Are There Really No Alternatives In Nigeria?

By

Ahmad Sajoh, MNIPR

aisajo@Yahoo.com

Back in the eighties when General Ibrahim Babangida was the President of Nigeria, he introduced one of the most devastating policies in the country. It was called the Structural Adjustment Programme or SAP for short. That programme inflicted severe hardship on the people and even wiped away all traces of the middle class in the Nigerian economy.

SAP also introduced a new lingo in the lexicon of the Nigerian ruling elite. From then on everything introduced by the rulers in Nigeria is said to have no alternative. So it was then, and so it is even today. Any policy envisaged by the ruling elite is always considered the only option available. So today we are told that there is no alternative to deregulation.

And listening to the Chairman Nigeria Economic Summit Group Mazi Sam Ohuwabuwan expound the deregulation theory one begins to wonder whether the economics of the Nigerian state is indeed really different from that of the rest of the world. Even with the expose of the Venezuelan Ambassador, our ruling elite still think there is no alternative to deregulation.

If what the Diplomat said is new to some of us, it is definitely not new to our Minister of Petroleum and the Group MD of NNPC. Both of them lived and served in Caracas the Venezuelan capital as OPEC staff.

What then is really the problem? Are there really no ALTERNATIVES to policies enunciated by the Nigerian ruling elite? Are we so peculiar that ours is so totally different even within the context of a globalized world? Where exactly lay the problem?

First of all it is in the nature of the Nigerian state. Nigeria is undoubtedly one of the most backward neo-colonial peripheral dependent sates in the world. It operates a peudo-capitalist economic system that is neither here nor there. The capitalist system practiced in Nigeria is not developed enough to allow market forces genuinely determine who gets what, when and where. This is largely dependent on the vagaries of the ruling elite who in turn heavily depend on the dictates of external collaborators who help in milking the system dry.

Secondly we have ruling elite that is totally uncommitted to the progress of the Nation. Their commitment is essentially to themselves and their backers who keep their loot safe in foreign lands.

They operate in a clique and act as a cabal bent on scavenging on the resources of the nation to the last morsel. To them the people are simply some statistical data useful only in justifying expenditure through lofty budgets that are never implemented.

The third unfortunate factor is the existence a populace made up of people who have resigned to fatalism and prayers based on empty sermons by Mullahs and Clergy that are themselves collaborators in the raping of the nation and plundering of her resources.

In sum, we are suffering from structural inadequacy and the crass incompetence of ruling elite devoid of even the slightest modicum of patriotism. As a result, governance has been reduced to simple self service by the rulers. Democratic practices do not flourish because the people’s will is not supposed to matter.

A clear example is the 6000 megawatts of electricity promised Nigerians by December, 2009. With conflicting reports on the matter from diverse sources such as the Vice-President, the Ministers of Power and Information, the PHCN and lately the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, it is hard to really adopt what to believe in. However, the surest indicator of the truth of the matter is the huge budgetary allocation in the 2010 Appropriation Bill for alternative power generation in the Presidential Villa housing the President and the Vic-President.

Talking about the Villa, one is at loss as to the type of soldier-like termites at the place. A whooping N250Million was budgeted for fighting those powerful termites in the Villa. That amount is enough to provide my poor home village with 24 hour power supply for close to 5 years.

I am sure the N30Billion State House Budget will solve the power supply problem of my state permanently. Yet, N1.05Billion of that amount will only be used for just rehabilitation of buildings, maintenance of vehicles, repair of banquet hall and refurbishing of 10 houses.    

Where exactly will an alternative come for a nation that has spent close to 50 years recycling the same persons as leaders, same policies with different names and creating political dynasties made of beneficiaries of the status qua?

 

Ahmad Sajoh, is of the office of the Vice-Chancellor Adamawa State University, Mubi.