On October 1, 1960, the future of Nigeria was bright. But, 53 years after, there is gap between expectation and reality. The Nation writes on the country’s snail-like movement to progress, despite its rich human capital and abundant natural resources.
Many Nigerians living in the towns and cities may not have the opportunity to listen to President Goodluck Jonathan’s live independence broadcast today. It is not because they cannot afford television sets. As usual, electricity is beyond their reach due to power failure. Those taking the advantage of the independence holiday to travel will endure the hardship of a boring journey on the roads, which are death traps. From this week, many people will transfer their ailing relations from the public hospitals to private clinics in sorrow because another strike is imminent in the health sector.
Already, confused and restless university students are at home, owing to the prolonged lecturers’ strike. There is no end in sight yet. This week, the polytechnic teachers will also resume their suspended strike for welfare package. Also, their counterparts in the Colleges of Education are threatening to down tools. The fear of the future that has engulfed the tertiary students is heightened by the awareness of the soaring number of unemployed graduates roaming the streets in search of elusive jobs. According to the embattled governors, it may be difficult to pay salaries in some states because of the sudden drop in monthly allocations from the federal purse.
Across the six geo-political zone, there no peace. In the North, the Boko Haram sect is on the prowl. The state of emergency has not restore normalcy. In the Middlebelt, the Ombatse Group has intensified killings. The brands of terrorism in the South are armed robbery and commercial kidnapping. Corruption, according to Transparency International, has not abated among public office holders. Rather than making the transformation agenda to work, the preoccupation of those in power is the 2015 calculation. This is the story of Nigeria at 53.
It has been a tortuous journey from 1914. Crisis of development have continued to assail the fragile federation. At independence, Nigeria emerged as a country of many nations struggling for relevance. The sustaining power was the subscription to federalism by the leaders who built on the foundation laid by the colonial masters.
On October 1, 1960, the future was bright. World leaders acknowledged the enormous natural endowment, quality and quantity of its population, and vast opportunities available to the former British Colony. The three premiers have laid examples of transformational leadership in the Western, Eastern and Northern Regions. Also, the colonial masters predicted that, by the mid seventies, Nigeria would become a medium ranking world power playing enviable roles in the comity of nations and shouldering continental responsibilities in times of peace and war.
The 1966 military coup deepened the distrust and suspicion among the unequal regions. Legitimate authorities gave way for dictatorial leadership. The mistake of the first military ruler, Major General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, who foisted the unitary system on the country through his controversial unification decree marked the beginning of the journey to gloom.
From the initial three regions, the country gave birth to 36 dependent component units, following state creation by successive military governments. But the structure did not change the feelings of primordial sentiments by the unwilling partners.
Fifty three years after flag independence, the rich country is in pains. Its oil is both a blessing and curse. The natural resource is domicoied in a region. Ironically, the zone is struggling with poverty. But majority of its citizens wallow in poverty. Life expectancy has dropped abysmally in Nigeria. Basic amenities, including portable water, electricity, medical facilities, and roads, are in pitiable state of disrepair. The only prosperous people are those in government, who have cornered state power and appropriated public resources.
Many analysts described Nigeria as a big contract up for grab. In their view, government has become the greatest corrupter of society. “There is a disconnect between the government and the people”, observed Ayo Opadokun, the Secretary of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), who blamed the leadership for lack of vision.
Apparently piqued by persistent challenges of nation-building staring the forced union in the face, international agencies have repeatedly warned that, by 2015, the federation may break up. The signs, observers contend, are the inherent strains, which tend to predispose the country into failure or fragility. “Our nation has been moving backwards at a disheartening speed”, said former university don and politician Dr. Femi Okunrounmu. Education, he said, lay prostrate, industries are on the slide, owing to arrested growth, electricity is a tall ambition and agriculture, which was the mainstream of the economy, is utterly neglected.
‘Our clean cities have become slums. Infrastructure has collapsed, roads are now death traps, killing more people annually than the dreadful diseases like AIDS and malaria. Corruption is on the increase daily. More than 60 percent of our people have no access to pipe borne water and medical facilities. Our country is a country of imports and moral values have collapsed, making us the object of scorn and derision in civilized circles’, Okunrounmu added.
Many youths entertain much fear about their future. There is a correlation between mass unemployment and soaring crime rate which the country has ignored to its peril. “Government has neglected development planning”, said former Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing Alhaji Femi Okunnu. The elders statesman lamented that this omission had widened the gap between expectation and reality.
Former Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters Chief Philip Asiodu Asiodu chided the successive administrations for lack of vision and intellectual bent, adding that the civil service of yesteryears, which generated ideas and policies for the executive arm had gone to sleep.
Okunrounmu pointed out that countries whose visionary leaders embraced that culture of planning for the future have reaped the benefits. He pointed out that the Asian countries, including India, Singapore and Malaysia have left Nigeria behind in the march of development,
although they are not more endowed than Nigeria. “They became the Asian Tigers because they have good leaders”, he said.
It is an understatement. India became independence in 1947. But by 1997, when it marked its golden jubilee, it was a celebration of achievements. “India has transformed itself into a fast growing economy and achieved a considerable breakthrough in agricultural production. In 1991, electricity generation had reached 80,000 mega watts, which could not still meet their industrial, agricultural and domestic needs and most of the power generating equipment were manufactured in India”, Okunrounmu added.
Every decade, India has always
struggled to make a point. In
1969, only 22 years after its independence, the country launched an indigenous rocket into space. In July 1980, she became the sixth member of the World Space Club after launching an indigenous satellite. In 1974, and later in 1988, India detonated her own nuclear bomb. At 50, the country had developed an advanced computer industry, exporting computer and software to other developing and developed countries.
However, unlike India, which had been blessed with visionary leaders—Mahatma Ghandi, Jawaharlai Nehru, Indra Ghandi and Manmohan Singh, corrupt coup rulers, who sacked elected leaders, a who shoved aside the committed and patriotic leader have bestrode the Nigeria’s corridor of power since January 15, 1966.
Apart from plunging the country into a protracted civil war, the soldiers of fortune prolonged the tortuous journey to civil rule, jettisoned merit in favour of expediency, ruled without peoples’ consent, annulled the most credible and unifying election and created a club of rich military elite, who persistently threaten the country with their ill-gotten wealth.
In a paper titled” “Nigeria in search of true federalism”, a political scientist, Prof. Dipo Kolawole, lamented that the military has damaged the federal structure, adding that it has been difficult to repair it. He pointed out that the practice of unitary system is incompatible with the Nigerian reality
Kolawole, former Vice Chancellor of University of Ado-Ekiti, also observed that the power-loaded and financially strong central government has reduced the component units into weak, unequal 36 states and obviously ineffective 774 local governments..
But more worrisome to Okunrounmu is Okurounmu corruption in high places.He accused the leaders of crass opportunism and greed, stressing that they have wrecked havoc on the national treasury as huge sums of money budgeted for developmental purposes ended in their personal bank accounts. Frowning at their corrupt tendencies, the politician said the over $300 billion , which according to World Bank, had been stolen by them, could have solved the power problem, if properly channeled.
‘After looting the treasury, they are given GCFR, which is understood to mean the Grand Corruptor of the Federal Republic’, he fumed.
Other critics have objected to the practice of presidential system, claiming that it is too expensive to run. Eminent lawyer Prince Bola Ajibola advocated a return to the parliamentary system. He said that, apart from its cost-effectiveness, it will foster accountability.
“The nation only exists for the political class, which is not more than one percent of the population’, he lamented.
Former university don, Prof. Itsey Sagay (SAN chided the lawmakers for awarding fabulous salaries and allowances to themselves while most Nigerians cannot afford the basic needs of life. He also flayed them for ignoring the wish of the people for a thorough overhauling of the 1999 Constitution.
However, the greatest headache of Nigeria at 50 is democratic consolidation. Thus, Prof.Tunde Makanju, a sociologist at the University of Lagos described the fifty years of independence as fifty years of problematic elections. Unlike neighboring Gnana, which had successfully stabilised its democratic process, Nigerian election, in the words of Ajibola, is a tragic comedy. Thus, while the country has achieved civil rule, democracy is still unattainable. Again, the implication is that the country is under the spell of illegitimate rulers.
Former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu, who described the electoral malaise as the greatest challenge, bemoaned the spate of electoral malpractices rocking the periodic polls, saying that it has cast Nigeria in the mould of an immature nation. He said the giant of Africa has failed to lay an example of electoral probity on the continent.
‘A rigged electoral system often turns simple, routine voting in other countries into do or die violence bordering on civil war. This rigged electoral process has also succeeded in imposing few illegitimate leaders at the top to dominate the bottom millions at the base. This has further deepened distrust between the leaders and the led.
‘The patent lack of fairness in the system has led to the consolidation of ethnic politics, with each ethnic group that has a shot at power thinking it is its turn to milk the common patrimony. A lack of social infrastructure, well entrenched in developed countries and welfare states, has led to grinding poverty, which has often led to the corruption of voters and prostitution of the vote. For as little as N500, unscrupulous politicians often buy voters cards off very poor and ignorant citizens’, he stressed.
But, is the hope lost for Nigeria at 50? No is the answer by Tinubu. The country only needs to act fast, he advised.
The first step, he said, is the reform of the electoral system to ensure electoral probity. His contention is that, reforms would usher in an atmosphere of free and fair elections.
“There is urgent need for a new generation of leaders that would clear the cobwebs of decadence and political scavengers. This new generation of leaders must take our dear country to its manifest destiny. If this happens, we would have laid the foundation for rapid socio-economic growth and development for the next 50 years’, he added.
Makanju called for a serious assessment and stock taking by the stakeholders. He said they should devise a method of moving the country forward.
But Okunrounmu canvassed concrete solutions. He called for stiff penalty for financial corruption and rigging. “We should stop adulating our corrupt leaders. We should start shaming them publicly”, he said.
Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola called for the reassessment of politics and values, urging the political class to return to politics of principle and ideology. Apparently criticising the lopsided federalism, he also warned that a nation that is not erected on truth and justice cannot attain progress.
But, Kolawole said that, for Nigeria to have a true federalism, the fiscal policy must reflect equality of rights, equality of obligations and equality of access to positions. He also said that power must be more decentralised to reduce the attraction of the centre.
While endorsing the above suggestion, the leader of ‘The Patriots’, a group of elder statesman, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, said the solution to the ills of Nigeria can only be solved when a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) is convened. So far, this has been elusive.
Source: The Nation
