Who runs Nigeria?

There is an urgent need to ask this question because recent trends in the polity indicate there is utter confusion in the hierarchy of governance as typified at the federal helm. The centre is no more holding, no one knows who is ruling; today we hear Turai, then Jonathan, tomorrow we hear Kingibe, next Abba Ruma and much later we hear Aondoakaa and the coalition of ex governors led by James Ibori. The vacuum witnessed in governance today is a ready and sure lesson to the fact you don’t force a man headed to teach applied chemistry to rule a nation. This should be a case study for the future prepared by pundits but documented by posterity.

The leader of a nation should have a dream, plan, strategy and target. He should have in his or her mind the desperate needs of the people while having a list of progressive names that have been tested and with whom he can deliver on set targets. According to K de Vries, a leader should be able to inspire and influence others to achieve transformation for mutual benefit and profitability.

The reverse is the case in today’s Nigeria, the C-in-C, the official leader of Nigeria is hardly seen or heard not to talk of inspiration, he rarely speaks to Nigerians, and as a result so many confused unhealthy minds have been commissioned to mouth jargons in defense of nothing. There is nothing to defend or present to Nigerians as this regime clocks one year. The popular topic today at forums, blogs, gatherings and discussions is what I have captioned in three words above.

Umar Musa Yar’adua with due respect but with a firm personal resolve to hit the nail’s head is at a loss as to how to run the country. Nothing seems to be working, nothing has been achieved and nothing is being planned to be achieved. The only thing on board is confused reversals and counter reversals. There is no federal commanding power that enforces discipline and dedication to duty amongst subordinates like Ministers and Governors. There is no charismatic power ensuring the ‘centre of gravity’. The seven point agenda still remains a mystery while the members of the Federal Cabinet, the most colourless ever to emerge in the history of Nigeria lazy around excelling only in taking post Federal Executive Council pictures. Everyone carries on as he or she likes because ‘to your tents oh Nigerians’ has inadvertently been declared, everyone should rule himself in Nigeria as leadership has been decentralised.

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Power generation has dropped drastically, health facilities are increasingly comatose, roads are bad and undergoing no rehabilitation while infrastructures are at the worst level of dilapidation. Security is null as criminals have a field day stealing, killing and maiming innocent Nigerians who remain helpless despite the presence of one of the richest governments in the world; never have in an unprecedented manner, armed robbers in numbers of 60 or so come together and agreed to storm banks in droves. Insecurity and lawlessness pervades; the disgust is so irritating that foreign Missions known for championing diplomacy and making silent complaints have put this aside to shout out their increasing pains over the hardship of doing business in Nigeria. How bad can it get that an august gathering of Ambassadors can come together to wonder aloud why things are so slow and not working in a country that boasts of vast human and material resources?

‘Lootacrats’ are having a field day as they smile to the bank courtesy the latest hamstrung anti corruption crusade. I thought the way of doing things was dismantling to build, but with this present crop of guys, they dismantle to do nothing and remain confused. EFCC has finally being rendered useless as it now carries out stage managed arrest attempts while Ghana going Senators are carefully helped over high fences to safety. Accountability has been relegated to the back seat, due process has been shut out while adherence to the much talked about rule of law has been typically expelled.

Recent gubernatorial re elections have proven the most shambolic as thieves and never do wells have re emerged to a fresh mandate. The Umpire called Maurice Iwu, a man lacking in honour, common sense and forthrightness has been empowered to return men who have no control over their wives as Governors, men who lack patriotic commitment and zeal to the people whom them claim ‘voted’ for them. Nigeria is the latest jungle of our time surpassing George Orwell’s farm in the act of all animals being more equal than others.

Corrupt ex governors have emerged as the current power brokers around Yar’adua, these are people who failed their people for eights years yet sort to blame it all on Obasanjo. Nigeria would have been much better if all these governors worked as much as former governors Adamu Muazu, Donald Duke and Chris Ngige in developing their different states. The picture we get is that they gather round Umar as vampires, table their plans to him and take turns in convincing him of the need to do their whims and at the end of their respective presentations, the man so weary and remembering his curfew time is 8pm approves and bids them goodnight.

I was on a train the other day, travelling down to Liverpool, as I reclined on my seat to reflect over my busy day, I caught a sight over the aisle and it was that of a man typing a response to one of the news items on thisdayonline on his laptop. So engrossed was he that I decided to let him finish before engaging him. As I continued not to mind my business, glancing over to see when he was through, I lost my patience and asked him if he was a Nigerian to which he simply in a high black British accent replied ‘proudly’. We discussed the Nigerian project and he said something that struck me about this current government. This Nigerian, a double graduate of one of the Imperial colleges in London and a financial consultant with HSBC declared and I quote him in his words; ‘if Ahmadu Ali, a man mentally epileptic in positive reasoning and thoughtfulness can lobby Yar’adua to be his Health Minister, it is a signal to Yar’adua that his government lacks vision and direction and hence seeks to be peopled by brutes and charlatans who have no score card’. The same Ahmadu Ali who crippled the education sector of the country, the same man who introduced ‘garrisonship’ into our collective psyches.

The reason why this government remains static is what I try to unravel whenever my brain has some space to attempt to decipher the symptoms bothering the ailing Nigeria. Why is there so much difficulty in channeling the mega accruals in petro dollars to aggressive infrastructural development in terms of health care, education, agriculture and security most importantly? Why can’t a straight forward mini ministerial blueprint be formulated with set targets to serve as a gauge to ensure commitment to duty and adherence to set goals by Ministers who remain so unsure of what to do for their country? The seven point agenda for remaining so unclear should be shredded and dust binned.

Yar’adua’s non impressive handlers are quick to give us flimsy reasons for his slow pace, but they should shove some socks in their mouths because Nigeria is so endowed and aware of its illness that it has no time for snail speeding drivers. The admired Asian tigers did not get to where they are today by being slow, they were aggressive and fast go getters. Nigeria has no time for those still learning the ropes, it not on our side and we must work with it. National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies is still there for those not sure of how to run the country, they should go there and change seats with Nuhu Ribadu, a man that better appreciates and grasps the fundamental and basic Nigerian problem.

Nigeria, the giant of Africa which formerly takes the front seat in the African Union is no more heard of courtesy a faceless incumbent government at Abuja. Zimbabwe and erstwhile Kenya are the burning topics in the world with all countries making their indirect or direct positions known but nothing has been heard from Nigeria, a country highly and well respected by the comity of African nations. Major players in these countries prefer to make correspondences through Ota in a manner that shows striking disregard and confirm the appalling impotency of the current occupants of Aso Rock. Observant international pundits are quick these days to ask, “Where is the voice of Nigeria in the current scheme of things”.

It is worrisome that governance has come to this sorry level. Currently, those at the helm at China work to help alleviate the pains suffered by its citizens in the recent quake that killed thousands; they do this through different mediums and packages which give an underlying strength, consolation and comfort to the troubled Chinese. Nigeria, in the same week had a disaster involving a pipeline explosion but the scene remains a nightmare, those affected remain troubled with no help in sight; it remains a harvest of complaints, mourning and wailing by a people who know help is not and never on the way. Officials with carefully starched and pressed agbada amid their bloated carriages are seen on CNN uttering intentions to deliver relief materials but we know it remains a vain pipe dream whereby intentions remains incumbent without any form of progress to reality. The highest that can happen is the award of bloated contracts by NEMA, collection of kickbacks and the eventual cornering of the truck loads with only 30% finally getting to the people for whom it was originally meant. What crass display of heartlessness!

The PDP government, the same one which promised to declare an emergency on the power sector but yet failed woefully and was bailed out by the House of Representatives has continued to throw spanners hence derailing the focus of the popular probe panel because of its attempt to invite one of the greatest villains of our time to give his own side of the cock and bull story. The Senate and the Representatives seem to have encrypted executive responsibilities to their legislative duties as they offer Nigerians some insights into hidden details of the dark past; to be sincere the NASS seems to feel the pulse of Nigerians more. The executive arm remains disabled as major players kowtow and tag along behind the slow coal engined power house.

Education and health care professionals are currently threatening all sorts of strike actions over minor issues that can be resolved via commitment, proactive debate and sound exchange. The representatives of the government are lick spittle’s who chorus only what will be pleasant to the ears of their master, they have forgotten their brief is to help package a man so unsure of what it means and takes to preside over the most populous black nation networked by over a hundred separate ethnic groups and beliefs. Reasonable actions that can be taken urgently with executive fiat are deferred and passed on to the Judiciary for unnecessary interpretations so that a belated credence can be lent to the rule of law mantra.

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Mike Okiro, the IG of Police so confused talks about al Qaeda threats today and the next day swallows his words saying something else as if the terror outfit seeks to gain anything from striking an already bedridden entity. They are so confused that they wake up from slumber and without washing their jaundiced eyes call press conferences to elaborate distractions that seek to wish us away from their collective ineptitude and inefficiency. Okiro has taken delivery of so much equipments and logistics and yet cannot use these to at least police Nigerians averagely. I recently read Okiro advice Kenny Martins not to drag the good name of the Nigerian Police on the mud, I almost laughed out my heart that day. Is it the same good name that is symbolized by squeezed 50 naira notes, wretched uniforms, uncouth manners, uncivilized but crude personalities displaying the worst form of inferiority as a complex?

What then can this government place its hands on as an achievement after one year? Can I hear someone say, “Rule of law”? How can that be an achievement when it is a phrase worn and bandied around by hypocrites and graft soaked scoundrels like Aondoakaa who use it as a veil to deceive the naïve ones?

The report card of this regime for the one year considerable period is the:-

1. Emergence of the most corrupt Attorney General as the chief law enforcer of the federation, a man whose escapades around the globe since assuming the position has left stained traces of shame behind.

2. A failed aviation sector justified by the mafia disappearance of a plane from mid air without possible links after several weeks.

3. A shambolic electoral process re enacted over and over again by the shameless, ever willing and lucre infested Maurice Iwu.

4. The gradual relegation of Nigeria to the side stool of the comity of AU nations at a time our Foreign Affairs is under the stewardship of a bicycle riding, do or die disciple who believes Nigeria has strong allies. What a comedian!

5. High level insecurity, poverty; failure of the health, infrastructural and educational facilities and the resultant fear, tension and increase in price of goods and services respectively.

6. A failed agricultural programme characterized by the massive importation of rice and other resources which remain abundant in the country.

7. Confusion over the reconstitution of statutory boards of parastatals dissolved at inception and the resultant lull in appointments and promotions across the various cadres of the civil service.

8. The neglect and consistent degradation of the Niger delta region, an act blamable primarily on Aso Rock and secondarily on multinationals, regional governors, senators, representatives, appointees and the blanket coalition of cowardly rascals, goons, kidnappers and criminals called ‘freedom fighters’ who tie an emancipation to the abduction of three months old babies.

And last but not least:

9. The strategized repositioning of Nigeria to take back its enviable position at the apex of the Transparency International corruption list.

You can’t capture everything aptly because they are so enormous.

This is a very sad story of a government the press and everyone have supported and encouraged despite emerging fraudulently.

Just as a famous orator once said and I have come to believe, “A government behaves and delivers like the person at the helm”.

 

Norris Benedict

London ,

fsixteens@googlemail.com