Not Yet Uhuru
Nigeria yesterday marked her 44th independence anniversary and her 41st anniversary as a sovereign state. The country gained independent from the British colonialist rule on October 1, 1960 and became a republic three years later. Easily, one of the most potentially gifted nations in Africa and indeed the world in terms of mineral resources, but her 44 years of existence have been full of ups and downs. Ike Abonyi examines the recent developments in the country as we celebrate and concludes that the greater number of the population have very little to celebrate for.
Yesterday, Nigeria as an independent nation turned 44 years. But with very little if any to celebrate for. This year's celebration, like that of last year and indeed all since 1999 when President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power have been marked with mixed feelings. Either by mistake or design, the government over the years usually roll out anti-people polices and programmes on the eve of each independence anniversary. The result has always been that while the very few insignificant number in government and their beneficiaries celebrate what could have been for all, the rest of the population take the period to lament and mourn the hardship they go through.
This year's celebration followed the same pattern. Just last week the government for the fifth time in the last five years hiked the price of petroleum products to as high as N53 per litre for petrol and N60 per litre for even kerosine used by the wretched of the earth in our midst to prepare basic things as food. It is also through the use of kerosine for domestic cooking that the nation hoped to confront the dreaded desertification threatening major geographical part of northern Nigeria.
As the government and its allies celebrated yesterday, the rest of Nigerians bemoan their fate and what awaits their socio-economic and political life ahead.
In 1991, precisely June 4 in Abuja at the 27th session of the defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the then President of the World Bank Mr Barber B. Conable warned that until the quality of governance in Africa is improved, no level of capacity building, investment in human resources or otherwise can improve the lot of Africa. Thirteen years after that warning, nothing can be pointed at as a sign of any lesson being learnt from that timely warning.
Then most of African countries were under the political control of the military and the Western World had made us to believe and accept that our woes were mostly tied to the presence of the military in governance. Nigeria, the most populous government in the continent was a clear bad example.
Since then, a lot of political transformation has taken place in Africa with virtually all the nations operating if not democratic rule, at least a civilian administration. But very clearly is evidence that these so called democratic leaders in Africa are no different from their military colleagues if not worse.
Today, after 44 years of nationhood, one can say with near certainty that our successive leaders of course not excluding the present ones, have lacked the political will to improve the living standard of the people by moving the economy in the path of development. Rather, the glaring picture has been that of personal and group enrichment from highly conservative ruling class that can be found in both military and civil circles.
Five clear years into the new democratic experiment under President Obasanjo, Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of the much heralded democratic renaissance. The undisputed reality is that Obasanjo government in the last five years has recorded a catalogue of woes in its inability to give the nation the much needed focus and exemplary leadership.
He has failed in his effort to resolve any of the vexed issues plaguing our nation since independence. Rather, political watchers are beginning to even say that he is worsening it.
CORRUPTION:
Corruption in the public service that has remained the most visible cog in the wheel of the nation's progress has gotten so bad in the last five years that Nigeria and Bangladesh have been exchanging second and first positions in the global chart of most corruption nation.
This is in spite of the noise being made by this government in its anti-corruption crusade which has turned out to be a sham. As we celebrate Nigeria at 44 years even with a purportedly Independent Corrupt Practice Commission (ICPC) in place, Nigerians have been watching and reading the dramatic disappearance of a whole vessel after its arrest by the Nigerian Navy for being involved in the oil bunkering business that has come to be very pronounced since the return to democracy.
It seems like the anti-corruption searchlight of President Obasanjo consciously and deliberately looked the other way as the Nigerian Navy and the Police traded blames over who it is that let the "criminal ship" off the hook.
To many Nigerians, the arrest may have been done in error and if people will ever be punished it would be those who caused the mistake and definitely not the illegal bunkers. The anti-corruption war is for the enemies and political opponents and not for allies, so ICPC has seen or heard nothing regarding the missing vessel.
Never in the history of Nigeria's 44 political years has there been a time that elected officers stay more outside the country than it has been in the last five years. In some states for instance, the elected executive governors visit their states from either South Africa, USA or Europe. In fact, one of the governors is said to be studying in Europe even as he governs his state. The level of corruption among public officers has been so alarming that Nigerians are beginning to adopt it as the only option left.
LEGISLATURE:
Today, at 44 years of existence as a nation, the country is celebrating a national parliament made up of men and women that cannot beat their chest, holding either Bible or Quran, to declare that they are living above board. For five years of democratic journey, Nigerians have come to embrace a legislative body that has at different times been under suspicious of fraud and monetised legislative ethics.
At both chambers of the National Assembly -- the Senate and the House of Representatives and all the 36 Houses of Assembly, Nigerians are seeing a near moribund and sycophantic bodies that made itself a dependent arm of the executive instead of an independent arm of the polity. The reason is not far fetched. It is traceable to the questionable way and manner they came to be where they are. Except for the brief times when a combination of late Senate president Dr Chuba Okadigbo and Speaker Ghali Umar N'Abba held sway in the National Assembly, Nigerians have seen a colourless and characterless legislative body that has left no hope for the future of this country.
JUDICIARY:
Not even the supposedly sacred third estate of the realm, the judiciary is left free of the stench in the nation's polity in the past 44 years. Just on the eve of this celebration last week the National Judicial Council (NJC) announced the sack of one Justice Stanley Nnaji of Enugu High Court for taking action that is not unconnected with the corrupt system in the polity. Earlier, a Federal High Court Judge Justice Sam. Egbo-Egbo was similarly booted out. In President Obasanjo's five years, the nation's judiciary is filled with such dirt that only the corrupt can be robbed. The sacred institution of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) was alleged recently to have been bastardised. Only last week some lawyers in Enugu cried out over attempt to pick a junior judge one Justice Innocent Umezurike to be Chief Judge of the state over and above his seniors just because of corruption in the system.
A judiciary of Nigeria at 44 is the anathema of the common defenceless man and where the weak is surely oppressed as justice is now "Ghana must go" and carry,
INSECURITY:
As we celebrate 44 years of age, Nigerians are living in permanent state of fear. Social vices resulting from unfocused economic policies have turned the youths of the land against the people in anger and frustration. The crime situation has risen to a frightening level that even the President himself once accused the police of selling arms to the armed robbers.
The youths who should be the ideal leaders of tomorrow have turned against the land because the successive governments in the past 44 years have failed woefully to lay a solid foundation for them.
The youths today are so angry that they are even seeking for the worse for the country. Just recently, the youths of the ethnic Igbo under the umbrella of Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) organised a sit at home protest on August 26 to press home their demand for the state of Biafra. The youths of other ethnic groups like the Yoruba, the Ijaw and other Niger Delta ethnic nationalities have been pressing for similar things as a sign of frustration for a system that has refused to provide for them. In fact, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State the development took a more frightening dimension that is today perturbing the nation's security brass. Just on Tuesday the President got the nod of the council of states to squarely confront the rebels.
INFRASTRUCTURE:
As we celebrate 44 years of our nationhood, the infrastructural decay in the land is worrisome. The roads across the country are in the comatose state. The educational system has so collapsed that the students and pupils rather than see their schools and institutions as learning environment, see it more as a breeding ground for violence and all sorts of vices. The story of cultism in the nation's ivory towers has remained in the ascendancy.
The nation's health system has since gone to the cemetery, forcing Nigerians to convert their churches and place of worship into healing homes. Other social services like electricity, water etc have all been in a very deplorable state.
WHAT NEXT?
As we celebrate, it must be recognised that the Nigerian masses are groaning under the agony of hunger and poverty that has eaten so deep into the fabric of our society. The people are wondering if this is all that democracy entails. As the people recall the voodoo general election of 2003, they are questioning if Abraham Lincoln's famous saying that "the ballot is stronger than the bullet" still applies to the Nigeria system. They are also doubting if Harry Emerson Fosdick's wise saying that "democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people" has any place in our land.
At 44 years, a country that has fought a civil war, witnessed over a dozen military coups both successful and aborted; annulled a general election and killed its winner, witnessed uncountable number of civil strifes -- religious, communal and boundary matters etc and still soldiers on, has indeed a lot to thank God for his patience for us. But the question is for how long will God wait for us. Definitely, not indefinitely.
As we forge ahead, let us embrace Mahatma Gandhi revolutionary advice that "if we take care of today, God will take care of tomorrow."
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