By Abuchi Obiora
Nigeria is a country in a redundant state of TERRIBLE underdevelopment. You can say that a million times and still be right, no matter what people who believe that heaven will fall because they are called TERRIBLE may think about the statement.
Before we get deeper into this discourse, let us search out the meaning of the word TERRIBLE to discover that the people who felt bad about the use of the word TERRIBLE to describe their ineptitude and misgovernance of the country either did not understand the real and true meaning of the word or that they were emboldened by their limitless sense of impunity in their beastly desire to inflict more injury to the hapless Nigerians they misgovern.
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Special Price Edition) defines the word TERRIBLE variously as very “unpleasant and serious” and “causing one to feel very unhappy and upset”. If I may ask, is everything in Nigeria not very unpleasant and seriously bad? Are the present conditions in Nigeria not causing her citizens to feel very unhappy or upset to the point of desiring to give up on life? So, what was the “executive” noise all about? Just to additionally suffocate and en-foul the already stale environment or to continue to keep all of us purposelessly busy discussing, while the heist on our national treasury goes on?
With the light thrown on the word TERRIBLE, I suggest that these people whose pastime have become chasing shadows as in misrepresenting the meaning of the word TERRIBLE because of their ignorance and guilty conscience, (and in another shameless audacious bravado, of attempting to sanction some student nurses in Delta State College of Nursing Sciences, Agbor, for disowning a woman they were sure was not their mother) will find other things to get busy with or quit the governance stage if their little capacities have been overwhelmed by the many urgent tasks in the Nigerian governance project.
Having expressed my opinion in respect to the prevailing discussions across the country which for no other reason than to be used as diversionary salvos to becloud the more important issues of real governance, let us introduce the major purpose of this discourse.
In a recent chat with my teenage companion and friend of five and half decades, Edward Ejike Okpa, he sent to me a pictorial evidence of a breakfast meeting that they held in March 1999 in Ritz Carlton Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the then president-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ejike, a Nigerian-American citizen from Dallas, Texas, and a longtime member of the Republican Party and associate of consecutive POTUS (President of the United States), sitting next to the then Nigerian president-elect in that meeting, drew my attention to the PDP slogan boldly displayed in the meeting hall as adopted by the organizers of the breakfast meeting. That slogan reads “Let’s Make Nigeria Great Again.” Sounds familiar, you may say!
That was in 1999 and we were in our early forties then, young and vibrant men exuding self-confidence and great hope for the future as I saw on the face of young Ejike in that photograph with President-elect Olusegun Obasanjo and as I can also see in my photographs taken here in Nigeria about the same time.
Today, 26 years later, in our late sixties (some of us closing on to their seventies), there have been consecutive presidents both in Nigeria and America all of whom must have had their first priorities as making their countries great. But this is where the similarities ends between Nigeria and America.
While one country, Ejike’s country, America is moving on forward with leaps and bounds, my country Nigeria, is being dragged to dark ages by some human beings unfit to assume leadership positions over the rest of us.
In what has become generational mockery to Nigerians, consecutive presidents of Nigeria have used that slogan, now rebranded as “Renewed Hope” to deceive Nigerians and fixate their hopes, life ambitions and everything on the dubious attainment of pyrrhic goals that have left the country in redundant state of TERRIBLE underdevelopment and destroyed the hope of Nigerians who out of patriotism, have the misfortune of being in this country for these wasted years in spite of the fact that they had the option to elope in search of greener pastures and peace of mind, like my childhood friend Ejike.
How has it happened that people like us were wealthier as young men in Nigeria when I exchanged N2,000 for $3,040 than as old men when we have added experiences and knowledge, approaching life with clearer views than we had in our younger years?
Having started out in life as a young business man from Onitsha, I found it very convenient to pay the flight tickets of my Nigerian friends who were on federal government scholarship in Eastern Europe (e.g, Poland), sometimes sending them (pocket) money during the era of very strong Naira when holders of the Nigerian international passports were revered around the world. So, what has happened to Nigeria and Nigerians to bring us to where we are? Human greed!
In another post which I found to be one of the ironies of life, my friend Ejike posted two pictures of a scene in Africa. In the first of the pictures is a thatched house and the surrounding vegetation with the title “Africa before $ 2.6 trillion in aid”. The second picture also with the thatched house is titled “Africa after $ 2.6 trillion in aid”. On close observation of the two pictures, I found out that nothing changed except the vegetation, the trees, et al, some of which have grown bigger, broader and more beautiful in the second picture.
Conspicuously, the thatched house which was supposed to have a touch of human beings in order to improve did not change in Africa, not even after the whopping sum of $2.6 trillion has gone into the continent as humanitarian support over a period. For what reason did this happen, you may ask? Of course, human greed again!
But let us leave Africa alone and zero in our attention on Nigeria, our country, because even some African countries like Niger Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso have woken up from their slumber to search out the light and key-in to the light.
It is unfortunate that a gathering of the oppressors of the Nigerian masses assembled in Abuja to launch and celebrate the autobiography of a man who, may be, was bought over by some foreign covert organizations to lay the foundation for the devastation of the economy of Nigeria, the world largest black African nation. If you are in doubt of what I am saying, read the books “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney and ”Confessions of An Economic Hitman” by John Perkins.
With practically no reasons for General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to accept the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) terms and conditionalities to ‘restructure’ a broad and promising economy that was already leveraging on the country’s local contents manufacturing advantages, vast skilled, semiskilled, an unskilled manpower resources to explore its markets and sustain its export drive across the major Commodity Exchanges around the world, there is no doubt that the foundation of abject poverty and penury in Nigeria was laid by IBB,s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Subsequent governments in Nigeria have simply added to the ruination of the economy by SAP and multiplied the sufferings of Nigerians so much that it is difficult for any economist to predict survival strategies for the Nigerian economy without risks to his or her reputation.
What is the way out for Nigeria and Nigerians? Must we continue to dwell at the crossroads? The answer is a definite “No”. Like my friend Ejike will say, ‘Something must give in’. So, why is democracy not working in Nigeria?
The first reason why democracy has failed woefully in Nigeria where many Nigerians have become tired of it is that Nigerian democracy has never met the three basic tenets upon which democracy, according to Abraham Lincoln (February 12th 1809-April 15th1865) was founded. These three basic tenets are that democracy must be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
None of these criteria has ever been met in Nigeria since the advent of democracy as a system of governance in the country. In Nigeria, lack of representative governments as direct consequence of rigged elections where peoples’ votes do not count is the albatross of the charade since 1999 claimed to be democracy in the country.
But there are two underlying reasons why these three tenets upon which democracy was founded cannot work in Nigeria. These two underlying reasons are poverty and illiteracy. Democracy will never work out in Nigeria unless the problems of poverty and illiteracy are eradicated amongst the populace. A poor and illiterate person owe no loyalty or allegiance to anybody than his sustenance for which reason he can be bought over or used as a footsoldier for evil purposes by politicians who are known to accumulate wealth for the perpetuation of ‘fake’ democracy.
The Nigerian political class, especially those from the northern part of the country, understands this wicked game very well hence their refusal to put in place the necessary infrastructure to eradicate poverty and illiteracy in the country.
If we must be honest about the Nigerian situation, most structural advancements in the country was achieved by military dictatorships, in spite of their inefficiency in the management of the economy. The reason for this, most probably is that the command structure of either the Supreme Military Council, or the Armed Forces Ruling Council as they were called under those military dictatorships were short, fast and result-oriented. With the Military command structure, decisions are promptly taken and timely executed with minimum wastages. Whether such decisions were perfect or not was another thing altogether but the truth remains that a military dictatorship bears and exhibits the character of the head of the junta as is presently happening in Burkina Faso under the leadership of Captain Ibrahim Traore.
Is it any wonder that Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic are making huge progress within very short periods because of the characteristic of military dictatorship to quickly reach consensus opinions on key governance issues within the shortest possible time?
The dual experiences of military dictatorships and flegling ‘democracies’ in Nigeria pitches the country in a unique position of making a choice between embracing the devil and jumping into the deep sea. Because of the uncertainties that are inherent in the second option, my opinion is that the first option being the devil you know may after all offer a leeway to a massive transformation of the country through addressing the issues of poverty and illiteracy for the final preparation and attainment of such a condition where democracy can be practiced in Nigeria with minimum abuses by the politicians. A diarchical governance arrangement can be put in place for the achievement of this purpose so that such ineptitude that made the Babangida dictatorship to hoist SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme) on Nigerians will be addressed through the involvement of relevant professionals and economic experts in the management of the economy.
To achieve fundamental structural changes in the polity, Nigeria must eschew the consideration of religion, ethnicity, language and tribe in the common engagements of her people and look forward to evolving a unique governing system and structures for herself in line with the recommendations in this discourse.
In summary, Nigerian politicians have shown that they are incapable of meeting the challenges of democracy in the country. But this is not peculiar to the country if one were to reflect on the political evolution of both America and the countries in Western Europe. America and Western Europe did not start with democracies. While the federating states of America started with governing structures compatible with their people before forming up the union, all of the Western European countries started as monarchies which are run in the manner of dictatorships. As a matter of fact, the Parliamentary system of government presently run in Britain may not exactly be said to be a democracy because the King or Queen,(presently King Charles) and the royal family in Burkingham Palace have certain fixed interests, something like no-go areas as in dictatorships or in diarchies, which no parliamentary legislation may touch.
The Middle Eastern countries are all operating with monarchical arrangements and they are doing well because decision-making processes do not have to be encumbered with the mob-type, wasteful, and time-consuming jamborees that characterize the so-called democratic processes.
Have Nigerians ever asked why China is doing very well in all areas of her affiars? Nigeria should stop deluding herself beleiving that the American type of democracy must solve her problems and transform her to a developed country. With hindsight, what the continuos practice of American type of democracy will do in Nigeria is to curb all Nigeria’s chances to attain the status of a developed country.
The reason Turkey became the first Arab country to join the league of developed countries following the Western European countries is because of the foundation laid by what I will call the benevolent military dictatorship of Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal, 19th May 1881-10th November 1938), a military officer-turned politician and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey who served as the country’s first President from 1923 until his death in 1938. Ataturk whose socio-political and economic theories are collectively known as Kemalism introduced some sweeping reforms which were used to transform Turkey into a secular, industrialized and modern nation state.
But I have a second alternative in mind that may be regarded as less controversial. Where the benevolent dictatorship option may not be considered for the founding of a strong and virile Nigerian nation state, my next suggestion will come in the form of the advice to Pharoah when the Israelites sought for their liberation having labored fruitlessly within the confines of the Roman Empire. “Let my people go.”
This option too can be achieved through a homebred unique system of government that recognizes regional autonomy and the right to choose their own system of governance in the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. You may call this restructuring, a word that the enemies of Nigeria who call themselves politicians, most of them from the Northern part of the country, hate.
The above option, by the way, is what I have been proposing for the country since 1991 (for 34 years?) in my works then published in The Reflection Column of The Guardian On Sunday Newspaper under the Editorship of Mr. Kingsley Osadolor.
ABUCHI OBIORAA
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