Nigerians

Nigerians: Your Poverty is Constitutionally Sanctioned

Abdullah Musa

Any person, who had shown casual interest in the affairs of Nigerians by either reading the newspapers or listening to the radio stations, would have come to the conclusion that poverty was and still is the main problem confronting many Nigerians.

The quality of life had deteriorated so very badly that Nigerians seemed to have achieved the impossible: going back to live in the past: the time for instance when they had no access or did not even know what electric light meant. There are so many things that have gone wrong besides electric power supply: water supply is another; security of lives and properties, and affordable health care can also be added.

When many Nigerians were expressing anger at the governance period of Chief Obasanjo, they always mentioned that they were more miserable in this period than at any point in the life of the nation. What distinguished the period when Obasanjo held sway from any other? It was the fact of ever rising international price of crude oil, and Nigeria’s bulging external reserves as a consequence of same.

You do not need a Professor of Economics to tell you that Nigerians are completely dependent on oil to survive, to be comfortable if possible. I come to this conclusion for Nigerians had never related their need to be comfortable to factors such as plentiful rainfall, or markets for the products from their industries. This must be so for they do not depend on either for their well-being. They want to guzzle the proceeds of the sale of crude oil.

If the reader would not be bored; that is, if he had followed my write-ups consistently, he would have one day come across my reference to an interview conducted with one of the agitators from Niger- Delta, (the hell from where the oil springs) who responded to a question on why they should not turn their attention to agriculture, by saying: we would die before the crops grow. What he meant was simply that he no longer had any time to clear the farm, harrow, plough, plant, weed, and so on in order to harvest something which might sell below its cost of production; when with luck, within a day from either legal or ‘illegal’ bunkering you may be a millionaire in dollars!

When people lament our poor reading culture, they may not necessarily be implying that reading makes one wealthy. What is certain is that reading, particularly widely, makes one knowledgeable. When you are knowledgeable, you are able to make informed judgment, to choose better from a variety of options; to in real fact become more rational in either your expectations or the cause of your problems. It is not surprising that average Nigerians do not ‘waste’ time reading; or where they read at all, they read the wrong stuff, and must as a consequence come to wrong conclusions.

Were I a university don, with students learning from me, I would counsel them to read one book with the following title: Who won the oil wars; written by Andy Stern, © Conspiracy Books, 2005.

The author takes the reader on a very frank journey all over the globe, showing the reader the reasons behind most of the known world conflicts, and unfortunately why they would even be bloodier in the future. The main reason according to him is the desire to control the sources of natural resources, particularly oil. He added that it is part of the order of the present world that few nations where oil is extracted really benefit from the wealth that is derived from ‘their’ oil. The ‘seven sisters’, (the multinationals that control oil extraction and marketing) are not really charitable, neither are they humane. They can without qualms topple governments, eliminate any form of protest against their ‘right’ to explore, and more appropriately expropriate oil resources. He gave the example of an African country, where the ruler signed an ‘agreement’ to sell oil for THREE DOLLARS a barrel for a long time to come!

With this knowledge, and with prior knowledge as to the workings of the capitalists’ world, I never really was surprised over our poverty, misery, or both. But many Nigerians would rather believe that they have oil resources which should simply be judiciously used to make them comfortable, without them sweating it out: they want their Paradise here and now.

But our title alludes to the role of the Constitution in sanctioning poverty for the average Nigerian. Yes, this is so, but the background given above is to serve as an ‘eye opener’ for those willing to see beyond their sentiments. One would have wished that the Niger-Deltans were more rational, more informed as to the ways of the world. They would have wished to have stayed in greater Nigeria, taking the same crumbs available to others who are not from the ‘cursed’ areas and enjoying the liberty of setting up shop from Sokoto to Maidugri or even to Yola in Adamawa without the need for either visa or residence permit. But their elites, called freedom fighters for convenience and the need for legitimacy, would not tell them that. The hopes of such elites is that they take the place of those who are now chanced to run a federal government in Nigeria, being able to take a larger slice of the cake and feeding their people crumbs just as was done before the ‘emancipation’. It is not nice being naïve my bothers and sisters.

Recently, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, with an unbridled air of Constitutional powers, approved jumbo pay and other perquisites to political office holders, some say including top civil servants like Permanent Secretaries. Such Constitutional robbery for instance entitles a member of House of Representatives like Honorable Patricia Etteh to receive a whopping 44MILLION NAIRA as starters just for representing a federal constituency from her state. This very ‘meager’ (sum from the perspective of RMAFAC) is to ensure that she and all her colleagues become comfortable without resorting to a kind of EttehGate, to which she in particular succumbed, inspite of the jumbo package. (From the perspective of a poor Nigerian like me who can hardly pay his children’s school fees nor afford expensive medical care.)

From my little experience with numbers, 44 million naira would pay the salary of any person earning N50, 000 for a period of 880 months. These numbers of months would translate to at least SEVENTY THREE YEARS of consistent payments. At one go, a representative of a poor farmer; artisan; average business man; normal civil servant; would earn what will take any of these in the above-mentioned category, 73 years to earn! Starting a career in the present civil service, you cannot earn N50,000 per month. But a secondary school leaver, who took the gamble and won an election into the House of Reps, would end up with a jackpot of 73 years wages constitutionally. If you start work by 21 years of age, you must leave by the time you are sixty years. Just for reporting to the House of Reps, the secondary school leaver would excel the graduate’s lifetime career by 13 years. We should not forget that the ‘golden rep’ would still be earning the monthly jumbo salary for the next four years; and another jumbo severance package, (similar to the welcome package cited above) awaits him or her at the exit gate! How nice! How Constitutional! How egalitarian! How Just! And above all, how democratic! The Hausas have a saying that best describes this type of insanity: Mai doki ya koma kuturi! In a nutshell, the master, (the voter) is now the slave of the voted. (The Rep, Senator Etc; you name them, for you elected them)

To close the gory tale, I leave the reader with the description of a cartoon in one Western publication depicting the relationship between Syria and Lebanon. Assad was depicted facing the Lebanese leader, who was drawn having a dagger marked ‘Syria’ deeply embedded in his back. He pulled the tie of Assad and pointed to the embedded dagger saying: “I want a complete pullout”; to which the Syrian replied: “it hurts me to hear you say that”.

On my part, I say to the ‘servant-leader’: I want a complete pull-out from this crazy Nigerian democracy. Without reading his lips, I am sure it would hurt him to hear me say that. Does it also hurt you to hear me say it? You must be amongst those lucky to represent themselves, and yet be allowed to literally debi da kan ka!