A popular radio public affairs contributor in my area has “call a spade a spade” as his entry signature. This choice has made him a popular voice. The reason this is so is that we all like to speak diplomatically while negative developments go from bad to worse, then to worst, and finally disorder, instability, conflicts and attendant fatalities both in material and human terms. This man has become the toast of listeners because minus those who benefit from chaos, the vast majority agree that our country has moved from the precipice into an inferno and people are tormented. Therefore, it is time we tell ourselves the hard truth. “Conscience is an open wound only truth heals,” a popular saying. Ours is a country in turmoil.
Those who always ask for empirical evidence need not go far or expend much effort to find one. All they need do and they will have enough is to take their notes and pen and watch events unfold daily. They definitely would have their fill. They would see that 95 percent of citizens walk around scared and very angry. Smiles have become very costly commodity. I once asked one of the best trained civil servants this country has produced who just passed on very recently, Elder Bitte Nwanju, why citizens won’t ordinarily be happy seeing each other and relations. He laughed and asked me if I didn’t know that a hungry man would always be an angry man.
The answer struck a chord quite alright but I am yet to find out what makes it so; I have carried on with the feeling that blood is thicker than water, not knowing human factors can alter chemistry. I know more than ever before our very huge population is hungry. People are not lazy but they can’t find space to exert excess energy. Companies the country inherited after independence, instead of growing and we adding to them, our modern leaders rather ran them down and in many cases decreed some of them out of existence.
Nearly 60 years after independence we are eating food and we need food items the more because of uncontrolled population growth, but see the irony, the farm settlements we inherited, plantations and allied industries, we ran them down. Palm, cashew, cocoa, groundnut, cassava, yam, vegetables, rubber are still very competitive in the international market, yet we don’t have enough for ourselves, not to talk of export. We are aware Malaysia came here in the sixties and bought palm seedlings. Today the “chief buyer “of yesteryears is now the producer-in-chief. Palm product is the mainstay of that nation, which our citizens would do anything including deadly walk through the desert to enter and stay. Why did they succeed where we failed woefully?
Today, politically we can’t say we have installed a sound administrative architecture. More than 30 years after we copied and pasted the executive presidency after the American practice, we are still arguing whether it is suitable or not. We always have a president that is the most powerful person in the world and this is because we created one office and domiciled all powers there. No wonder those who wangle their way into the office attempt to carve the country in their image or that of their tribe or religion. Last week, we saw the American President begging states to act adequately against the protest that is ravaging the most powerful nation in the world. That is structure and constitutionalism at work. This is what we don’t have here. Our President wakes up and yanks the Chief Justice off his seat, attacks justices at unholy hours of the night, even arrest and put them on trial, we clap and hail him, saying that messiah has come to judgement. Yet, we talk of rule of law, justice and equity. In America last week, a state police commissioner told the President to shut up if while opening his mouth he is incapable of being presidential. Last time I checked he was not attacked, sacked or arrested. Institutions over public offices.
Many of my readers after reading last week’s discourse entitled, “May 29, celebration of mediocrity and general misdirection”, called me to find out why I was not specific in assessing President Buhari @5. I corrected them by pointing out the danger in focusing on the President and leaving out governors, council chairmen and legislators. I then told them I have since left the realm of dissecting tokens. My emphasis now is on fundamentals, structures you have in place and dividends of governance must of necessity flow unimpeded. Tokenism has become a bane.
One of the things we must tell our political players is that time is overdue to sit down and agree amongst ourselves to have a country. When we have a country, from there we will define the vision and the process of getting to become nation. We need a sovereign national conference. As you read you will see why the National Assembly as presently constituted can’t handle issues of real Nigeria. Unity of Nigeria has never been negotiated to a conclusion, so the purpose for Nigeria is not clear, and it has been said once purpose of a thing is not known abuse is inevitable.
We have since independence been on development, spending huge funds yet very far from it. Why? No agreement and hence no vision. No merit. Every group just keeps struggling to get the better part, leaving everywhere disfigured. The administrative structure of Nigeria today is not a product of consensus. I will use illustrations from some Nigerians to make the point very clear. In 1976, Niger State split from Sokoto State; in 1991, Kebbi State was again carved out of Sokoto. In 1996, from the same Sokoto came Zamfara State. Niger has 25 local governments, Kebbi 21, Zamfara 14 and old Sokoto 23. Between them they have 83 local government areas.
By 1976, Lagos was same with Sokoto in terms of local governments. While Lagos has remained same, Sokoto has been split three times. Like those before argued, it wouldn’t have mattered if the split was done and the states mandated to operate with revenue generated from their area, rather they increased the burden on the central purse at the expense of others, and this is used also for political representation at the centre. We constitutionally said everyone must come to Abuja to share money. This kind of system kills creativity, provokes indolence and is a catalyst for corruption. Unitary system can never promote progress. Ibrahim Gambari said last week, state police will dismember the country and I told myself, ‘I thought he knews better.’ He knows but won’t subscribe, because group interest is at stake. Issues of security are better handled zonally. Gambari knows this to be the biggest truth.
What he and others like Isa Funtua who talk down on the other sections don’t know is that no one section of a plural country can achieve nationhood working alone. At best we have complications of vision and this is affecting us already. We want good governance but our leadership recruitment process is in the hands of cabals. Last week, poor governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki was running between Tinubu, Oshiomole and Buhari and not the people looking for “support.” And you wonder what kind of democracy throws up such a nasty scenario. Our leaders are happy but progress is stunted, citizens are emasculated and sent to their early death in droves. We see and pretend that nothing is happening. This is the tragic path of the whole sordid drama.
It is time we build up structures and our politics made ideological. When this is done the spirit of development would be available, credible leaders would then emerge who would run on people-oriented programmees like free, productive, qualitative education at all levels, free and qualitative healthcare for all, uninterrupted power supply, maritime excellence, aviation, environmental renewal, food security, manufacturing and infrastructural turnaround. Then we will spend money and the gains would be so visible even the blind would acknowledge.