Nigeria is not a failed state (III)
www.dailytimesofnigeria.com Emmanuel Majebi
The characteristics of people and their politics differ from place to place. The Prime Minister of Belgium for example rides a bicycle from his residence to work, but I am quite sure you would not recommend that for our own President here. You would not even expect the US President to be so careless as to ride a bike to work. Nor would you expect the British Prime Minister; in the light of the ever present threat from the I.R.A, to do such a careless thing. The amiable late General Murtala Muhammed tried to lay a good example for future Nigerian leaders, by being a simple zero - protocol head of state and he paid with his life. Even our own dear Uncle Bola Ige who chose to be a very simple Minister who shunned all protocol paid with his life. So under our own peculiar circumstances a Minister driving himself to work all alone might be suicidal.
Dr Utomi believes that we have a disconnected state where the leaders do not know what their people go through. I beg to disagree. In a poverty-stricken country like Nigeria, no person no matter how highly placed would not have one or two of his relatives who are living in penury and who keep pestering you for help. So to say that there are government officials who do not know what the majority of the people are going through would be putting things too far. I believe that the real problem is that even if one knows what the people are going through, there is virtually nothing he may be able to do. If for example a person is the Minister for Sports and Culture or a Legislator, what can he do about the roads to his village? So when I hear our people say that when a man was in power he did nothing for his people it is very clear that our understanding of governance is still very faulty. That is the very reason why every village would insist that one of it’s indigenes must be appointed into government. When most people say that their parts of the country have been marginalised, what they really mean in essence is that not enough people from that area have been appointed into government! The reasoning is that unless someone from your village is in power nothing would be done for your area! But in real sense governance is supposed to be a collective endeavour where the person holding power and even the governed decide on how the country should be run. This type of sophistication in governance is not something that can be achieved in 4 years but through constant practice of democratic principle and the agreement by majority of Nigerians; both leaders and the led that we should run the country in a better way. The theory that I always like to put across to people whenever they lay the entire blame for our backwardness on the doorsteps of office holders, is to remind them of the fact that a people would only get the type of government that they deserve. I honestly believe that our country is still the way it is because the majority of us have not yet decided that our country should be better. The day a large majority of us decide that our country should be better that is the day it would be better! And there after any leadership that comes to be in Nigeria would have no option but to follow the wishes of the people. In this regard I would like to tell Dr Utomi that the politicians know exactly what their people want, that is why they do what they do! A quick perusal of our past governments show that the governments like those of Gowon, IBB and Abacha that were very corrupt were the ones that had lasted longest. Others like those of Murtala and Buhari which sought to put things right were quickly terminated! If you want to test my theory just do a simple test. In your place of work or small community you just stand out and decide that you are going to fight for things to be done properly and according to laid down rule and see how unpopular you would be in the shortest time possible. You would be labelled with all sorts of names like radical, e.t.c and if you are too much of a pest with your crusades you would either be sacked, settled or eliminated. The truth of the matter is that Nigeria as a nation (I mean majority of us) are not yet ready for an honest leadership.
On Dr Utomi’s doomsday prediction that Nigeria is headed for the Sierra Leone experience, I say God forbid. Firstly for the umpteenth time, I would like to say that the Nigerian situation is different from that of other nations, Sierra Leone inclusive. Countries like Sierra Leone are so small that one man or a group of men can hold them to ransom. A few selfish leaders whose personal agendas have been truncated by their fellow oppressors instigate most wars in Africa. They quickly work people to a frenzy by either playing the religious or tribal joker which always get the masses on the run fighting for causes they know little or nothing about. Bu here in Nigeria, God has blessed us with a little more sophistication.
Concluded.
Majebi wrote in from Lagos.
Ever since Ojukwu led the Igbo nation, under the guise of emancipation, to a near Hara kiri and later cleverly fled to Abidjan with is family under the guise of going to seek for fresh foreign backing for the war efforts, whilst leaving the common Igbo man to face the wrath of the Federal troops with their bare hands and hungry stomachs, I think the masses of Nigeria have learn a bitter lesson. Anytime anyone comes to you telling you to go and start some war or fracas, be sure to tell him to let his own children or grand children lead the charge whilst you follow behind. The only part of Nigeria where leaders still seemingly have a hold on the psyche of their people is in the North where the selfish leaders always play the religious cards to get their people to commit atrocities on their behalf! And even in this part of Nigeria, they days of deciet would soon pass and the masses would come to understand that they are just being exploited under the guise of religion.
I pray that just as divine intervention in the form of a sudden increase in the price of Crude Oil foiled Utomi’s doomsday prediction on the economy, his prediction on us going the way of Sierra Leone would also go unfulfilled. The type of near misses we have recorded as a nation should tell us that God loves us and that He has a purpose for our nation and I honestly believe that a second civil war is not one of those purposes! The economies of many nations have gone through serious recession between year 2000 and year 2002 so I do not know why Utomi is making heavy weather of the fact that the economy is not doing well. Even the US economy has not been as strong as it used to be. The United States Dollar according to the CNN is suffering form a 3-year low against all the world’s major currencies. CNN also reported that a record 186 American companies in the year 2002 filed for bankruptcy with an estimated 4billion US dollars worth of investment in jeopardy! BBC TV reported that almost all the world’s major stock exchanges are yet to recover from the last 3years decline and that this year 2002, they suffered their lowest returns in those 3 years. The Asian economies are not doing any better The economy of Japan; a hitherto well renowned powerhouse of healthy economies, continued to suffer recession throughout 2002. In Europe many of the economic powerhouses like Germany and Britain have had a bad year. In Italy the car making giant, Fiat, is in trouble and they are at the verge of being taken over by American company GM Motors. In Britain, according to reports from BBC, over 25 billion Pounds Sterling was wiped out of the profits of Britain’s top companies in 2002. The Brazilian Economy was so bad that for the first time in decades Brazilians in a move of desperation elected into government, a leftist leaning government of Lula Da Silva’s Workers Party, with the hope that it would be able to turn round the economy. In Argentina the economy of the country totally collapsed and in the ensuring palaver Argentina had 5 Presidents in a space of 2 months!! The Nigerian economy, like most other parts of our national life had been taken to the cleaners under the recklessness of the last 3 military regimes that we have had in this country for about 15 good years, so with the strides we have made so far under the Obasanjo government inspite of the global decline in the world economy, I think that we heave not fared too badly.
In conclusion I would like to point out to Dr Utomi and others that feel like him that whilst we must agree with them that we could be doing better as a nation, we must not make the type of statements that make others outside Nigeria feel that our nation is about to go up in flames. We have not always had governments who are focused; sometime we get some that are relatively better and at other time we get down right useless governments. The people too have not yet developed to a stage where they would demand certain things from their governments, and to support any leader who can provide for such demands regardless of such said leader is from their village or the same religion with them. One of these days we are going to achieve that type of sophistication as a people and then we would have the type of leaders that we deserve! But the fact that we have not yet reached that state of political awareness that de-emphasizes religion, tribe and creed and we are still floundering on the way to development does not mean that we are a failed nation! I refuse to agree with such apocalyptic judgement.
EMMANUEL MAJEBI
LEGAL PRACTITIONER
N0 1 ODUNUGA STREET
OPEBI - IKEJA