We have become a society and a people that don’t tell themselves the truth. Like others, one can confirm we appreciate the place of appraisal in moving people, entities and organisations forward but the unfortunate thing is when it comes to actually carrying through the act in the manner it should be done, we try to alter the essentials, opting instead for lies, fabrications, and at best clutching hopelessly to tokenism and low expectations. Our leaders are the worst players in this game of deceit and ignominy.
Nigeria is 60 years this week into nationhood, having gained independence from Britain on October 1,1960, on a platter of gold, as is commonly said, not having to resort to full scale armed struggle to get the illegal occupier group to hands off and leave. One thing our fighters for independence told the colonisers was, “we have come of age, (that if we ever were down), we can now do things ourselves, we can manage our affairs.”
It was a fine message. It was a pointed one. It was a concise statement directed at the heart of the matter. For this reason, it resonated very well with our people across all sections of our diverse society. After 60, it is difficult to actually say if we understand the underlining vision behind those coinages. Our leaders who ordinarily should have the task to explain things and get us convinced about our understanding of such nationalistic positioning, themselves keep proving less and less helpful each passing year. What they often say is at variance with what is on ground.
Like we have seen in the past, our leaders would from now and throughout the week be speaking on the society, (I find it difficult to use country because I know we are yet to knock one together), the make up and progress. As usual they would ask us to be grateful to God that “in spite of challenges, we have been able to stay together in unity.” Others would add, “our society is not what we inherited, new cities have developed, express highways everywhere, more universities, health facilities, railways, airports etc.” They will add, “ours is a young society, America and Britain were not as developed at our age, our challenges are natural, they are part of the growth process, with time it will be over.” Listen to our leaders this week you will hear excuses why we failed, all wrapped in the guise of compliments. Growth is about time but none would tell us in very recent history, backward societies climbed into First World status in under 30 years. They won’t say this because it is indicting.
Nothing shows where we are or what we have made of our self-determination more than development surrounding this year’s independence event itself. President Muhammadu Buhari gave statements informally though around May 29 telling us how the ship of state was being steered. If anyone has forgotten, May 29 was a day set aside by former President Obasanjo, onetime military Head of State to mark military exit from power in 1999. On June 12, 2019, President Buhari laid out the red carpet and celebrated another Democracy Day in honour of MKO Abiola, who is believed to have won an inconclusive presidential poll annulled by the military regime in power. As it is, Buhari and Nigeria will not celebrate this milestone we have been told and the reason is that things don’t add up on all fronts.
There is pandemic but greater truth is atmosphere for the celebration is not there. There is no money. Like the prodigal son, a rich society has squandered her wealth on frivolities. We are bleeding, gasping for breath in all critical areas. It is something nearing a failed state. Increasingly, federal, state and local governments are unable to exercise jurisdictional control, infrastructure is still being spoken of mainly in future tense. In what should be one country with one destiny, tribal configuration is the style, the colouration is indigeneship not citizenship, indigenes who venture outside their natural zone become instant objects of scorn, hatred, negative state policies and in repeated instances targets of deliberately orchestrated attacks. Yet, we are told to hold and wave the unity flag and even hold it out as big achievement. Ironic?
Take a critical look of what we have made out of what the colonialists handed over to us, one would be left with no other choice than to retreat to the closet in shame, weep for society and express pity for the Black man. Yes, Black man because so much hope was placed on a well developed Nigeria that would be centre of gravity for the Black race. All this in 60 years turned out to be a hope misplaced.
If ours were to be a society of statistics we definitely would be ashamed to be counted among humans given the number of people who transit to the world beyond daily via starvation and malnutrition. No truly human society allows such miscalculation to stay for too long; it diminishes the human dignity. Sane societies find it anathema to allow even one member of their society go to bed without food. It is precisely for this reason governments in those places saw need to introduce social security early in lives of their societies and it has endured till today. Capitalism has not wiped it away because government must provide leadership before private initiative can follow. Here 60 years after, being down and out is a cause for joy to the leadership and the people. We measure how rich and successful we have become by the number of poor and beggarly compatriots around us. System dropouts can jolly die, who cares? Insecurity everywhere with life increasingly becoming “brutish, nasty and short.” Our main stay is crude oil, and after 60 years we still can’t explore, exploit, refine or market it; we can’t even manage what is returned to us as proceeds from sales. Haba!
We have hospitals yet our status symbol is medical tourism to the developed world, and now India. There is no productive kind of education; we have tertiary institutions but our construction projects are being handled by Europeans, Chinese, and guess what, Arabs and Lebanese. We train young ones who wear weird clothes, spending quality time that should have been deployed in productive endeavours watching sensual dramas and films. Just heard that millions watch Big Brother Naija. What percentage of same audience would watch if it were to be a drama on building bridges? We have a long coastline and good inland waterways, we struggle over Water Resources Bill – whether the Federal Government should take control. While we are on this reckless pursuit the world is lining out ships to ride our seas and waterways with equally imported goods. We hire the ships and pay for goods in foreign exchange we cry is scarce. What a people!
Few days ago we began to lament over high cost of foodstuff and possible threat of hunger stoking the land; our governments spend huge resources promoting agriculture but look the other way as vandals make it near impossible for citizens to farm; government is not into mechanised farming in the scale it ought to be, yet we are never tired of hearing about food sufficiency. Policy and even administrative dissonance. My studies of development shows we are yet to streamline the process for sustainable development, just imagine 60 years after, we are still talking about agriculture for food, not for industrialization.
Our main challenge? Leadership! We talk of quality governance but quality doesn›t just drop, it comes with deliberate efforts. Like we just saw in Edo State governorship poll, the people must rise to beat obstacles including inducements to get competent public officers to manage our affairs. I was in Israel and the question a very young security officer asked me was, “why do guys give oil wells management to individuals?” I responded that I didn’t know. He said: “That is part of your problems, few people take all national money and vast majority have nothing.”
This is one of the many things low quality leadership does, leaving standard practice to embrace the mundane. Mediocre leadership holds tight to manipulation, exceptionalism and double standards. Talking about cattle routes and colonies, control of charity organizations and waterways when attention should be on productive economy, markets, free education, quality health, housing for all, power supply, credible elections and new constitution is tantamount to telling the world it was a big mistake to have given us independent statehood. So far that is what it looks like.