag our political system as a mess but so was our judiciary. Guess who is coming to the rescue. Before we pop bottles of Sapele water, there are more disappointments to come from both our judiciary and political houses. But the atmosphere has changed. The wind of that change made Third Term fizzled, failed presidential hopefuls, saw the end of a few speakers, Senate presidents and revision of elected politicians in the last election.

 

Most of us rejoiced when the Supreme Court displaced Omehia but some of us can not understand why it ordered Rotimi Amechi who never contested election to be Governor.

When the US Supreme Court gave presidency to baby Bush, many Americans frowned. What type of democracy gave minority votes to Bush and Al Gore accepted the verdict?

Our Nigerian interpretation is that the Supreme Court knew that if another election was called, PDP would never field Amechi. So, he could have won the battle and lost the war.

 

See! See Nigerians. When we say EFCC can not fight gangsters armed with sophisticated weapons of mass “distraction” with shakabula or shakara, hypocrites cry foul! When the highest Court of the land did it and Fawehinmi cried foul, people said he is crazy. We know ourselves and how to rid ourselves of corruption but those who are rightly obsessed with decency have been hijacked by those obsessed with their share of naira loot.

 

Those bent on destroying everything unless they have their way forgot that the joker is better played as the last card, not for every round in the game. No matter how powerful we may be, divine nature calls for caution in the display of our might. The only constant entity is the people and their massive power to throw away the yoke that gets too heavy to bear. If Nicolae Ceauşescu had accepted his fate in Romania in 1989, he would not have gone back to meet his demise. We did not inveny corruption, we hyped it.

 

In retrospect, I still prefer the presidency of Yar’Adua to those who contested against him because he seems to have the fear of the people or their opinion. Some of us have noticed some subtle distance to his Attorney General crocodile’s cry for self-styled rule of law, in check? Nigerians are given credit anywhere in the world for their ability to beat any fool- proof system anywhere. Sometimes, I must admit that we have done it in a crooked way. It will even be more gracious if we can apply this magnificent gift to put our own house in order. With a Nigerian, my daughter told me some years ago, there is always a way.

 

Without World Bank’s cat call, foreign migrants are contributing by sending more money home than the so called foreign aids or loans spent only on goods and services from the donor countries. Their hard earned money supports bodies and souls uncared for at home by our Government. The money also creates services jobs and other industries especially in construction of houses. If those at home show judicious use of migrants’ money, more will come. Unfortunately there are fools that kill the goose that lay these golden eggs (Ipa npa ara re oloun npaja). I overheard two young men at a computer center swindling their uncle abroad on the phone for more money on his project and congratulating each other.

 

Trying to drive home our relatively paltry income, Ms. Ifueko Omoigui of the Federal Inland Revenue calculated N16.5 trillion made by Nigeria during Obasanjo’s tenure and surmised that it could only buy each Nigerian a computer. Since I do not want to feel bad for myself, why can’t we produce and buy our own new computer? We have Nigerians in every field of science and literature and there are many more at home that remanufacture old ones. We do not have to spend the little we make buying all finished goods when we can sell and use our own finished goods. It is not what you make but how you spend it.

 

Nigerians are capable of developing our own niche to become a leader in our own right. With our human potentials, we can devise a way to bring water to the deserts and the rest of the world may want to know how they can fight forest fires in California desert, hijack solar power as Japanese did with cars. Russia is ahead in space science, but it costs less than United States because all their related materials are Russian made. Nigeria Kwenu!

 

Our salvation may even come from the articulated science of voodoo economics while we make our trading partners dance to juju music at our command. There are witches all over the world using their talents for inventions. Whatever is fetish, archaic or dangerous in our talents, let us trade it away. We do not want to return with our talents unused, our maker will not be very happy with us. It all starts from you and me.