[size=18pt]SHAMEFUL COMPARISON[/size]

Updated: Tuesday 18-08-2009

Nigeria’s defence minister, Retired Major General Godwin Abbe, is irked by people making comparison between giant Nigeria and its comparatively tiny West African neighbour, Ghana. To the minister, such comparison is an insult to Nigeria. The minister, who was paying his maiden working visit to the Defence Headquarters recently was quoted as saying that,”when you are discussing Nigeria, don’t compare us with Ghana next time because Ghana is very small compared to Nigeria in terms of size, armed forces, ”

According to the minister, ‘’the volume of water generated in Ghana is not enough to flush toilets in Lagos State. The number of teachers that you have to pay salaries in the whole of Ghana is not more than Western Nigeria, and the whole of Ghanaian armed forces, if you choose to know, are not more than two brigades of the Nigerian Armed Forces, period.’’

Let us assume that the minister was quoted correctly, his utterance was a clear demonstration of undilluted patriotism. After all, a Yoruba adage says that, the fact that your daughter has a deformed bottom, will not make you to decorate the bottom of another man’s daughter with precious beads. So, with such unweighed utterance, General Abbe was merely demonstrating patiotism, albeit in extremism.

The truth of the matter is that an average public official in Nigeria is not a realist. An average public official is ready to go to even a ridiculous extent to defend the shameful status-quo. Thus, what General Abbe said was tantamount to an exercise in escapism. However, from whichever perspective one looks at it, whether from the minister’s ‘’patiotic’’ angle or from the perspective of the reality on ground or rationality, the comparison between Nigeria and Ghana, is a very shameful exercise.At the end of such comparison, the galling influence of inept leadership on the part of Nigeria will become so glaring even to the blind.

Ghana attained political independence in 1957 while Nigeria did not enjoy such status until three years later. The gap could be traced to the gap in leadership quality between the two countries. While Ghana’s Nkrumah remained focused in pre-independence era, Nigeria’s leadership was bogged down by inter- ethnic squabbles that almost balkanised the entity today known as Nigeria.

Unfortunately, the trend has even become worse. The sage, Papa Obafemi Awolowo, warned the politically deaf leadership in Nigeria in the Second Republic, when Ghanaians were rushing to Nigeria to escape from the harsh effects of the actions and inaction of the post-Nkrumah inept leaders. According to the sage, unlike Ghana that could find a haven in Nigeria in their time of trouble because of their size, no country in the whole continent of Africa could accommodate Nigerians. The warning was unheeded and the effects had crippled Nigeria in all ramifications. Fortunately for Ghana, its ‘’Rawlingnisation’’ has firmly established social, political and economic sanity such that any form of comparison with Nigeria would attract shame for Nigeria if one looks at it from the angle of reality rather than from Minister Abbe’s jaundiced and nebulous perspective of size.

If we must ask Minister Abbe, what is in Nigeria’s bigness that makes life meaningless to the majority of Nigerians, especially those who don’t have access to political office? An average Nigerian would prefer a tiny Ghana, where life has meaning to a giant Nigeria, full of miseries and hopelessness for its hapless citizens.

Perhaps this explains why many businessmen are reportedly relocating to Ghana. In today’s giant Nigeria, you have to contend with the high and crippling cost of generating power both for home and businesses because even the government has a vote for generator and diesel for power generation.

It is quite unfortunate that General Abbe does not know that if there is water to flush toilets in Lagos, kudos must go to the leadership in the state. But the bitter truth is that in most parts of the country, if anyone must flush his toilet, he must own private source of water.

It is pertinent to let General Abbe know that his size premise for the comparison is archaic and ludicrous. He should be told, as a military officer, that it is possible for an army battalion to humiliate 10 brigades. Israel as a nation is so tiny in comparison to the pan-Arab nations in any form. Yet the tiny Israeli army humiliated the combined forces of the Arabs, not only during the six-day 1967 war, but also during the Yom Kippur war in 1973.

The comparison between Nigeria and Ghana is what no one can run away from. However, until Nigeria experiences its own ‘’Rawlingnisation’’, the comparison will continue to be shameful to Nigeria. Until then, no Obama would see any reason in coming to Nigeria, and no Clinton would spare the nation of a deserved chastisement. http://www.tribune.com.ng/20082009/tue/Hard_fact.html