Nigeria At Fifty: Our Independence Day

Written by Azubuike Madu

The independence of a nation as it should apply to us is holistic and marks a steady and progressive growth in all indexes of civil development the nation must experience. October 1, 2010 should mark fifty years of this independence and we should celebrate not just because of the name and the chance that we may have grown a little from what we used to be before the ‘independence day’, but because we have broken up from colonialism and the tendencies of colonialism that have kept our true identity, strength, effort, ideals, character, principles and unique style from leading our fortune, destiny and life as a nation.

Every year, the series of events that mark our Independence Day celebration must include some tribute to the freedom fighters of our country. Only people of the era of Zik, Awo, Bello, Eyo-Ita and Macaulay are mentioned as freedom fighters. They fought against the strong hold of the colonial masters, the Britons. They had their motivation. Today every celebration of our Independence Day is more like celebrating Easter (of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) without knowing why the day was or who was on the day, let alone believing the story of the day. So long as the day turns out to be a public holiday and there are monetary allocations to mark the celebration, so be it; HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

I was at the British Council in Abuja a couple of days ago when someone in a group of five walked up to me for an interview. They wanted to find out, for research, the average opinion about development in Nigeria with 2015 as a year mark. I was asked, ‘What is working well in Nigeria?’ And I answered, ‘Nothing!’ Unfortunately that answer ended the interview prematurely because they needed ‘something to build on for further questions’. Only one interviewee out of ten got more questions than I got there because he said politics was working well. I wonder where he came from. To a question of where Nigeria will be in 2015, I answered ‘in West Africa, and we shall be far better than we are now.’ I believe this is the kind of sentiment many Nigerians carry. Every one is strongly hopeful that things will definitely turn around for our good and perpetual prosperity as a nation. The common man like me may not be able to explain how, but can say even at worst situations: Nigeria go better!

The generic concept of fighting for independence entails that the people are:

* Fighting for the sovereignty of their nation;

* Fighting against repressive policies and selfish leadership decisions that are unpopular and neither in the interest of the people nor for the good of the people, the land and posterity;

* Fighting to protect basic identity and principles of the people against foreign erosion and bastardisation.

It becomes a fight because the people under colonial rule become determined and earnestly seek the general good of their people in line with the generic concepts, without undue individualism. It is a fight because as much as they spend all their time, effort, spirit and material, they still maintain a strong hope for success. The story is history; most times they lose their lives in the struggle even when they know of the possibility. They pre-dedicate their struggle to posterity.

It is a fight because the colonial masters will not just leave. They must have spent a long time of their inhabitation to establish political, social and economic strongholds, and a system to perpetuate them in their colony. There must be a lot for them to lose if they just left. More than the habit of oppressing and lording over their subjects, they will lose politically, economically and socially as far as the colony is concerned. They will find it boring to account for their actions and decisions even in the service of the people. And their access to the resources of the people is unquestionable. I cannot agree less. It is fearful for a habitual bully to have a reason to negotiate at par with or be in the position to ask for help from his former subjects. This bully will therefore do everything within his reach to restrain and restrict his subjects from having or knowing anything about himself that might engender their independence. This is the fight!

Before 1960, there was concerted effort for the independence of our country. The independence fighters had their motivations. Their motivations were not far from the fact that they wanted a more people-oriented leadership that was indigenous with the full identity and character of the people.  They wanted a more sensitive and responsive system that will account for the people’s resources and efforts. They wanted a system that will totally guarantee the protection of the rights, aspirations and interests of the people while promoting the collective fortune of the people and the land. Even though they inherited a political arrangement from their masters, the basic things they applied for, they got. They got our sovereignty, social, economic and political independence from the Britons. Thanks to them.

Over fifty years after the freedom fighters applied for our independence, we brashly consider ourselves as very unfortunate. We still have the attributes of colonial subjects. Some say our misfortune is that we skewed off from the dreams and aspirations of the freedom fighters; others say we benefited more from our colonial masters and would have had more development if they stayed on. Still there are ugly voices that suggest that we are incapable and immature to conduct a suitable leadership for our collective good, to sustain or even build on the dreams, ideals and aspirations of our freedom fighters. The truth is that just as our fore-fathers mismanaged leadership in their hands by giving in to slave trade, leadership after 1960 was mismanaged. Our country has been in the hands of local colonial masters, for long!

Fifty years is golden. Yet our fifty years has with it a lot of mixed reactions. The ordinary man has not seen a substantial reason to celebrate. The common suggestion even as government has budgeted for celebration is that we should mark it by debating or creative conferencing. After all, in the past three years our president always led us into anniversaries of purposeless sober-reflection. Who are the celebrants and how many Nigerians are happy? What has changed? What have we become independent of? What really is better and positively different from the ‘bad past’?

 Just like our fore fathers, our colonial masters are not accountable to us. Their activities and decisions are to serve them alone even to the detriment of the people and the image of the entity they are identified with whose protection are entrusted to them.  Our rulers in the past years have grossly abused us. They have done to us evil beyond what foreigners would do to us.

How can one explain, even in the name of corruption, regular heartless trade off of our rights and development, and constant exploitation and abuse of our resources and collective identity? It is bone-drilling to imagine the kind of oppression and stagnation forced on us by colonial masters we have lately preferred to call cabal. People who loot vital resources from their homeland only to build estates and business empires all over the world – in Dubai, UK, America, Jamaica, the Caribbean, South Africa, the Gambia, Kenya, Sao Tome, everywhere! They have consistently driven our economy and national social status to that of third world while promoting other economies. The incidence of their activities gives credit to foreign health care service and foreign education among other things at the expense of ours. They deliberately take out our economy and jobs to other countries while we remain unemployed or underemployed. Wherever you have the best of services anywhere in the world, they are widely acclaimed chief patrons. Yet beyond four hundred metres radius of their country homes lays poverty in stark nakedness. From north to south, east to west of Nigeria, the signs are the same.

They say our education system was better than what we have now. What happened? They better fund foreign universities and send their wards abroad. Even when schools are set up for them in Nigeria, they are out of reach. They better run abroad for catarrh treatment than put our health sector in order. Our refineries cannot work because they have chains of inter-related business in the energy sector. The cabal! ‘What is working well in Nigeria?’ Nothing! Nothing works in Nigeria because we have been held down by the cabal.

Our immediate past president came into office screaming, ‘the cabal!’ He left office creating a fresh breed of cabal members. A close inspection of our history would reveal that this cabal emanated from the barracks. Our leaders thus far have been indisciplined military coupists and their associates. The Babangida era was the period of rigorous recruitment and implantation of cabal members in our bureaucracy. Our richest men today were made in the alliance. Our mediocre bureaucrats and administrators were constituted then and they keep the trend alive by keeping the objectives of the cabal alive. How else can we come out of this? This describes the difficulty we have in making progress. You cannot talk of fighting corruption without dealing with the cabal. You fight the cabal by ensuring a free and fair election, stopping senseless importations, achieving self sufficiency in petroleum products and power supply, providing basic infrastructure, uplifting agriculture and education, reviving our industries and creating jobs, boosting our health system, and strengthening our security and judicial system. They do not want these!

2011 has come and it is obvious we want our independence and the cabal has come with its assertion that ‘we lack leadership’, ‘no zoning equals unity crisis’, no one else is ‘mature’ save for him to lead this country to the ‘promise land’….. I cannot stand those ugly voices.

One scary thing for the cabal, which is the main fight in the issue of the propaganda of zoning et al, is the fact of our impending independence. If we get our independence, we can determine our development. The threat this administration has posed is not throwing up President Jonathan as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections, rather it is its determination for a free and fair election. With all their money and connection, they are so badly out-numbered that a common man like Ribadu will beat the old war horses squarely. In all the debate, Ribadu does not come from a zone. (Not a campaign for Ribadu, he is just different. Jonathan might be better than him. I have my reservations).

Now they must have a plan to spoil our peace if they cannot have their way. Someone is weighing the Kenya or Zimbabwe option because of PDP ‘family’. The music on zoning et al has changed because there is the likelihood that if President Jonathan does not represent PDP in a free and fair election, Buhari or Ribadu will take the day. Our concern is our independence. We strongly look forward to our real Independence Day after which we will always have cause to celebrate.

When they say that the founding fathers (cabal grand masters) agreed on zoning to give every zone a fair chance, they fail to state their resolution to keep us bound for the next ‘sixty years’ through perennial rigging and rape of our dignity as a people. Their argument of zoning and fair chance has emboldened the common man to ask: ‘Are there no new names and faces that can lead us purposely apart from tested expired men who have been on stage for decades?’ Until a new addition, 2011 presidential election is between Jonathan, Buhari and Ribadu. Their biographies seem cleaner and more appealing to their recruiters, the Nigerian masses. We are taking employment rights from the cabal. We will stand against rigging and we must be determined to attain our long-awaited independence. The time has come for us to declare our Independence Day.

In UNITY WE STAND! We have always believed that our heterogeneous country will work and be the best if we uphold other ideologies of our alliance above our different socio-cultural backgrounds.

Azubuike Madu's email contact is zubymadu@yahoo.com

Multi-Ethnic Greed: Why There Can’t Be A Revolution In Nigeria!

Written by Tony Ishiekwene

At a recent book launch, eminent legal icon, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, advocated a violent and bloody revolution as the only way-out of the mess and indeed hell, successive Nigerian leadership and their ally- a tiny segment of the private commercial elite have turned the country into.
For the erudite professor, after ruminating over all the ills plaguing the nation, caused largely by corruption and greed of the ruling class, no law, edict or moral suasion is capable of dissuading the ruling class from their path of perdition taking along with them the entire nation of 150 million people.

To some extent the professor may be right. A bird’s eye-view of the going on in all political office holders, be it the local government chairman and the councilors, the state governors and their state legislative assemblies or the presidency and the bi-cameral legislative houses, all you see is monumental greed cutting across all the states, religion and ethnic groups. Nowhere is spared, and the result is a living hell for the vast majority of Nigerians, old and young, men and women who try to eke out a living but a denied the chance to do by a very rapacious, kleptomaniac group of leadership who think the wealth accruing to 150 million people could be shared exclusively by less than a million political office holders and their cronies.

Successive Nigerian leadership have run down the Nigerian Airways, Nigerian railway, Nigerian Shipping line, The Nigerian Steel Mills in Ajaokuta and Aladja, State governors have run down state corporations under their watch using their stooges, as chairpersons of these government parastatals, in stealing, asset-stripping and selling off remaining state assets to their close private sector friends and the rest allowed to decay as carcasses, and yet nothing has happened by way of punishment or sanction to these thieves who caused misery to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians who became jobless by the excessive greed of a few, sending many to their early deaths. It costs far more to undertake any government project in Nigeria than in US, UK and other EEC countries, where labour costs is sometimes triple that of Nigeria, because of budget corruption and the over-inflation of budgeted expenditure through budget padding and similar corrupt practices with legislative approvals, thereby legitimizing such corruption. And so Nigerian legislators at both national and state levels are mere rubber stamp of corrupt budgets, and for their troubles they get massively inflated allowances, perks and exotic car gifts from the executives and no one cares about the checks on the other as envisaged by the constitution.

And so millions of Nigerian are plagued by troubling poverty and disease, mass unemployment of its able youth who have now become so helpless that young ladies have turned to selling their bodies both in Nigeria and abroad, whilst young men and women who cannot go into armed robbery or other criminal behavior for survival are forced to find any means to leave the shores of Nigeria- many dying in the Sahara deserts and the ones who manage to get through Morocco die in ramshackle boats trying to cross the Mediterranean sea unto Canary Island, Spain or Italy- all in desperation to seek a means of surviving the hell that the political elites have turned Nigeria into. And all these misery happening 11 years after democracy was supposed to have taken root and the massive petro-dollar wealth that has accrued to the country in the last 10 years. The people have nothing to show for it. Education is in tartars; Health and health facilities are in shambles; Roads are dead traps as thousands of Nigerians are killed and maimed yearly in road traffic accidents occasioned by lack of road maintenance. Yet a tiny minority of its political elite, current and recent past wallows in shameless stolen riches and flaunts extravagance to the very face of the Nigerian people they have stolen blind.

So in a sense all the conditions that should trigger a very violent revolution persist in Nigeria, indeed over the past twenty years or more, a revolution had been overdue. But yet, I am afraid to sound contrary to the distinguished law professor, that there will not be any violent revolution in Nigeria! Why won’t there be one? Because of multi-ethnic greed! Nigerians even those dying of the mass poverty and hellish conditions Nigeria has become- and these mass of deprived and impoverished Nigerians cut across all ethnic, religious and geographical zones- feel their chance or turn will come for the selfish “chop-I-chop” that turn-by turn “rulership” (for what we have in Nigeria is not leadership) of looting otherwise referred to as Zoning of political offices. The political elites across the country have so manipulated the minds of the ignorant Nigerian into believing that retreating into their ethnic cocoons and shouting “marginalization” of my zone or ethnic group would ensure their salvation. They convenientlyforget or refuse to understand that their state governors and local government chairmen and legislative bodies are stealing all the allocations meant for them, and that their enemies are more within than outside their ethnic zones!

You can see the hue and cry of a segment of Nigeria- the northern elite and their handymen thugs whipping war drums that “zoning” must be respected out of fear that the circumstantial president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan may contest the 2011 election and “win” it whether by hook or by crook. For them Jonathan should not throw his hat in the ring to contest the election in the banner of PDP- where “election” win is guaranteed or any other party for that matter as he could use the power of incumbency to snatch a “presidential election win.” Why would a political party zone a political position to an ethnic group or geographical zone for two terms of election? Whilst a zoning arrangement for a disjointed federation like Nigeria may serve some purpose in ensuring unity and bottled-up peaceful co-existence, it is an affront on Nigerians for a cabal in one political party- the PDP- to insist on one zone having two terms at a stretch. Implicit in this arrangement is the disrespect the ruling cabal has for the Nigerian voter who should decide who rules them; they are saying that the Nigerian people’s vote will never count, and that rigging and fraudulent imposition of their “chosen” ones will continue without let. Put this way, they argue, Obasanjo ruled for eight years, through two term of elections (1999 and 2003) largely via rigged elections and late president Yar’ Adua should have two terms of rigged election? What right has any group of persons, in whatever party, to inflict one incompetent, inept and corrupt leader over the people of Nigeria or a state for that matter because of a convoluted arrangement of zoning by a few equally corrupt and greedy party cabals?

I disagree with the views of former NBA president Olisa Agbakoba in the Guardian opinion column of 28th July, 2010 that “Federal character” requirement in public institutions to avoid cronyism and nepotism equates with “Zoning” of Presidency, or Governorship in the case of State governments. The essence of the quota system (Federal character) is to ensure that no one tribe or geographical zone predominate any public institution so that we do not have President, the Vice President and possibly the Senate president from the same geographical zone at any one time.  Section 14, subsection 3 of the Nigerian constitution both in letter and in spirit was never about zoning of political offices to any particular zone at any point in time. Zoning is undemocratic and is part of the corruption deal that the ruling Nigerian elite have adopted to cheat the ordinary long suffering Nigerians from getting credible, competent and honest leadership.

Yes there cannot be a revolution in Nigeria so long as the monies to be stolen by the political class and their private sector collaborators continue to flow in by the pumping of oil from the Niger delta and the petro dollars goes into the federation account for sharing among the indolent, inefficient and corruption ridden three-tiers of government- Federal, State and local government councils; and also as long as multi-ethnic corruption is allowed to thrive and things like zoning of political offices are endorsed by the ruling elites.
A transformation of Nigeria where the people get justice and a fair deal is still possible, without recourse to a violent revolution. I have changed my mind that we need a violent revolution, even though I would have welcomed one- (see my writing over a year ago, where I said a Revolution was inevitable for Nigeria: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/tony-ishiekwene/nigeria-why... What I think may eventually change Nigeria for the good is pressure from both Nigerians and the international community, where the later are doing a good job of insisting on good governance and transparency and accountability in government. They have not just been talking but also acting in helping arrest irresponsibly greedy Nigerian rulers like Ibori, Alameasiegha, Dariye and their associates in looting state treasury. Also Information and Communication Technology would play its part in ensuring that there is nowhere to hide by rogue leaders that currently predominates Nigerian leadership.

Eventually a credible election where the people of Nigeria, through one-person-one-vote that counts, decides who their leaders become at all levels of governance will ensure that competent people with ability and integrity gets into government and will put the people first- ordinary Nigerians- before their wallets and those of their god-fathers and cronies, as has been the case in the past 50 years of independent Nigeria. Nothing lasts forever and the current field day the political elites are having will soon come to an end. It will not be by a bloodletting violent revolution however, it will be by a blood-less, quite revolution of ideas, innovative thinking and brain power!
tonykwene@aol.com

Journey To Bloodshed

Written by Sonala Olumhense

I am a Christian.  My faith does not approve of murder, although history has indicted many a Christian for murder and sundry mayhem. There are many ways in which faith in God is truly special.  One of them is that it teaches the sanctity of human life.  A man is only as wise as the extent to which he realizes that his life is not his.  Life is so special man cannot create it. But while religion may be categorical about the sanctity of life, it does not seem to teach respect for it so well.  That may partly explain why the poor hesitate to take even the life of their oppressors, even when those victimisers are ruthlessly sucking the very blood out of them..

The difference may be that the poor still have access to a certain inner little voice.  It is probably no more than the echo of hunger in that cavernous no-man’s land between the stomach and the small intestine, but when you have nothing, you have plenty of pauses between thought and action.  Those pauses, those rumblings, are often quite clear: you do not take life.

The same rule, curiously, does not apply to the rich, for whom that little voice seems to have been paid off.  They take what they want and move on lest they miss the next opportunity to take what they want.

Nowhere in the world does that seem to be a clearer case than our Nigeria.  If wealth is the reward for industry and creativity and investment and management, there are no real wealthy people in Nigeria.

What we have is a class of people whose principal skill has been to sell their own country by selling her out.  They have sold her to the devil and placed the few pieces of silver in their pockets.

That is not wealth, but it has also made Nigeria the poorest nation on earth.  If Nigeria is assessed according to her size and population and natural resources and educated people, we ought to be one of the world’s richest and one of the best places on earth to live.  Instead, we are often reviled and laughed at because while a few of us own those pieces of silver, it is in exchange for hell.

Nigeria is a triumph of the greediest.  We have no statesmen and no industrialists.  Our most prominent citizens—take a look at our 2010 National Honours List—are looters, pedophiles, forgers, political manipulators and debtors.  Our nation’s former rulers do not scratch an itch in public because they know their corruption and their loot and their lies and their high crimes will pollute the headlines for months.

Think about it: how many of Nigeria’s former rulers and their hangers-on are actively engaged in the task of making Nigeria work, let alone great?  How many support talented Nigerians, or charitable endeavors or education in the country?  On the contrary, they are begging organizations and schools abroad for opportunities to endow expensive academic chairs or raise foreign children.

How many of Nigeria’s former rulers give interviews to the local press or defend initiatives they championed in office?  On the contrary, they have agents begging foreign correspondents to speak to them.

How many of Nigeria’s former top government officials are involved in work designed to nurture local scientific or technical endeavor?

How many of Nigeria’s former government officials have investments you can see or assess?  And yet they are our “wealthy” and powerful, desperately trying to make people believe they are the nation’s powerbrokers.

It is no surprise that while they continue to appropriate our commonwealth, the nation grows poorer and more anachronistic.  Nobody takes Nigeria seriously any more: we are a nation that seeks the dizzying heights of veto power at the United Nations Security Council, without the responsibility of fighting poverty or challenging disease.

We want to be in the G20 and speak arrogantly of Vision 20-2020, but we do not want to find out why Benin Republic, next door, does not respect us anymore.

And now, the new humiliation: suddenly, our “war against corruption” is being fought for us by foreign countries.  They send us detailed information about our citizens that have looted us blind and where the money is.  We ignore them.

They prosecute our thieving former officials abroad and have begun to bar them from visiting their lands.  They are naming people from previous governments and are set to name people from the present.

We ignore them.

When Nigerians vote, their votes do not count, because elections are predetermined.

When a Nigerian official says he wants to fight corruption, we know he wants his wife and his ministers and his friends to know they are safe.

When the United Nations and the African Union and our development partners set growth targets, Nigeria tells them the People’s Democratic Party is Africa’s largest.

When a Nigerian ruler proposes a budget, everybody knows the funds are going to anything but the projects it contains.

It is insulting for a Nigerian ruler to go to a local hospital.  Their wives would rather die naked at the reception of a foreign hospital, any foreign hospital.

As a young man, I always thought these would change.  Now I have proof they will because they have all deteriorated indescribably.

Things will change because Nigeria’s political elite is greedier and hungrier more irresponsible than it has ever been.

Things will change because we have lost every sense of community.  Our preoccupation of eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage are not just symbolic, they are prophetic.

How will the change come?  I am in little doubt now that this will end violently.  Nigerian political irresponsibility was nurtured on the fertilizer of ignorance: 20 governors and their girlfriends could join an indicted felon in South Africa or Brazil or the United Kingdom for a weekend frolic and nobody would ever know.  The people did not know; they could not know.

Only 10 or 20 years ago, every governor knew that State Broadcasting was never going to tell the people he was a thief.  Today, there are credible people and institutions that will tell, and prove it.

Only 10 or 20 years ago, every Nigerian ruler knew nobody would call his wife a thief in private, let alone in public.  Today, there are credible people and institutions that will tell, and prove it.

And yet the brazen looting and lying continues.  The partying continues.  All you have to do is be close enough to those who are powerful enough, and you can get into the party.

I think that bloodshed is now guaranteed in Nigeria; the kind of bloodshed nobody has seen since the middle of the last century.

Think about it: two weeks ago in New York, Nigeria was leading a Security Council assault on the Iran nuclear weapons programme; the same Nigeria, in Abuja, Nigeria was hosting the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!  Think about it: last week, Nigeria was leading a United Nations Security Council debate on preventive diplomacy.

These are the kinds of contradictions that make you throw up, and provide our critics with easy fodder. Nigeria should be helping the United Nations avoid the most debilitating and expensive peacekeeping challenge the world has ever known by engaging in preventive development.  Instead, we have nurtured a hypocritical time-bomb.  It will arrive because there is no further to sink and nowhere else to go.

People say a rebellion—nay, a revolution—is expensive because you never know how far it will go or how it will end.  On the contrary, I think that is what Nigeria deserves.  Nigeria, through the scorched-earth greed of its ruling elite, is heading for the kind of chaos that will end in rivers of blood.  It is guaranteed to eliminate the guilty without necessarily sparing the innocent.

Maybe that was what the poet saw when she wrote, “Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace by written in the sky.”

That would be fertilization, not murder.

Culled from www.saharareporters.com

Nigeria: Who are the criminals?

Written by Clement Muozoba/Codewit News

Many years ago, in one of his albums, the late Reggae exponent, Peter Tosh asked this question, ”Everybody is talking about crime, tell me, who are the criminals?” This becomes more relevant in our life as a country today. In a media chat with some selected journalists, which was transmitted live by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) a few weeks ago, the President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, admitted that kidnapping had become a national issue. Again, he admitted that it had become a lucrative industry and that there were some ‘big men’ behind the small boys in the field. He also said that his government was after those big guys. He specifically pointed out that kidnapping had paralysed commercial activities in the South-East in particular.

Obviously, the president is not wrong. Kidnapping and its twin brother, broad daylight bank robbery, believed to be operated by the same syndicate, have held the South-East to ransom. Funny enough, a friend of mine described kidnapping as a nomad who went out wandering from the South-South. On reaching the South-East, he found a clement environment and settled there and began a flourishing business with headquarters in Abia State.

On the 11th of June, 2010, the Lagos State Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Wahab Oba, was kidnapped with three other journalists and their driver in Abia State. As if to show that kidnapping is not just a South-East problem, Hajia Labara Abdullahi, the mother of Sani Lulu, the impeached President of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), was kidnapped in Kogi State. Many questions have been raised on why this strange business has defied all solutions. The complications following some of the kidnapping incidents have raised no fewer questions. As at now, no answers have been provided. The one answer readily available is that there is lack of security in the country.

It will be recalled that apart from Lagos State, no other state has provided the Police Force with logistics than the South-Eastern states. I‘m sure that Anambra has been praised for providing the Police with not less than 150 operational vehicles, two armoured personnel carriers and other things. Yet, whenever kidnapping is mentioned, the state is not left out. It is true that some of the kidnapping incidents are mere political hypes, but some are also true and many of them are attributed to the ineptitude of the law enforcement agents, especially the Police. In Anambra State, which is fundamentally considered a business state, the Police have been said to find a haven for their own business. Hence, more often than not, they spend their time collecting the Nigerian ‘Green Card‘ on the roads and allowing the kidnappers and other criminals a free access. This has equally caused untold accidents which have claimed the lives of Nigerians and even some men of the Nigerian Police.

Many in the South-East now believe that some law enforcement agents must be involved in these violent crimes in one way or the other. Some people believe that some of them either engage directly in the business as kidnappers or as negotiators for ransom. This, according to them, is why kidnapping has refused to go. The popular belief is that on the days of the violent crimes like the bank robberies, the check-points are always deserted to pave the way for the criminals. It is also believed that the cases where the law enforcement agents are killed are largely due to improper arrangement, lack of information or misinformation between the security agencies and the criminals. That is why many never believe that the Police in their present form can provide security for the Nigerian citizens. The most horrible part of this is that on many occasions, the Police have turned their weapons on innocent citizens in ‘intentional‘ accidental discharges which have sent many to their untimely death. Why has reforming the Nigeria Police become such a Herculean task?

In June this year, Nigerians witnessed a horrible scene in the House of Representatives. It was a free-for-all fight between just 11 out of 360 legislators. People were beaten black and blue, clothes mercilessly torn to shreds and thanks to God that nobody was stripped naked. The cause of the fracas was allegations of fraud against the Speaker of the House, Oladimeji Bankole by the Progressive Group led by Dino Melaye. The speaker was accused mainly of misappropriating N11b capital vote of the House in 2008 and 2009 financial years. In the same vein, in a serendipitous discovery, our distinguished senators’ earnings per annum were uncovered as follow: Basic salary - 2,484,245.50; hardship allowance at 50 per cent of Basic salary - 1,242,122.70; Constituency allowance at 200 per cent of BS - 4,968,509.00; furniture allowance at 300 per cent of BS - 7,452,736.50; Newspaper allowance at 50 per cent of BS - 1,242,122.70; Wardrobe allowance at 25 per cent - 621,061.37; Recess allowance at 10 per cent - 248,424.55; Accommodation at 200 per cent - 4,968,509.00; Utilities at 30 per cent of BS - 828,081.83; Domestic Staff at 75 per cent of BS - 1,863,184.12; Entertainment at 30 per cent of BS - 828, 081.83; Personal assistants at 25 per cent of BS - 621,061.37; Vehicle maintenance allowance at 75 per cent of BS - 1,863, 184.12; Leave allowance at 10 per cent of BS - 48,424.55; severance gratuity at 300 per cent of BS - 7,452,736.50; Motor vehicle allowance at 400 per cent of BS - 9,936,982.00 (every 4 years); Total = N29,479,749.00; Senator‘s Salary per month = 2,456,647.70; Grand Total (109 Senators) = N3,264,329,264.10 (Newswatch, July 12, 2010, p.14). This unfortunately is happening in a country regarded largely to be poor and where an average Nigerian lives below a dollar per day. Folake Lebi, a US-based consultant lamented this situation in the same magazine thus, ”I wonder why these thieves in the National Assembly talk of economic saboteurs in Nigeria. I wonder if they have the sense to introspect long enough to see themselves as worst robbers Nigeria has ever encountered.” By this, Lebi means that the condemned criminals in Kirikiri are saints.

Election rigging is now regarded as normal in Nigeria and no serious punishment is meted out for the systematic robbery of the people‘s mandate. One can boldly say that many of our political office holders are with stolen mandates. It is only just a handful of the states of the federation especially those who claimed their mandate through the courts that can be said to have elected governors. Even the immediate past president admitted that the process that threw him up with the incumbent president as his vice was marred by irregularities. That was where it ended. But if we still think correctly, is there any crime greater than the theft of the people‘s mandate? We now have a new electoral umpire, Professor Attahiru Jega. Before him, Nigerians had witnessed sham in the name of elections and the professional riggers boasted openly, always sure of rigging and none had ever been brought to book. Can Jega move beyond his predecessor, Professor Maurice Iwu? Can he withstand the politicians‘ enormous financial inducements?

We have heard of billions upon billions recovered by our anti-graft agencies where they were stashed away in foreign banks. Where are the monies and who stashed them away? On many occasions, the leadership of the anti-graft agencies has been accused of complicity. In fact, many believe that some of the leaders of such agencies were planted to protect the sacred cows. As a result of that, no serious cases have been made against some of the obviously corrupt ex-governors and other politicians, except to settle some scores. Many are of the view that some of their case files have mysteriously been lost in the custody of the agencies while those with countless charges have surprisingly been discharged and acquitted.

Though kidnapping holds sway these days, it should not distract us from the fact that it is not the one and only crime in the country. If the truth has to be told, what Chinua Achebe pointed out many years ago as the problem of Nigeria is still there and is worse now. Ours remains a problem deeply rooted in corruption of our leaders and has given birth to a confusion of what crime is and who the criminals are. If the corridors of power can be swept clean, kidnapping will naturally solve itself. But there is the lack of courage to begin because many are involved.

Culled from Codewit News

The war in Igboland

Written By Okey Ndibe

The June 15, 2010 edition of NEXT reported that a coalition of groups in Abia State had asked Governor Theodore Orji to resign on account of the level of insecurity in the state. It was not the usual partisan fare, with a number of opposition parties banding together to hound a state governor. Instead, the call for Orji’s resignation came from seven human rights and pro-democracy organizations.

There was no doubt that the groups – the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF), Abia Peoples Forum (APF), Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy (CRPA), Popular Participation Front (PPF), Campaign for Democracy (CD), Centre for the Advancement of Children's and Women's Right (CACWR) and Centre for Human Empowerment, Advancement and Development (CHEAD) – were in deadly earnest. They set a deadline of June 30 for Mr. Orji’s resignation. And they promised to commence non-violent civil disobedience should he ignore their call.

My bet is that Governor Orji would not hearken to the ultimatum to resign. Nigerian politicians are not in the habit of giving up power, even when they have no idea how to deploy the resources of their office to solve problems.

The first duty of any government is to guarantee the security of the lives and property of its people. By this measure, Governor Orji has failed the people of Abia.

The groups demanding his resignation took care to offer a convincing narrative of Abia as “a failed state.” The dossier included a “spate of armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, ritual killings and rape in Abia State, particularly Aba.” The groups decried “the spiraling wave of insecurity in the state.” They instantiated with gory, shocking details: “Between 14 May and 8 June, several banks have been robbed, security personnel brutally killed, trouser-wearing ladies raped, and innocent persons kidnapped for rituals and/or ransom under the nose of heavily armed security men, including the blood-thirsty Abia State Vigilante Services (Bakassi boys).”

Then there was this unanswerable indictment: “Armed robbers and kidnappers now give notice before they strike, as vividly shown by the invasion of First Bank Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc, both in Port Harcourt Road, Aba on Wednesday, 2 June. Recall that they had written to inform [the banks] of their intention to rob them and eventually did, to [the] chagrin of all.”

It’s a sweeping, bleak panorama of the state of insecurity in Abia. But the stigma of failure is not Theodore Orji’s alone. It is a humiliating admission to make, but sadly true: a cadre of greedy, visionless leaders has for too held sway in the Igbo-speaking southeastern states. Other past and current governors of these states have – by their corruption, lack of vision and absence of strategic intelligence – condemned Igboland to economic doldrums and moral degradation.

On June 5, I was in Toronto to give the keynote address at the annual Biafran War Memorial celebration. My talk harped on the current war in Igboland, a war characterized, above all, by a crisis of values. I tried to persuade my audience that, in sheer enormity and direness, the ongoing war dwarfs the effects of the Biafran war that claimed more than a million lives.

Let’s be clear: the triumph and veneration of morally virulent values is not an exclusively Igbo malaise. Nigeria as a whole has long been in the grips of a deformed ethos, the reign of a disorder in which absurdity is held to be sensible, impunity is exalted, and honor is mocked.

In my view, however, the Igbo have paid the steepest price for permitting these misshapen values to gain traction – and then to be embedded as the norm. The moral cancer metastasizing through Igboland is best detected in the music as well as social language.

For years, the fiercely republican Igbo carelessly allowed themselves to dance to lyrics that proclaimed “ana enwe obodo enwe” – roughly translated as “a community is owned.” At first glance, that lyrical claim would appear innocuous, even persuasive. Another lyric set out to name the Igbo’s “nnukwu mmanwu” – big masquerades. Any discerning person would be shocked by the questionable pedigree of some of the men advertised either as the “owners” of their community or big masquerades.

Wealth, whatever the mode and means of its accumulation, was the unmistakable criterion for “owning” one’s community or receiving recognition as a big masquerade. Bowing to wealth, some Igbo musicians shamelessly trumpeted scallywags, scoundrels, and charlatans. It seemed anathema to credit anybody for the quality of his or her public service, for exemplary moral conduct, or for proven distinction of mind. I have never heard any musician invite Chinua Achebe, the most globally well-known and revered Igbo man – a man of stellar intellectual achievement and stupendous ethical funds – to take a seat among the masquerades. Nor have I heard any musician suggest, in a lyric, that the outstanding novelist has a say in the ownership of his community. No pride of place was reserved for women and men whose stock came in the form of dedication to service, whether in the private or public sector, or self-sacrifice in the cause of advancing the common good.

It was inevitable that the habit of worshiping material possession would bring Nigeria to its present troubling pass. In Igboland, the consequence has been nothing short of tragic. One of the popular phrases in Igbo public speech is, “onye bu igu ka ewu n’eso” – or, the goat follows the man with the palm fronds. It is a disturbing statement in every particular. It reduces humans to the level and ethic of a goat. It dictates that every goat/human must follow the man with food, even where the food is stolen.

Such scant regard for sound moral values has had devastating effect. It has fed an anything-goes culture. It has enabled shady characters to sink roots in Igboland and criminals to make a cottage industry out of kidnapping their fellows. There are whispers that some traditional rulers, unscrupulous police officers, shady businessmen as well as “prominent” politicians – the kind often dubbed big masquerades – now organize, sponsor or run their own kidnapping cells.

The Igbo have never faced a more serious challenge than the current blight of kidnappers. We can no longer afford to dress up the ugly truth in fine garbs: the Igbo people are engulfed in a war for survival akin to Biafra, but more desperate, if you ask me. The only difference is that, in this case, the enemy is within.

The casualty is extremely high. Fewer and fewer Igbos resident in such places as Abuja, Lagos or Port Harcourt look forward to traveling to their home states. And when they go, they must arrange to hire several police officers to guard them. The prospects are even grimmer for Igbos who live abroad. For fear of kidnappers, many – perhaps most – traditional marriage ceremonies are now held in Nigerian cities far from Igboland. Imagine the economic and social costs of the flight of such ceremonies. How about investment in new businesses? They have virtually dried up.

Igboland is beleaguered, dangerously close to becoming a no-go area. Yet, the Igbo governors have disconcertingly shown little inclination to weigh any serious measures to remediate the situation. Is it that they fail to recognize the scale of the threat, that they are bereft of ideas for tackling the monster, or – as many people speculate – that some of them are profiteers from the crisis?

Equally indicted are those men and women who run around Abuja and Lagos, styling themselves Igbo leaders. Their pretension to the role of leaders is rebuked by the fact that they have not seen fit to confer and focus on strategies for winning the deadliest, costliest war facing their people. The Igbo’s cultural and moral crisis is exacerbated by a crisis of leadership.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the specter of kidnapping was germinated and fertilized by a permissive culture that, over many years, sought to blur the line between “alu” (sacrilege or profanation) and “ife zili ezi” (good conduct). Consequently, if we are to win the war we’re in, we need not just a diligent, sanitized, well equipped and highly trained police (a far cry from the corruption-ridden apparatus that has usurped the name of law enforcement in Nigeria), an attuned political leadership, and a judiciary that is awake to its sacred mandate. Above all, we need a fundamental re-orientation of values. We must reclaim that moral clarity that once enabled the Igbo people to be appalled at execrable conduct and to look at ill-gotten wealth and say, in fierce repudiation, “Tufia!” or “Alu!”

We must seek this moral rebirth, or we’re doomed.

Okey Ndibe's email contact is okeyndibe@gmail.com

The art of throwing money away

Written by Okey Ndibe

It’s always deeply painful when Africa achieves another distinction in the wrong sector. This time, it’s in the foolish art of throwing money away!

Last month, the Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research group, released a sobering report on the illicit outflow of cash from African nations. The report concluded that, in the four decades between 1970 and 2008, African nations lost $854 billion through illegal transfers of funds. And GFI suggests that it’s a conservative estimate. Actual outflows, the report states, may be as high as $1.8 trillion.

In case Nigerians are wondering – yes, our country (once again) topped the list. With $240.7 billion, Nigeria clinched a claim as the outstanding star in the league of exporters of cash. Nigeria’s closest competitor, Egypt, lost $131.3 billion. The other countries in the top five are South Africa ($76.4 billion), Morocco ($41 billion), and Algeria ($35.1 billion).

There’s little surprise about Nigeria’s stellar showing in this dubious league. It’s estimated, after all, that Sani Abacha alone pocketed more than $3 billion. Last year, a Swiss judge ordered the freezing of $350 million in assets “belonging” to Abba Abacha, one of the dictator’s sons.

The picture is dismal. Much of these stolen funds end up in European, Asian, and North American banks. And then comes the paradox: the same public officials responsible for frittering away the continent’s resources are quick to haunt the capitals of Europe and North America, bowl in hand, to beg – shamelessly! – for alms.

The GFI report illustrates the anomaly: what Africa has exported in illicit cash is at least double the official development aid that’s come to the continent. That’s one way of saying – forgive the cliché – penny wise, pound-foolish. Here’s the diagram of events. First, our rulers wire good money to the so-called big donor nations. Then they travel to the Western capitals to debase themselves begging for handouts. Often, they return, like triumphant fools, clutching the pittance they received – at best, half of the loot they “donated” to Western banks. And then they promptly privatize much of the aid – and wire it back to their Western sponsors.

What’s worse, foreign aid – unlike the cool cash we idiotically transfer – comes with strings attached. Often, it’s aid only in name, but in reality part of the scheme by donors to further impoverish African peoples. All too frequently, foreign aid is abracadabra, pure and simple. It’s often packaged as “technical” assistance that destitute African nations are coaxed to pay for – often at hideously inflated prices.

It’s a financial magician’s dream trick. One day, no questions asked, African rulers enrich the banks and economies of the West with looted funds. The next day, these same rulers show up in Western capitals on perennial begging missions. They look like miscast mendicants in their designer suits and handcrafted pairs of shoes. They mope, listening – with little or no sense of shame or irony – to Western “donors” give them long, stiff and humiliating lectures on the virtues of wise investment, sound economic planning, and financial discipline.

I invoke the words of Ayi Kwei Armah: Why are we so blest?

There’s no question that many – I dare say, most – of those who answer to the name of leader in Africa are in the mold that Frantz Fanon categorizes as “contemptible fools.” But there’s also, we must not forget, the issue of the hypocrisy of the world’s economic powers – the nations whose banks facilitate the thefts in Africa, and keep the proceeds. When the right crop of African leaders reclaim their nations from the depraved hands of those who steal for a living, then the issue of the West’s role in impoverishing Africa must be raised.

It would be comforting if we could say that the GFI report focused on a habit that African leaders have since been dropped. Sadly, that’s far from being the case.

Take Nigeria. Despite some modest gains made over the last eleven years against the scourge of corruption and money laundering, the culture of stealing public funds remains alive.

Last week, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association reminded the world that his country has not lifted a finger about the Halliburton bribe scandal. This, despite the fact that there’s no doubt that officials of Halliburton handed hefty bribes to high-ranking Nigerian public officials. And despite the fact that Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua promised that he would not shield any implicated officials, and made a “show” of setting up an investigation panel. Chances are that, had Yar’Adua not been hobbled by sickness, he would have bestowed national honors on some of the Nigerian recipients of Halliburton bribes.

Nigerians pay a steep price for a culture that garlands corrupt people with pompous chieftaincy titles and hollow honors. That price is that corruption has become as familiar as staple food; the stealing of public funds is so normalized, in fact, that those who reject the temptation to steal are often viewed as fools – or worse.

Nigerian officials are specialists in squandermania, the disease of throwing money away. Nigerians throw away money on power generators, neglecting to fix their country’s power supply. Too many government officials splash huge fortunes on high-priced cars, but won’t invest in road construction and maintenance. They dole out stupendous sums to foreign hospitals and doctors, but won’t provide a healthcare system worthy of human beings for their hapless fellows who are stuck in Nigeria.

Today, Nigerians are riveted by the scandal of the N64 billion-runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. How did Julius Berger win a contract to construct a runway whose price tag surpasses the cost of building an entire airport? Nigeria has a Bureau of Public Procurement whose statutory job includes the carrying out of due diligence before signing off on contracts. Did the officials of that bureau go to sleep when it came time to vet this contract? How in the world did the bureau give a thumbs-up to a project whose cost – from all appearances – is so scandalously inflated?

The aviation committee of the House of Representatives has been holding hearings, but I doubt that its members are less puzzled than the rest of us. Numerous officials have appeared before the committee in Abuja, but none has given a coherent explanation. The runway saga is, I fear, one of those bizarre narratives that point up how Nigeria’s cash takes wings and flies away to foreign vaults.

Here’s a textbook case deserving Nigerians’ attention. The bar association, labor unions, student activists, the media and other civic organizations ought to use this case to advance the cause of accountability in Nigeria. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan ought to ask for briefing on this scandal. At the very least, he should send away the leadership of the Bureau of Public Procurement and demand that Julius Berger renegotiate the contract.

GFI’s director, Raymond Baker, stated that stemming the “devastating outflow of much-needed capital is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in these [African] countries.” It’s questionable that Mr. Jonathan has the will to play spoiler to those who profit by throwing away Nigeria’s cash. But he has a rare opportunity to rise above the limitations of his political career, and the forces that contend for his loyalty. If he acts to freeze the runway contract until the disturbing questions are resolved, and to dismiss procurement officials who seem to doze while Nigeria is being fleeced, he’d send a signal that the era of irresponsible fiddling with public funds is nearing the end of its run. 

Okey Ndibe's email contact is:  okeyndibe@gmail.com