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Nigerians! What Are We Really Talking About... By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
Nigeria, the land of the extraordinaire, a land where it all happens, a land that never ceases to amaze many, the land of Generals, from the good, the very good, sometimes the best, to also the bad, ugly and dirty, the land famed for the biggest fraud called PDP. A lot has been written about us, much more will still be written. We welcome another New Year, a year pregnant with events that would make or mar the future of the nation, but who really cares because we are again following the status quo, going the same old vicious circle. A circle of greed, corruption, bad leadership, docile citizenry, confused government, a badly prepared diet of rice, yam and corn with cocoa-yam stew, a meal prepared by a group of insane chefs in a kitchen that suffers want in the midst of plenty.
What more for a populace that believes that 'god' is a Nigerian or that there is a Nigerian 'god' and somehow we feel, we will still scale through, call it faith, call it perseverance, call it foolishness, call it being politically naive, whatever term we apply, it is just that inherent thing that makes us Nigerians, because strangely we sail through...The Nigerian in Nigeria and the Nigeria in a Nigerian you might want to say...
Only at the tail end of last year I had resolved that I would take a more deeper and retrospective outlook to this never-ending experiment called Nigeria from as many positives that I can lay my hands on. The more I thought of it, the more sickening it was for me and I am sure a considerable amount of Nigerians feel the same way. I took a close look at the number of Nigerians both home and abroad that are doing well in various fields of endeavour, I took a census of the figures in both Naira, Dollars, and Pounds spent on Energy, Education, Healthcare, Infrastructural Development, Sports, Security, Roads, Info-tech, Transport...in the running of government I got stock as the figures defied my small calculator, the trillions that have gone in managing our democracy.
The enormous material resources, the natural endowments at our disposal and the colossal waste that greets it and I concluded that we are a nation of miscarriage before pregnancy.
I tried to make sense of the nonsense we have become over the years, in months we will be 47 years old and nearing a golden jubilee and still crawling, still sucking, and younger nations, lesser democracies are chewing the big bite of development, forward thinking, positive strategizing and we are making speeches and drawing plans on the board. I cannot but wonder what we are talking about, we just defy logical reasoning, we are a rule to an exception, the grossly unusual is usual to us...can anyone explain that a man buys a bag of beans at N5 and sells at N5000 and still is bankrupt, still complains about lack of business capital, continues to sell the infrastructure that the business depends on, this same man saves up money he calls foreign reserve for the future while the present is in jeopardy of collapse. The man sells his beans to other people that bag the beans and sells back to him, and then the man and his big 140 million family members suffer a lack in protein.
In the last couple of weeks into the New Year we have had to contain another fuel crisis, with the commodity being sold in places for as much as N150 per liter as against the N65 official rate, in far away places like Adamawa, Maidugiri down to Port Harcourt, Aba to Lagos it sold for as much as N1200 for a 4 Liter gallon and we say nothing is wrong, better put, nobody owes us an explanation, it is in this light that I ask Nigerians...what are we really talking about in 2007.
We have started the year in the business as usual style that has become our trademark. We have an election in the next couple of months and what are we really talking about...What are the demands of the electorates beyond the ordinary...Nigerians want the basics of life, good shelter, good food and affordable healthcare. They want a plan that can guarantee a future for them, they want to know that home is good. Nigerians in diaspora want to come back to a home that works. Those in the country do not want to leave. We want roads that are not death traps. A political structure that despite all the political munbo jumbo would still work.
What are really talking about, in terms of labour, the federal government is still insisting on its ill-informed right and down sizing but what do we really care. Would the present administration be able to pay up all the pension arrears it owes? All the hurried sales of our mutual heritage in the name of privatization, is it not a case of buyers beware? The government is awarding all sorts of contract from the supply of tomatoes to another FESTAC like drama, draining the national purse through unexplainable bazaars and it is striking that this is the same government that cancelled all contracts that its predecessor got into six months before.
We are all out analyzing the pros and cons of this and that candidate, arguing about whether Atiku should be sacked or Obasanjo should be impeached when in truth both men have abused the collective sanity of Nigerians. They have exploited our amnesia to their benefit, what are we talking about, they both rigged the 2003 election together, lets not forget that where there is Tom, Jerry is not far away. We are asking the President to follow due process in removing his Vice but what are we talking about, has Obasanjo ever followed due process, is it so difficult for us to see that we have a Supreme Court in Aso Rock where the Presiding Judge is Mr. President?
Nigerians on the street care less about all these squabbles, especially when it has no significance to the quality of life they live. The Vice President is on vacation in US when many Nigerians due to the hike in petroleum products could barely move from their homes to amusement parks, much more their respective villages. What are we talking about, will the present administration be able to achieve one thing, one basic thing...? Rural electrification is zero, I pass through villages whose only claim to electricity is the high tension cables that pass through them. Others have transformers but no light. Water supply...Oh that I can tell better because I live in a city that literally has none.
Education in the last year was one of the most maligned sectors in governance but who really cared and who cares even today, and again I ask what are we really talking about. We have one President at the moment that has failed in that sector, and with several Presidential hopefuls, can we say that any of them has a master plan for success. A wannabe Presido promised a Ministry for Niger Delta Affairs, while the present President has remained the Minister For Petroleum, yet that has been in the performance index of Ministries one of the worst in terms of accountability.
We are all critics in our own right but have we really talked about what matters most, that while we have engaged in infinitesimal arguments that sometimes are as clear as the sun can be from the moon we have left out the very important. Is it far from the truth that we may say that somehow from a couple of Presidential hopefuls we may have an ideological base but that these men will still have to work with a system that is morally bankrupt, epidemically inept, grossly inefficient and already compromised despite all the noise of reforms.
We are all talking but the fact is that we have barely spared time to listen, away from the battle of the titans, PDP versus ANPP, the clash of riggers, PDP versus AC, the confusion that is called INEC, the deceit of free and fair elections, what exactly is at stake? What really are the campaign issues, is Nigeria all about reforms and "I jail my son if found corrupt"?
Has anyone thought about how we can be self sufficient as a nation, have we talked about our unity as a people, have we talked about how we can make the rural farmer happy to remain in the farm and feed the nation, how about primary health care, do we not see that we are millions of step backwards in industrialization? What are we really talking about when the telephone booth in the Nigerian Embassy in UK is not functional. What are really talking about in a system that habours the likes of Andy Uba, Adedibu, Madueke, gives honors to men like Ahmadu Ali.
Are we not even embarrassed by ourselves, we are governed by a lawless bunch, a 'confused' (and I beg for lack of words) Attorney General who makes a mess of the basics of primary law. A nation where due to lack of cohesion everybody has become an authority in constitutional law when the picture is as clear as water in a glass cup. For how long shall we continue this colonization of Nigerians by Nigerians and foreigners. When will our own slave trade end...
Its a New Year, some many months ago, a Chinese firm came into the country with aim of manufacturing mobile handsets, they set up factory, infact the then Minister For Communications commissioned the place in Abuja, few months later, the company rather than manufacture, simply was assembling...that was not too much of a problem, other than it was a breach of understanding that it was going to manufacture. At the commissioning, the government praised the "jobmen" for employing Nigerians and the usual niceties of such occasions. Today, the whole factory is full of dust, scattered debris or maybe handset spare parts. Those that were on hand as workers on the commissioning day were actually hired for two days and paid N2000 each as actors for the ceremony.
The above is just a tip...this is our story as a nation, while a set of Nigerians are toiling for the good of country, a set are working so hard to earn a decent living, another set called leadership exploits our lack of purpose and the circle sadly goes round and round, before the year which has already commenced in earnest goes far, can we again ask ourselves what are we really talking about as a nation, as a people, as individuals...Nigeria can be better, lets start talking about the real issues and put a stop to continuos decline. May the Almighty Allah help us!
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