This article would have been written last Sunday so it could appear before the 62nd independence anniversary of our country, marked yesterday. I waited to run with the title you have with you this morning. It wasn’t my intention to play the spoiler’s role at all. We have nothing substantial to celebrate but our leaders will pull out the red carpet to celebrate tokenisms. What is not worth a glance they give full attention to the point of veneration and celebration.
We saw that this year. We saw leaders celebrating non-events. They have become incurable optimists, who tell us about a future that is very beautiful and holds out plenty of great fortune. They say this even when the foundation they should have laid within these 62 years are non-existent. We have crude oil which God in his benevolence gave us in great commercial quantity, but everywhere else where the black gold has been found, such places have been transformed into very habitable spaces courtesy of huge revenue earnings from the sale of the commodity in the international market.
In our case it has been more like a curse. After more than 60 years of nationhood, with so many tertiary institutions dotting the land, we can›t explore with indigenous technology what God has blessed us with; we still rely on foreign expertise to do virtually everything. As we celebrate 62 years we can›t say with exactitude what is the actual quantity of oil we drill from our land. Meeting our quota has become such a big task, increasingly looking like an insurmountable responsibility. Governments, by which I mean the president, state governors and local government chairmen tell us they can›t explain the reason, while in the open, unpatriotic elements, some of them backed by people in power, break the pipes to scoop crude for private sell.
Security agents meant to provide security have become billionaires trading in illegal crude acquisition yet those in power and authority say they don›t know what is happening. No need to talk about a country that gives oil well ownership to individuals. I was in Israel and the question a security chap called me aside to want to know was why my country gives ownership of oil wells to individuals. He told me they can›t understand the style, because the task at all times should be government working hard to close the economic gap between citizens. He told we widen the gap when individuals take over commanding heights of a nation›s economy.
There is no sense of ownership of Nigeria. This is the chief reason everyone behaves like buccaneers. Contrary to the position many of our leaders hold about our founding fathers, except for Nnamdi Azikiwe, the rest were not altruistic in their motives. Nearly all were ethnic jingoists. If you doubt pick their statements and educate yourself on their views on and positions about Nigeria and actions. What they entrenched, the military which was not supposed to venture into the political space, exacerbated. Scholars have since held on to the position that members of the military who shot their way to political offices were part of the limited political class.
They were urged to step in when their civilian collaborators ran themselves into avoidable mess. So from Independence till today we have not laid a foundation upon which our country should run. There has been no successful discussion whatsoever. The result is the scattered vision we see each time new leaders mount the saddle. This explains why the military while in power cannibalised the political architecture in a manner that has made it a source of far greater troubles, obstructions and instability. Leaders use killing as political tool because there is no sense of bonding. So much empty shout of ‘One Nigeria’ fills the space, yet it is more about sloganising than work in progress.
A glaring evidence of the point being made can be found in the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari: he waves the nationalist flag ferociously and never tired of insisting that, “national unity is non negotiable.” In power he has ran the most hegemonistic and nepotistic administration ever to grace our country since Independence. It is now agreed that Nigerians are today more divided there has ever been the case at any other time. The consequences of not negotiating Nigeria is glaring and very costly.
Today, far good number of citizens don’t believe in the country again. The country is becoming very hostile for habitation. The economy is closing space for self-actualization. Over 150 million out the estimated population of 200 million citizens don’t have jobs. Food security is not there. All features of a failed nation state are here with us. The central government has lost control of its territory. We can’t find agreement on simple matters like federalism, issue of multiple layers of security has become a very controversial matter. Only in our peculiar kind of arrangement will one find the Federal Government in Abuja owning a major street in Aba city, Abia State or feeding pupils in local governments.
The good news is that our challenges are not unsolvable; they are identifiable and solvable if only we will resolve to find them and provide right answers. If one were to offer a view, I would say it is a human problem. A serious case of wisdom deficiency syndrome. We need new leadership personnel but before this we must agree to sit down and renegotiate basis for the New Nigeria. There are many issues hanging and until we untie them and bring them to rest on the ground the jerking hindering movement won’t cease. We must create units that can economically engineer life of their own. I am talking about a productive economy, without which we are not in competition.
It is time to bring in well tutored minds to drive the vehicle of power and authority management. Men and women who will run on reason, rigorous thinking, create rules and ensure they are applied without discrimination. Small issues matter so much in nation building. For instance, traffic congestion is against economic boom. My relation came in from America and after a nasty experience had this to say to me: “Some things you guys do here on the streets you can’t try them in America or you go to jail straight irrespective of who you think you are. I saw big men in convoy of cars running against traffic, your airlines cancel flights without notice.”
Let’s talk and from it create a grand vision which every leader must follow once they come into office. Let us have a synergy between all tiers of government in terms of vision. In 30 years we will have a great country respected across the world. Israel 73 years ago was not in existence; 73 years after it is a first world nation yet it is not blessed with natural resources like us. We truly have lessons to learn. We must learn them quickly. We can make it if we really want.