IS NIGERIA WORKING FOR YOU?

By Chris Obiako

One quote I never shy away from remains, ‘Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything’.

Olajumoke Alawode-James of Plus TV made headlines recently with a very pertinent question, ‘Is Nigeria working for you?’

I got entranced by this poignant subject for the fact that I’ve discovered that many Nigerians, just like Alawode-James, are no longer accepting the things they cannot change. They’re bent, this time, on changing the things they cannot accept.

Albeit before ex-Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, was swept away from power in 2015, All Progressive Congress (APC) chieftains made ‘change’ their national anthem, Nigerians have realized that if they you don’t change, they don’t grow, and if they don’t grow, they aren’t really living.

Without doubt, Olajumoke was one of the millions of ardent ‘change’ apostles pre 2015 Nigeria’s presidential elections. That she’s singing a different song today is not a surprise.

Having been a witness to the devastation and destruction of Nigeria – a land that once flowed with milk and honey – by the APC hierarchy, she has come to the stark reality that, like millions of Nigerians, the secret to change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on rebuilding the new.

Suffice it to say that Nigerians have woken from their deep slumber, and are now fighting desperately with all the blood in the veins to free themselves from the shackles of a clueless, reckless, rudderless and brainless administration.

For starters, how did we get to this deplorable and despicable situation? Why were we so engrossed in the phrase ‘We’ve always done it this way’ in such a way that we lost our sense of reasoning and direction completely?

By the way, since independence in 1960, Nigeria has witnessed all manner of leaders.

There was Abubakar Tafewa Balewa, Nigeria’s first Prime Minster, who went to Britain, and dazzled his hosts with his tea-consumption prowess. While he was drinking tea as if tomorrow did not exist, his aides reminded him that tea is simply a complimentary and light meal in Britain, not a full delicacy like ‘tuwo shinkafa’.

It was during Balewa’s regime that corruption first reared its ugly head, but politicians those days, didn’t use bullion vans to ferry money to election venues and campaign grounds.

There was Gen. Yakubu Gowon, who appeared more Catholic than the Pope, until allegations that he took ‘half of Nigeria’s Central Bank’ emanated from the UK – the country that haboured him when he was ousted via a military coup in 1975.

Gowon was corrupt, his cabinet members were corrupt, but none of the men he saddled with the responsibility of leading a state (in Nigeria) was caught on camera pocketing vast wads of US dollars, said to be bribe payments from public works contractors.

There was Gen. Murtala Mohammed, a brilliant soldier and administrator, who came in with glorious intentions, but was cut down by Dimka’s bullets. Mohammed remains (probably) Nigeria’s most upright leader, and he ensured during his brief reign that those he appointed as administrators of states and ministers were not converting government property to private use.

They were not foisting their in-laws on the states after the expiry of their tenures, and were not buying choice property in Dubai and other parts of the world.

There was Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who was labelled Maradona as a result of his avaricious, manipulative and cunning antecedents.

The highlights of his misrule were the cancellation of June 12 Presidential election and the ‘disappearance’ of 12.4 billion dollars Gulf (oil) windfall from the coffers of Nigeria’s treasury. Pundits regard Babangida as the godfather of corruption in Nigeria – the man who legalized corruption, and made it a way of life in Nigeria.
But then, Babanginda, as fantastically corrupt as he was, awarded the contract for, and completed the Third Mainland Bridge, worked assiduously towards the Abuja project, and moved Nigeria’s seat of power to where is today known as Aso Rock.
He appointed and recruited rapacious administrators and ministers but none of his men was caught diverting pension funds for personal use.

During his manipulative days, Nigeria did not import oil from Niger Republic, neither did he construct a rail line linking Northern Nigeria with Niger Republic while Nigerians do not have a rail line connecting Lagos to Abuja, Nigeria’s two biggest cities.

There was Gen. Sani Abacha who (at present) is ranked the 4th world’s most corrupt leader. He held sway between 1993 and 1998, during which he was alleged to have left Nigeria’s account in red to the tune of more than $5 billion. Among his colleagues and peers are Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, who embezzled more than $10 billion, Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, who carted away more than $10 billion, Mohammed Suharto of Indonesia, who stole in the excess of $35 billion, among others.
Abacha was a dictator whose ambition was to become a life head of state.

One of his priorities was to remain in power till eternity. He killed, maimed and jailed his opponents, and sent shock waves across the nation with his brutal and crude tactics. He enacted stringent military decrees and sent stern-looking soldiers to the streets to enforce them. It was a traumatic and tragic period for Nigerians.
Palpable fear, anarchy and mayhem enveloped the West African nation until his opponents discovered his weak point – he could sleep with anything on skirt. It is not official, but reliable sources have it that the strong man from Kano was sent to his early grave by poisoning via an ‘apple’ delivered by prostitutes imported from Brazil – with state funds.

Abacha was a terror but he never legalized or authorised terrorists to be kidnapping, maiming and killing fellow Nigerians.

He never,directly or indirectly, instructed his service chiefs to protect and project the Fulani agenda.

He never negotiated with terrorists. The men he put in charge of the states of Nigeria never held consultations and meetings with representatives of Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen, neither did they pay ransom to the terrorists.

We had Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who moves around (up till now) in a garb of righteousness. Yet, when Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in 1999, he set up the Kolade panel to review contracts awarded by Abubakar’s 8 month administration. Alarmingly, the panel uncovered a monument of corrupt practices, indicating that Abubakar looted more money than Abacha.

Yet during Abubakar’s crooked reign, snakes and monkeys never swallowed billions of naira kept in the custody of ministers, special assistants, special advisers and other government officials.

During his era, Fulani Herdsmen were not on rampage – raping, kidnapping, maiming, killing innocent Nigerians and ravaging farm lands.

We had Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo whose priority on assuming office (the second time) was to change Nigeria’s constitution to enable him run for a third term.

His tenure was marred by massive looting, culminating in Transparency International decorating Nigeria as the world’s most corrupt country under the watchful eyes of the Ogun State-born military officer.

In his eight years of leadership, the trophies of corruption that stood out include the 16 billion dollar power project rip-off, Haliburton scandal, PTDF, National ID card scam etc.

But Obasanjo was instrumental to the actualization of the mobile phone plan, an initiative Gen. Abacha could not facilitate. Abacha, somewhere along his tortuous reign, gave Nigerians the impression that he was bent on implementing the mobile digital project, but through that means, he fleeced thousands of Nigerian corporate bodies, and duped millions of Nigerians.

Unquestionably, Obasanjo was one of Nigeria’s most corrupt leaders, but the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman he appointed, Nuru Ribadu, was not indicted for colluding with disgruntled politicians to siphon money to different parts of the world.

Ribadu did not recruit people to buy choice houses for him in Dubai during or after his tenure.

We had Shehu Musa Yaradua, Nigeria’s first graduate President, who came with lofty plans for the nation. He was a man who had pious intentions. He floated the rehabilitation of the Niger Delta militants, went into several agreements with them, which he adhered to, religiously.

He was an articulate and meticulous leader whose blueprint was magnificent, but delivery was cut short by a terminal disease.

During his era, his Transport Minister never attended press conferences, telling Nigerians that they instructed trains plying the Abuja-Kaduna routes to maintain 100 mph to avoid killing cows.

He did not borrow money from China with reckless abandon, and did not prioritise the lives of cows than those of fellow Nigerians.

We had Goodluck Jonathan, a cat with nine lives, who rose from the shackles of a very deprived upbringing to – against all odds – become Nigeria’s number one citizen.

On assumption of office, he hit the ground running, and was focused on consolidating on his predecessor’s giant strides. Massive distraction by the Hausa/Fulani as well as South West oligarchy, however, truncated his sound initiative.
He was maligned, cajoled and ridiculed by APC propagandists, who were hell bent on setting Nigeria on fire before and during the 2015 presidential elections. Quite unlike all African leaders, Jonathan left his footprints in the sands of time by quietly relinquishing power, albeit he had many options.
As political parties, including warped members of APC, throng his Otueke residence, dangling the 2023 presidential ticket in his face, the stone that millions of Nigerians rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

Among Jonathan’s chieftains during his administration was Sambo Dasuki who was alleged to have diverted more than 2 billion dollars meant for ‘security’. There was also Olisa Metuh, a former PDP spokesman, who was convicted by Justice Okong Abang of the Abuja High Court for laundering the sum of 400 million naira.

But none of the men in his era, let alone his Attorney General and Minister of Justice, was fingered by an ousted EFCC chairman of stealing and diverting billions of dollars recovered from suspected corrupt government and private individuals.
All through his tenure, no single Nigerian was convicted in Dubai, or anywhere across the world, for sponsoring and transferring money to the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

During Jonathan’s rule, a bag of rice sold for 8,500 naira, not 25, or 30,000 naira, a (De Rica) cup of rice sold for 100 naira, not 450, and one US dollar exchanged for 150 naira, not 460 naira.

Jonathan was termed ‘weak’, ‘incompetent’, ‘sluggish’ etc., but none of his service chiefs, not even any Inspector General of Police, paid more than 2 billion naira to be retained after his tenure expired.

Jonathan embraced the Northerners. He appointed them to key positions during his era. He gave the ‘almajiris’ a new sense of direction. He touched their lives in ways no other Nigerian president, even the core Northerners had done.

He never made appointments based on ethnic or religious grounds. He never told Nigerians that Niger Delta oil was meant for Niger Deltans, like the APC leadership are telling us today that Zamfara gold is meant for the North, while the Niger Delta oil is meant for Nigerians.

Jonathan did not assign three key ministerial positions to an ex-governor who was indicted for setting up a personal website with 78.3 million naira public funds.
The same man who held sway in Lagos State for eight years, and was alleged to have spent 393 million naira on two boreholes, was retained for four years, during which Nigerian roads became death traps, homelessness among Nigerians reached a crescendo, and excessive darkness pervaded the nation.

According to APC propagandists led by Lai Mohammed and Joe Igbokwe, Jonathan was not a military ruler. He had no single experience when it comes to security issues. He had no security mechanism strategy. Yet, during his tenure, farmers were not beheaded in their farms. Farmers did not seek permission to go to their farms to provide food for Nigerians, neither were their crops destroyed by dare devil cows, under the supervision of arms carrying Fulani Herdsmen.

Jonathan was not a morally upright and religious person, according Lai and Igbokwe. Yet, during his time, Hisbah did not ban alcohol in Kano. Hisbah did not destroy more than 300 million naira worth of alcoholic beverages belonging to petty traders, while the state government is receiving grants from the Federal Government from money collected as taxes for alcoholic businesses.

In September 2020, Kano State’s Gross Statutory Allocation from FAAC was N5.34 billion. Of that figure, N2.69 billion was Gross VAT allocation. This means the State Government destroyed the equivalent of about 7.5 per cent of its VAT allocation from FAAC.

From a revenue perspective, the Breweries, Bottling, and Beverages industry contributed N40.6 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT) to the economy within the last nine months, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
onathan was clueless, like Lai and Igbokwe made us believe, but all through his administration, the Abuja-Kaduna road was not abandoned to monstrous kidnappers.

Of all Nigeria’s past leaders, none is as unproductive and as docile as the present man in charge – Major General Buhari (rtd.).

While Babangida was instrumental to the construction of the Third Mainland Bridge; while Obasanjo gave Nigerians GSM, it’s impossible to point to one thing Buhari can be remembered for.

When he recently expressed shock over why things are not working in Nigeria, it was clear that nobody was really in control of things in Nigeria.

Buhari ruled Nigeria as a military dictator from 1984 to 85 via a military coup d’état, during which he came up with bogus initiatives that made Nigerians believe he was a Daniel who had come to judgment.
Just like the first time he came to power as Nigeria’s head of state, before the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria, Buhari prided himself as ‘Mr. Integrity’ before the historic election that sent former President, Jonathan, packing.
Before ex-general’s arrival, hope and excitement pervaded Nigeria. Nigerians believed their days of agony and devastation were over. Nigerians who have been enslaved by chains of 16 years of PDP’s misrule (Lai Mohammed’s parlance) were full of great expectations. As a result, they went out in large numbers to vote for the Katsina State-born military officer.

However, their enthusiasm has turned to despair as the country has plunged into a state of coma. Recession has set in, and prices of goods have skyrocketed to more than 300, in some cases 500 per cent, since 2015 when the military dictator came to power.

Electricity supply, which Buhari’s cronies used as a campaign instrument against Jonathan, has nose-dived to an abominable level – unprecedented in the annals of the nation.

To posit that in today’s Nigeria, there’s no food, no water, no house, no road, no viable means of transportation, no schools, no hospitals, no employment etc., is grossly an understatement.
Security of lives and property is at the lowest ebb since independence, as kidnapping, killing, maiming, rape and sundry acts of violence have become daily rituals in the West African nation. To imply, therefore, that this country is dysfunctional, is stating the obvious.

Today, nothing is working in Nigeria. Or, am I living in a different part of the nation?

If I am (living in an obscure part of Nigeria) is Nigeria working for you? Is Nigeria working in your neighbourhood?