A Sorry Race

There is a disturbing irony in the failure of any African government to clinch the Mo Ibrahim Prize for exceptional leadership for the fourth time in five years.  The award was instituted for leaders of the last frontier. But, alas, from government to schools, from the media to the communities, no one here truly has a feeling of the divine or a sense of mission. We have no soul beyond parody and vulgarity and this is our greatest enemy. The requirements for winning the prize are basic, and yet no winner again. Where else in the world would a president get the opportunity of winning five million dollars and recognition for running a transparent, inclusive government which guarantees the security and safety of its people, provides them with basic human rights and amenities such as education, water, access to healthcare, etc as well as reduce poverty by creating jobs? That means, of course, industrialization; being creative, having something of value, with value added to sell to the world.

Our situation in the “Dark Continent” is a pathetic one. In view of the above I think that it is clear that government is certainly not the solution to our problems. I would go so far as to say that government, perhaps or the style of leadership is the problem. Can we with the current dispensation drive this piece of rickety equipment that we did not build or understand? It certainly seems that the levers of power are too cumbersome for our leaders to harness, to control for the public benefit. The institutional rot is too deep and the inexperience of government too obvious. Are we trying to control what we really do not comprehend?

Nigeria has a numerical and resource advantage over most other states. We are supposed to champion a different perception of the African continent, yet we seem to be stuck in the past and replay over and over our relationship with the West. We think that they are the solution to our problem. They have the answers, but then why would they give it to us? Perhaps they profit more from the status quo. Our leaders are still acting as “middlemen” selling our natural resources, oil and gas and agricultural products in exchange for a desire to obtain Western trade goods, many of which from being mere luxuries are now necessities by design. This is the reason for our underdevelopment. We serve as economic, political and cultural agents of the West. We are their middlemen, their commission agents and only serve to oil the wheels of their development whilst we under-develop our resources and our youth, and mortgage our future in the process.    

We know, like Azubuike Ishiekwene rightly pointed out in his recent column, that “the continent (of Africa) needs leadership that will redeem it from being an absurd theatre of charity for foreign countries and the pity party zone of rock stars”.  We should ask ourselves why we languish at the bottom of all development indices. Whilst others are thinking ahead and applying ingenious methods to solving their problems, we export mineral resources raw and cheap, robbing our coffers, only to import refined products, which we subsidize to sell to our people. The mango tree grows here, we pluck it, export the fruit and import the juice which price we subsidize to sell to our people so they can afford it. Utter madness!

We will remain underdeveloped if we continue like this. Our youth will despair. They will remain half-trained and become a menace to society, drifting from city to city looking for a foothold. Others will look to escape, to get away from this slavery; to throw off the shackles here and to look for hope elsewhere. But the journey is tortuous. Unscrupulous human traffickers await them on the shores of the Mediterranean, ready to fleece their human cargo by landing them in unseaworthy vessels and drowning the dreams and the future of Africa. They die in their thousands and those that make it are not slaves this time but bottom of the food pile economic migrants. Their suffering is on our conscience and their blood is on our hands.

What does leadership mean to those presiding over such distressed humanity? How do we salvage our shattered pride? We need to wake up to our responsibilities. We need to stop looking to the center for answers. The change, if it is to come, will come from places and from people we have not heard of yet. Though we have lost faith in our leaders (indeed, they have failed us), we should remain resilient, self-reliant and capable of fixing all the problems we face on a daily basis in our backyard. We should defend the right to continue to do so and allow nobody to stand in the way of our progress.                       

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

Embarking on a journey is not the only headache faced by passengers at Nigerian airports.  Passengers are extorted and, sometimes, violated in the process? Before the current security challenges necessitated heavier security presence at our airports, we had heard and experienced lurid tales of extortion ranging from begging to bribery and fake levies coerced from travelers. We are used to the activities of unwholesome middlemen (often airline staff), who add to the distaste of travelling during festive periods.  

It is common knowledge that passengers, under the guise of tighter security, are exposed to harassment. The matter has attained new heights, as security officials now subject passengers not only to extortion, but also to an offensive violation of their dignity. We listen daily to various testimonies shared by travelers regarding how security agents, especially at the Murtala Muhammed 2 and the Lagos international Airport (MMIA), practically assault passengers while begging them for money at the same time. On the one hand, they breach the code of the natural and social intimacy passengers nevertheless expect to go through in the name of security and safety. But on the other hand, safety and security of our airports are put under intense risk.

It is bad enough that we allow ourselves to be touched on various parts of our bodies that are exclusively reserved for us and in most cases one intimate partner. The security agents, in their greed and selfishness, are not mindful of this fact. I do not expect a man to start rubbing his hands over the whole of me, or a female agent running her hands over a lady’s breasts and cleavage. It really is a violation. This, however, is one of those occasions where we must understand, but after that, for the officer in question to start asking me how my day was or what I have for him for the weekend just makes a rubbish out of the whole exercise, apart from upsetting me and really and truly making me feel exposed.

All a terrorist has to do is endure the physical assault and dole out some cash in reasonable succession. This will speedily earn him “VIP status” such that the routine search is dispensed with. The fact that Al-Shabaab militants rented a space at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi for a year should be instructive enough.   

We were promised an end to these extortionist tendencies at our airports but nothing has changed because those saddled with the responsibility of ending them are the worst culprits. It is only in Nigeria that the activities of security agents are not captured on CCTV as if they are above the law. If not, why are there CCTV cameras all around our airports yet none has ever caught them in the act? We need not be told that CCTVs, like every other instrument of check in Nigeria, are compromised.  We have built corrupt structures and institutions around ourselves, so much that common goals are sacrificed for selfish fulfillment.

Building a virile nation out of weak, corrupt structures is at best a pipe dream. We need a rethink. Our security officers cannot be so confident, so open and so bold at creating a negative impression about Nigeria. It is impossible to move forward as a nation with the kind of moral decay that epitomizes our character and sums up others’ perception of us. We are lacking terribly in the social conscience department, and this transcends status, class, ethnicity, religion and age, whether it is politicians, who continuously secure the lion’s share of our resources because they occupy certain public positions, or underpaid and underequipped security agents who extort what they can from us.  

After running the gauntlet at Lagos airport I arrive at Abuja, free from the chaos of the jungle that is Lagos. It is raining. There is no bus to pick us up at the foot of the plane despite signs warning us not to walk on the tarmac and use the buses provided, as if the responsibility of that was ours. Worse still, soaked, I arrive at the exit. There are no covered walkways like every other airport in the world to take me to the car park and the airport is chaos. There is no set down zone for intending passengers arriving at the airport and this is the nation’s capital where our some minister of aviation is supposed to have done so much.

Can we please start with the basics and think about the passenger for whom this service was set up in the first place? Cement, granite and imported chairs (which are banned by the way) cannot build an airport. Its function, ease of use and security only can do that.

THEM SAY MAKE WE TALK O!

We should not allow anyone to pull the wool over our eyes, under the guise of convening a national conference. When did it become pressing to change our democracy by replacing an elected arm of government (the legislature) with individuals handpicked by the president to chart a course for us? National conference or whatever it is called is a waste of time. We have congressmen who are constitutionally responsible for dialoguing on our behalf. What is the National Assembly doing? Why do we like to duplicate functions?

It is evident that nobody in Nigeria is happy. Kidnapping, terrorism, ASUU and doctors’ strike, oil bunkering, no light, no water, bad roads etc are there for all to see.  Our issue is not one of the North, South, East or West, but of a failure by our leadership to create strong institutions that will ensure strict compliance with the spirit of our constitution. There is no need for us to renegotiate our coexistence; a constitutional conference is the wrong course to channel our energy and resources into. What we need to do is to strengthen our electoral, judicial and security processes ahead of the general election in 2015. We, all of us, need to take ownership of our destiny. Think about it, do you have any problem with your neighbor because of his ethnic background or religion? No we do not. We share the same hopes and desires and unless it comes to politics or resource control, which distribution is not fairly addressed, we are quite happy to love one another. So we have no problems with our diversity.  We are not confused.     

Calling for a constitutional conference is an indictment on the legislative arm of government.  Of course, our constitution as it currently stands is not perfect – far from it. But that is not the issue. The United Kingdom for instance does not have a written constitution. They operate instead, a system of natural justice based on the betterment of their collective society.  They have a clear separation of powers and strong institutions that answer to the people. That is what is lacking here. 

We claim to operate a federal system but “de facto”, what we have is a loose dictatorship based on what we have inherited from the military. The president has too much power, as do the governors. When the president or governor switches off or travels abroad, governance practically shuts down because we do not have institutions that function efficiently without the “emperor’s” personal intervention. The situation is worse at state level, where governors are the biggest threat to grassroots development by openly opposing local government autonomy. The military destroyed our public service and it has not yet been fixed. Political appointments are now the norm, under the guise of zoning. This is politically expedient but degrades moral and the quality of service provided. It suits our leaders so they gladly let the rot continue. Where we need to focus our attention is in rebuilding those public services by ensuring that our institutions do what they are established to do: providing us with service and vice versa.

The concept of federalism is hinged on empowering and serving the people by government at the centre, at state level, local government and ward level, all with strong and functional institutions where the structure and citizenry matter and not the individual holding an appointed post, who answers only to “my oga on top”. We need to be in control of our resources and freely choose those to administer them. We must take ownership of our place, be allowed to develop and enjoy our raw materials and happily pay taxes to the state, who will provide us with the securities that we so desperately need. This does not need to be discussed at any parallel forum.  

In this era of economic and social integration, when other countries are making progress by opening their doors to the right kind of immigration, we are here setting our nation aback, preferring to give every argument an ethnic or religious twist.  We are Nigerians and amongst us live foreigners, foreigners from within and without. We should celebrate and learn from that diversity and accord any resident the same rights as any “indigenous person.” In the United Kingdom today, one of their favorite foods is Chinese cuisine. The Chinese population there is neither ostracized nor treated as foreigners, leaches, invaders nor settlers. The descriptions are offensive to me, so imagine me calling a fellow Nigerian by those terms. We should understand the need for immigration to better our lands and improve the successes of our societies. America, arguably the most successful society in the world, was built this way.

How do we achieve this when we do not recognize what our problem is, who we are and what we aspire to be?   

CELEBRATION

Do you not think sometimes that we are part of some lavish joke? Nigeria is 53 and January 2014 will mark a century of our amalgamation. But how much have we done in building the nation we are celebrating? Is there anything to celebrate?

Our leaders’ anniversary gift to us is a corrupt polarized society with politicians desperate to cling to power and lazy Nigerians who refuse to take responsibility. Last week, over 50 students were slaughtered in Yobe State. In fact, the North East of the country is a war zone and in the Niger Delta, militants are being held at bay with bribes. Are we losing our nation?

We live in a state of perpetual repression, not because we do not know the truth, but because we are uneducated, lazy and in denial.  We talk about how richly endowed this country is but what have we done with it? We should be ashamed that we have so much solid minerals and agricultural resources yet have to import these same finished products from abroad. Lead poisoning is killing children in Zamfara due to illegal gold mining because government has refused to invest in that resource for national development.  Our people are slaves to smugglers and our collective benefit is stolen.  Illegal refineries have sprung up in the creeks because the nation lacks the capacity to create an enabling environment for investors to come here and service our petroleum needs. They pollute the land and the water and our children die and yet no benefit accrues to us. It is a joke that a country with 23 billion barrels of oil and 160 trillion cubic meters of gas in its reserves does not know how to efficiently generate energy, give the local communities ownership and create wealth for the nation.   

We have a total of 37 minerals in commercial quantity in Nigeria. Kogi State alone has deposits of a total of 29, yet it is one of the poorest states here. Nigeria’s bitumen deposit, put at 42 billion tones (almost twice the volume of our crude oil), is the second largest in the world.  Not to have railways and to be struggling with some of the world’s poorest road networks is unbelievable. With over 600 million tones of low-content sulphur and ash coal, we shut our eyes on one of the best sources of energy and fluctuate between 3000-4000MW of epileptic electricity supply nationwide. We have barite, gypsum, gold, iron ore, lead, zinc, kaolin and gemstones in commercial quantity.

We should have the rest of the world pounding on our doors and begging us to let them also have a piece of the action. Yet no. Why? Because we are not ready to do what it takes. Instead they laugh at us.

With 167 million people, we are one of the very few countries blessed with the rarity of having both resources and population to feed the market potential. We have what to produce and the people to consume it. Can you imagine? This is what businesses all over the world are looking for. Enugu has enough coal to power Nigeria for 400 years; Kogi has enough limestone to keep three of Obajana Cement Factory in business for 100 years; we have twice more bitumen in Ondo than crude oil. And there is no state of the federation without at least one form of mineral resource. But failure to harness these mineral resources is responsible for a similar failure in the agric and allied sector. Cotton production has dwindled because our textiles are closed. We now sell raw cotton to India and Bangladesh to help provide jobs for their people; our cocoa bean is rejected in the international market for lacking in quality; the famous groundnut pyramids in Kano are now merely remembered with fondness; and we now look to Malaysia for the cooking oil we were famous for in the 50s and 60s.   

Rather than rolling out the drums to party as usual, we should, as Socrates said, “employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.”  That means that it CANNOT be political for our schools to be closed because “true wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us.” The quest for knowledge should be paramount in our minds.

Power, water, rail and road networks and communication must be priorities.  Industries cannot run efficiently otherwise, our youth will not be trained and engaged and we will continue to run down the road to polarity, balkanization pain and suffering. We need to start to understand the world. It does not have to be such a painful journey. God bless Nigeria.