The Problem With Nigeria

The Problem With Nigeria: Hilary Clinton’s Angle

Segun Imohiosen

“The solution to Nigerian problems lies in cultivating or the emergence of visionary, purposeful and effective leaders who are true democrats, and don’t yield to greed, praise-singing and sycophancy. They don’t have to be perfect!” Joe Igietseme.

In the words of Joe Igietseme, it is apparent that Nigeria truly does not need a Superstar to lead us in order to bail the country out of the socio-political and economic quagmire it has been plunged. The economic meltdown making rounds in the tongue of virtually all, is not what the country should really be bothered about in that even before the meltdown Nigeria has not really been any the better as it were. But as an ardent believer in Nigeria, irrespective of this meltdown the country could still be turned around for the better. Those who are of the opinion that Nigeria is a failed state have a right to their leaning. As some feel that they have put so much in the country but the country has not paid them back in any way. As such, the understanding at some quarters is that Nigeria has violated and raped them to the point that they are becoming too weak to plough anything good back to the country. And as I have repeated in a number of my observation that the situation is that of Samuel Barclay Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’, of course ‘Godot’ will never come and all may eventually die shamefully someday without remedy due to endless wait for a change that may never appear if the right irons are not put in the furnace.

Unfortunately, the country has so much played into the hands of her African brothers, neighbours and the westerns to the point that it has to take the American Secretary of State to tell the country what has been wrong so far with the polity and that has eaten so deep into the fibre of the nation to the point that Nigeria is crying out droplets of blood. The challenge in this is that the continuous drop of the blood may cease some day and without blood the continuing existence of course may be cut short. The central focus of the town hall talk in Clinton’s visit is about the incessant corrupt practices, bad governance, irresponsiveness and irresponsibility of government. This observation may be difficult to be faulted as it is in line with the experience of the country in the last one decade of democracy. The government is not bad in itself rather the caliber of insensitive people who have turned the national economy into a cauldron where they scoop at the expense of the poor masses.

Hilary Rodham Clinton, the American Secretary of State may have chosen as much as possible the diplomatic language she could muster to appear a little not too tough on the system but the language is not lost on any practical listener, what is not good has no other name than bad, that is simply the communiqué of her entire talk. As far as I am concerned, what Hilary, wife of former President of America has just said is not any different from what the husband Bill Clinton once said years ago. The only difference I could see in all of this is that a man delivered this some years back but a woman-wife of the former American President delivered same years after. What then is the difference? The point is where do we go from here?

In one of the on line forums where the NIDOA features, it was said that “LOOTING and CORRUPTION in Nigeria have become a national past-time and recreation and entertainment to amuse the poverty-stricken masses - too dazed to even react!” We cannot say otherwise because the situation has become so endemic that the possibility for a way out for the poor masses is becoming more and more difficult by the day. All of these are the things that Clinton was saying in her visit at the town hall meeting in diplomacy. Nigeria cannot continue to pay lip service to the situation but a drastic, purposeful, in fact, a daring one at that is what is expected in the system to bring about the long awaited change. It is not that the result will almost be immediate but structures that make for a desire change would or ought to be visibly seen to birth this change.

The visiting US Secretary of State could not disguise her disappointment in both the government and the system. The disconnect in the tiers of government is one of the things she observed as being strongly responsible for the vexing situation in the country. In her language, she intoned that “The most immediate source of the disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and its poverty is a failure of governance at the federal, state and local levels." This simply translates to mean that the working of the system has not been apparent enough; enshrouded in some form of clandestine and cryptic pattern as it were. Harping on the path the government is run as being irresponsible; the reason why Nigeria has possibly not been able to show real positive substance for democracy since inception. Clinton reflected that "Lack of transparency and accountability has eroded the legitimacy of the government and contributed to the rise of groups that embrace violence and reject the authority of the state".

Governance has failed in Nigeria as observed by Clinton as she explain the paradox in Nigerian State in terms of the potential and the resources God has endowed the country with but the waste on the part of few and the unfortunate situation that is attendant to the issue, the inability of the country to have anything to show for the welfare of the citizenry which ought not to be so, considering what is available at its doorstep. The enormous gain accrued from the resources available at her disposal is not benefitting the generality of her people because of the lack of accountability and transparency. It is further denigrating as she observed that Nigeria is the fifth largest oil producer in the world and still importing oil does not show good governance.

If you asked my candid opinion, the poverty, squalor and frustration among the citizens cannot be pretended. There is no doubt that a very few in the society has access to the real basic necessities of life whereas a larger percentage of the people live at below the accepted international standard. If Clinton in her short visit could make reference to this, it is not that somebody went to feed her this in her room within the very short period of her stay but these are things opened to the entire world. I have many times chided the foreign media for being sectional and capriciously anti-African in their reportage due to distorted fact and inadequacies. But then, it is not that those things they say are totally untrue, it is just the incomplete, insufficient and disabled delivery of the reports that undermines it. The heart of the matter is that the collapse of the country seems imminent if matters arising as observed by Clinton are not taking seriously. The point remains that we did not as a nation get to where we are suddenly; it was due to the carelessness of those who ran the country that were not very careful in handling its socio-political and economic policy.

As far as the visit is concerned, there are very strong issues raised which the leaders have to attend to. One very encouraging factor is the hand of fellowship the American Government through the visiting Secretary of State has promised to give Nigeria in the area of anti-graft campaign to fish out the culprits and to give information when necessary to the government in their move to fight corruption. She added: "We want to see the reinstatement of a vigorous corruption commission. The EFCC, which was doing well, has kind of fallen off in the last one year. We will like to see it come back to business to be able to partner with us." She is of the opinion that until this is in place, Nigeria will not be encouraging to investors for investment opportunity and the reputation of the country will further be jeopardized on the note of corruption, until this is addressed, the country will not be able to attract the positive. In fact, she did not mince words to say that the future of the country lies in the hands of Nigerians to fix the country for the common good of all. In her delivery, she said Nigeria should have been part of the G20 but corruption denied her that place. And according to her, Nigeria has lost well over $300billion in the last three decades due to corruption and mismanagement.

However, issues on electoral reforms and commitment to the rule of law were brought to the fore by Clinton on the strength of credible elections. Though Mr. President acknowledged the fact that there is a serious challenge in that area on the point that it goes beyond the rule of law but attitude which has a serious effect on the integrity of the electoral process. She however, reflected the interest of the US President Barrack Obama that his administration will be most willing to work with the Federal Government of Nigeria to have an acceptable transition programme come 2011. She said: "There must be a truly independent electoral system run by independent group of people. There must be political parties that are rooted at the grassroots for party internal democracy to be enshrined"

My take in all of this bothers on the workability of the entire thing said at the town hall meeting by the visiting US Secretary of State. If only our people could just look inward for a change and see the pivotal position God has placed Nigeria among the comity of nations to make good this enviable God given place, we will be the better of it all. Nigeria is in the eye of the entire world but we are not considering this fragile state of affairs as it is. The country ought to have gone beyond this level a long time ago. The challenge is that the basic infrastructures that could make life meaningful for the ordinary citizen is what all is clamouring for which is not out of this world. The huge amount of money that has been voted to power has not brought about any result worthwhile so far, in fact the 6,000 mega watts talk on power appeared to too many as a ruse. The country needs at this point to quickly do something for the common good of the citizenry to alleviate the hardship.

Segun Imohiosen writes from Abuja.