“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich"
Late John F. Kennedy
The vast majority of Nigerians still view with horrendous shock the tragedy of underdevelopment still unfolding in Nigeria 50 years after independence. They have triangulated and catechized the contours and crevices of this Sisyphean albatross to no avail. It is only in Nigeria that the anathema and interdictory taboo of the "Cock crowing at Night" that is, vestigial and embryonic stagnation of our developmental metamorphosis still persists in the 21st Century. What a shame!
On the 14th January, 1960 the historic motion calling upon Her Majesty's Government to make arrangements for Nigeria to become independent on 1st October, 1960 was moved by the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and seconded by Mr. Raymond Njoku, the then Minister of Transport. The text of the motion reads: "That this House authorizes the Government of the Federation of Nigeria to request Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom as soon as practicable to introduce legislation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom providing for the establishment of the Federation of Nigeria on October 1, 1960 as an independent Sovereign State.
And to request Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom at the appropriate time to support with the other members-governments of the Commonwealth, Nigeria's desire to become a member of the Commonwealth". It will be recalled, in this regard that the first motion calling upon the British Government to declare Nigeria an independent Sovereign State by 1956 was tabled by Chief Anthony Enahoro of the Action Group (AG) in 1953. In other words, it was the tabling by the Action Group (AG) through Chief Enahoro in 1953 of the motion for self-government that accelerated the process of Nigeria's attainment of independence.
After Independence in 1960 Nigerians sang sonorous hosanna and there was clamorous plaudit. But, little did we realize that it was a political threnody and our own nunc demittis. Nigeria continues to remain a horrible nation sunken in leadership gangsterism, kleptocracy, lootocracy and corybantic corruption. There are no existing adjectives to describe the level of poverty and despondent hopelessness of the Nigerian. There are no roads, no functioning health care delivery system, no houses, no schools, no light, no drinking water, no food and no transportation. Where they exist, they are beyond the financial reach of the ordinary Nigerian.
The political class and elites have legislated all our monies into their pockets, through a so-called PRIVATIZATION scheme and broad daylight larceny. Those patriotic Nigerians who committed their lives to hard-work, honesty and integrity are allowed to die disgracefully on queues as pensioners. The poor Nigerian situation is compounded by the hounding and hectoring by a Gestapo police, which luxuriate in killing those they are paid to protect. Afesiere, Zaki Ibiam, Ododegho and Odi are cases in point. There is no security as poverty and adventurism has turned our youths into an army of robbers, prostitutes, kidnappers, crooks, 419ers, thieves, political thugs, cultists and assassins etc. The Niger delta question, feudal Northern hegemonism, Igbo political cowardice, minority rights abuse, extra judicial killings, gender discrimination, legislators inertia, religious bigotry, PHCN's albatross and leadership subterfuge has left Nigeria groping helplessly and hopelessly on an uncharted sea without a compass.
Commenting on Nigeria's political, socio-economic dire straits in 1961, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said, "Let us rally round and save this nation from the pettiness and vindictiveness of politicians who are prepared to sacrifice national interest on the altar of political expediency". In an address to Congress in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) said, “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that build from the bottom up, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid”
The rebarbartive imprimatur and bright sunshine of generic developmental and economic bliss illuminates the lives of the vast majority of people in any nation with sound economic policies bereft of bad leadership and corruption. Economic prosperity, peace and progress are the quid pro quo which the people get in return for their commitment to the tenets of the 'Social Contract'. Hence, the economist Dr. E. Schumacher (1911-1977) posited in his book "Small is Beautiful" that, "call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation of man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations as long as you have not shown it to be "Uneconomic" you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow and prosper"
We need no econometric synopsis and catechism to know that the egregiously cataleptic and corrupt disposition of the Nigerian Leadership at all levels right from 1960 till date has left the Nigerian Masses anaesthetized, indurated, castrated and asphyxiated by the scorching pangs of poverty. This is against the back drop of the fact that Nigeria is the sixth biggest producer of oil in the world. It has earned trillions of petro-dollars from 1956 when oil was first discovered in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State, till its commercialization in 1958. The economic strangulation of Nigerians has been pursued and still being pursued with robust gusto by the ruling class right from independence, so much so that it is now the fundamental objective and directive principles of state policy. The quintessential entrenchment of poverty in Nigeria has become our National anthem, pledge and Motto.
The Nigerian project and by extension the African agenda has been a still birth, a gridlock and a cliffhanger running in concentric circles because of the intravenous incapability of Nigeria to create a leadership focus. Existing statistical data shows that Nigeria is cascading down the horrendous economic quagmire of weird poverty. In 1970, then 10yrs after independence, Nigeria was ranked 37 in the world with per capital income of $1, 00 U.S. dollar. But today, 50years after independence Nigeria is ranked the second poorest country in the world with a yearly percentage income of $300 U.S dollars. Poverty in Nigeria is catalytically fueled by the bane of corruption which has become our national ethos. The political leadership is unrelenting and religiously devoted to the god of corruption. The trial of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, some state Governors in the Obasanjo Junta, Directors of Corporations, Ministers and Commissioners etc is now being manipulated by the Machiavellian antics of the PDP. They are all sacred cows. The PDP syndicate has rendered the EFCC, ICPC and CCB etc impotent through the spider web of judicial intrigues. Nigerians are consigned to the ineluctable fate of dreadful poverty and economic objurgation.
The exigently execrable hands of corruption will definitely accentuate the penumbra of darkness over shadowing our nation. The case of the recidivist and irredeemably criminal politicians is so unthinkably bad that we hope that their inability to learn from the lessons of history will not take the hands of our political clock backwards to the road to Yugoslavia and the Hobbesian state of nature manifested in military coups, youth restiveness, communal clashes, riots, political unrest, religious schism, secession and the Rawlings-like killing of the past and present leaders. The Late President Musa Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria was a pariah president who won an election through the rapacious and buccaneering pillaging of votes co-ordinated and sponsored by Professor IWU's INEC. The Wild, Wild West, and the Niger delta imbroglio continue to anathemise our nation whilst poverty and corruption continues to decimate our people.
At 50 we need no political clairvoyant and ritualistic necromancer sunken in prophetic evocations and possessed by the rhomboidal schmaltzy to know that the Nigerian nation is gallivanting and junketing in the cauldron of self destruct, and like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead. Nigeria is clinically nuanced in a cadaverous morgue and it can only be brought back to life through a Lazarus-like miracle. It needs an economic revolution, moral rearmament, social reinvention, leadership ablution, religious repositioning and political renaissance to rekindle it back to life. Otherwise, all the laudably lofty ideas of NEPAD, SEEDS, NEEDS, PRIVATlZATlON. CURRENCY REDENOMINATlON, MICRO AND MACRO FINANCING THROUGH SMES, NIGER DELTA MASTER PLAN, DESOPADEC, AGRONOMY, COMMUNICATION, EDUCATION, POWER DISTRIBUTION, WATER PROJECT, ROAD CONSTRUCTION, HOUSING AND MEDICAL PROJECTS will continue to be a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
The challenges of the time and the quantifiable targets for government are captured in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). MDG represents a global agreement setting out key standards that nations should achieve by 2015. The goals include the following: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve Universal Primary Education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/ AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development. All these sound like cryptogrammised hieroglyphics to the Nigerian Government. The so- called drive to make Nigeria one of the twenty (20) most developed economies in the year 2020 remains a mirage. Whither goeth Nigeria in the throes of teratoid corruption after 50 years of independence? We cannot make palpable developmental strides without killing the monster of corruption.
Finally, the Nigerian nation will continue to steeple chase in the crepuscular crevices of backwardness unless the monster of corruption is given a gruesomely lethal blow through the introduction of the "DEATH PENALTY" for corrupt misdemeanors. The legal logistics could be worked out. Nigeria cannot make meaningful economic progress unless we rededicate ourselves to the nuts and bolts of nation building. The grotesque salamander-like assassinations, kidnapping, armed robbery, suicide and the unpatriotic characteristics of the Nigerian will continue to be on the ascendancy unless there is an economic exorcism to deracinate the Nigerian nation from the wicked incubus of poverty. This must be the Holy Grail of our march to nationhood. A word is enough for the wise. A TIME FOR SOBER REFLECTION.
Bobson Gbinije
Bogep Oils LTD
Warri.
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