Poverty Aggravation Via Geriatric Predatory Autocracy

By  

Kòmbò Mason Braide, Ph.D.  

kombomasonbraide@msn.com

Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Thursday, 30 October 2003 @ 3:11 pm

Preamble:

“Better is a poor, and a wise child, than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished. For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor.”

- Ecclesiastes

“We are in an elected dictatorship.”

- Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN)

Democratic Re-Dictatorialisation:

According to an anonymous maxim of unknown origin, (though, very likely African), success has uncountable brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties, uncles, assorted extended family relations (too numerous to mention), fair weather friends, and even “Godfathers”, while failure is a scallywag, a mongrel, and/or a leprous orphan, that must be painstakingly avoided, by all means necessary. In Queen’s English, the above aphorism simply rehashes the conventional wisdom that normal earth beings tend to gravitate towards success, but are literally allergic to failure. In other words, success is sweet, and failure is bitter. However, certain tendencies, or/and attributes of “failed states” give credence to a new developmental axiom that completely contradicts the above assertion. In short, under certain conditions of national degradation, disintegration, and self-destruction, failure has company.

Ms. Susan Windybank, editor of “Policy”, (the quarterly journal of the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, Australia), is the co-author of a report on Papua New Guinea’s steady slide into anarchy. In summary, her report showed that “failed states” have certain predictable profiles of entrenched social, political, and economic dysfunction. We have taken the liberty to juxtapose the predicaments of both Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, vis-à-vis  the key factors of consideration in that report, applying past, present, and emerging scenarios, both in Papua New Guinea, and in the Federal Republic of Nigeria (in the Gulf of (Old?) Guinea!), so as to contextualise the problem of our discussion better.

Papua New Guinea is located on the eastern half of New Guinea, the second largest island on Planet Earth. New Guinea was colonised by both Germany and the United Kingdom in 1885, just about the same time as the so-called “Scramble for Africa”, post-Berlin Conference. While Papua New Guinea is rich in natural resources like timber, gold, copper, silver, natural gas, and crude oil, Nigeria is richer in mineral, aquatic, agricultural, and human resources. Yet both countries face a very dismal and whimsical future.

Their economies have for long stagnated, and the outlook for growth is depressingly hopeless. Corruption is rife in Papua New Guinea, just as it is pandemic in Nigeria. Essentially, in both countries, law and order have broken down almost completely, while executive impunity, political malevolence, and violent crime rates continue to escalate exponentially with time, with both governments struggling hard to maintain authority over certain sections of their respective countries. Should this downward trend continue, Nigeria, just like Papua New Guinea, could very easily become a “failed state” ultimately. What follows is a brief overview of the dysfunctional condition of two countries standing precariously on the verge of total systems collapse.

The Brotherhood Of Failed States:

At first glance, such cynicism may seem rather nihilistic, brash, simplistic, alarmist, or/and even irrational. After all, despite the difficulties of governing widely dispersed, and ethnically heterogeneous populations (of some 715 indigenous language groups in Papua New Guinea, and over 250 language groups in Nigeria), both countries have, somehow, managed to remain intact. In 1997, a peace process eventually brought an end to a devastating nine-year secessionist revolt in Papua New Guinea’s island province of Bougainville, after claiming some 20,000 lives, while a “no victor, no vanquished” deal in 1970, brought an end to an equally devastating secessionist attempt, in today’s South East, and South-South geopolitical zones of Nigeria (the Republic of Biafra, and the still-born Republic of Benin), after claiming over 1,000,000 souls.

Unlike Nigeria, and most former colonies of “Old Europe”, Papua New Guinea has maintained a record of nominal democracy since it attained independence in 1975 from Australia, itself, a former penal colony of Great Britain. Changes of government have been relatively hitch-free, and democratic. Nevertheless, the general mayhem, carnage, and fraud that characterised, and therefore, flawed the 2002 elections in Papua New Guinea, very much like the 2003 general elections held recently in Nigeria, indicate an escalating crisis of state legitimacy and governance.

Papua New Guinea’s population is projected to rise from its current 5.2 million, to about 9 million by 2025. Should conditions get worse for the citizens of Papua New Guinea, Australia would become the preferred target destination for a massive flood of both legal and legal immigrants and refugees, who could pose health hazards and security risks to Australia, given the relative prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, and violent crime in Papua New Guinea.

Similarly, with an estimated population of 127 million, and a population growth rate of 2.54 % per annum, Nigeria’s population is projected to over 225 million by 2025. Nigeria shares porous land or/and maritime borders with Benin Republic, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Malabo, and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome & Principe. Should internal political and economic conditions get worse in Nigeria, the West Africa sub-region would be the obvious destination of first choice, for a massive exodus of unwelcome and passionately resented Nigerian refugees. Clearly, the ECOWAS sub-region will not be able to effectively quarantine the dire consequences if Nigeria falls apart. A humanitarian disaster could follow Nigeria’s collapse.

Snatching Failure From The Jaws of Success:

Nigeria’s fragility has far-reaching sub regional, continental, and global security implications. Weak states are easy prey for terrorists and trans-national bandits. Although Nigeria has not yet been explicitly identified as a major target for international terrorism, a small but significant firearms-for- oil black market, whose driving force is the so-called “illegal bunkering” (i.e. stealing) of crude oil and petroleum products in the swamps of the Niger Delta, has already contributed to the scathing effects of rising crime and violence in that severely short-changed and traumatised region of Nigeria. The increased availability of, and resort to sophisticated weapons of rural terrorism make conflict resolution more difficult, and protracted, particularly when warlords, and hardened criminals (so-called “Godfathers”, and their “Godsons”, and “Goddaughters”) outnumber, outwit, and outgun Nigeria’s abysmally corrupt and inept police, and other security forces.

Grim prognoses for Nigeria’s future are growing, but the worst has not happened yet. Nigeria, like Papua New Guinea, has so far muddled through, despite severe and lingering economic mismanagement and political instability over a period of 30 years. Unfortunately, several trends suggest that each year of “sweeping Nigeria’s mess under the carpet” ultimately accentuates the likelihood of a catastrophic collapse of the polity.

Living standards and incomes have deteriorated significantly in both Nigeria and Papua New Guinea since independence. Revenues derived from natural resources, national assets, and generous foreign aid, have not been managed prudently. Infant and maternal mortality rates, HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, death rates, female fertility rates, and the proportion of the population below the global benchmark for poverty are higher in Nigeria than in Papua New Guinea, while GDP per capita, literacy rates, and life expectancy in Papua New Guinea are higher than in Nigeria.

In both Papua New Guinea and Nigeria, population growth is high, and job creation is near-zero. A rising mob of unemployed, and educationally sub-normal juvenile delinquents, particularly in the urban areas, has led to abject demoralisation, nurturing violent criminality (so-called “cultism”), and sporadic large-scale civil unrest. The pervasiveness, magnitude, and frequency of lawlessness are such that scare off both foreign and local investors, thus reinforcing a downward vicious spiral in which, not enough jobs are created, and the effective maintenance of law and order gets progressively worse, while crime escalates.

Violent crime has now spread to the rural areas of Nigeria, so much so that even farms and homes are no longer safe from village urchins, turned new breed local superheroes, “traditional Godfathers”, and “Area Men”. Villagers are robbed frequently while taking their goods to urban markets. Impassable roads that stretch endlessly across the nation make local commercial transactions difficult, and extremely risky. The resulting hardship is taking its toll on life in rural Nigeria, further exacerbating the massive exodus of rural folks into cities and towns, only for them to become “boy-boys”, “house girls”, “touts”, “okada” riders, “pure water” hawkers, or/and trainee bandits.

For over 30 years now, external donors like the US of A, the EU, Japan, Canada, and Australia have each played the usual role of the disinterested “Father Christmas”, respecting the so-called “sovereign rights” and/or “territorial integrity” of failed or failing states like Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, to make their own reckless choices, by supporting their so-called “home-grown” approaches to national development (and salvation). For example, with more than US$300 billion from petroleum-derived revenues alone in Nigeria, and some US$12 billion in direct aid to Papua New Guinea, from Australia alone, very little or no tangible development has taken place in both countries over the past quarter of a century.

Paradoxically, the very nature of foreign aid makes it part of the problem of failed or failing states, and not the solution. Dependence on external (and internal) donors has enabled some Nigerians and Papua New Guineans to live beyond their means, fooling themselves that they are a “new elite”. The governments of failing or failed states typically avoid, delay, postpone, or even suppress the need to tackle nagging national problems, simply because they know, and can always be confident that “help” from the benevolent wing of the “international community” (i.e. the US of A, the EU, Japan, Canada, and Australia) will always come to their rescue, somehow, just in time (to “consolidate the continuity of the chopping of the national cake”.)

Definitely, a fundamental re-think, review, and redesign of the Nigerian Project are unavoidable, and are indeed urgently needed. Conditions must be spelt out explicitly, and enforced rigorously on how Nigeria’s human, agricultural, solid mineral, aquatic, petroleum, hydro-electric, coal, solar, and other myriad energy resources are to be managed on behalf of Nigerians, by their representatives in active partisan politics. But then, even the very notions of strictly controlled national assets and natural resources are pointless, if executive brigandage persists with impunity.

Without measurable progress on such basic issues as comprehensive strategic (i.e. long-term) national development planning, fiscal discipline, and prosecutions for (mega, mini, macro- or/and micro-) corruption, no external support, no matter how well-intentioned, will have any meaningful impact on Nigeria’s deeply entrenched problems of aggravated poverty, and arrested development, occasioned by the moribund worldview of Nigeria’s geriatric predatory autocrats in power.

His Excellency, Chief (General) Olusegun Aremu Mathew Okikiolahan Obasanjo (GCFR), Nigeria’s Commander-in-Chief, President, and Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources, is fully aware of the issues that must be addressed for the benefit of over 127,000,000 Nigerians world wide: i.e. the urgent task of making Nigeria truly great. As for the unenlightened, a quick reference to the biblical injunction of our preamble should shed sufficient light on the root cause(s) of Nigeria’s seemingly intractable nightmarish progressive descent into being classified as a certified failed state.

It is high time we realise that Nigeria cannot risk the on-going meta-stable transition from 29 cumulative years of military dictatorship, through 4 years of predatory autocracy, only to end up as a failed state for perpetuity. (God forbid bad thing, ójàré). Our ultimate objective should be the complete “re-wiring” of Nigerians, poised for a better life in a stable democracy, here on earth, in Nigeria: not in Diaspora, or in a banana republic, or in a quasi-lunatic asylum that is governed by the inmates.

By Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Thursday, 30 October 2003 @ 3:11 pm

References & Sources:

1.      The Holy Bible: Ecclesiastes; Chapter 4; Verses 13 & 14; (King James Authorised Version).

2.      Akinjide, R.: “We're In Elected Dictatorship”; Vanguard Newspapers, Lagos, Nigeria; (24 October 2003).

3.      Windybank, S.: “Will Papua New Guinea Become a 'Failed State'?”; Global Policy Forum; 777 UN Plaza, Suite 7G, New York, NY 10017, United States of America (2003).

4.      Dawodu, S. T.: “The CIA In Nigeria: Coups Past, Present & Future.”; Vol. 2; No. 32; Baobab Press, P.O. Box 43345, Washington, DC 20010, U.S.A; (1992)

5.      The CIA World Fact Book: “Papua New Guinea: Introduction, People, Government & Economy”; Central Intelligence Agency, Washington DC, USA; (2002).

6.      The CIA World Fact Book: “Nigeria: Introduction, People, Government & Economy”; Central Intelligence Agency, Washington DC, USA; (2002).

Acknowledgement: