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Tears For My Country
Written by Les Leba
Monday, 09 February 2009
The Nigerian media last week widely reported the comment made by Senator Russ Feingold, Chairman of the U.S. Subcommittee on Africa that Nigeria was a failed state with hardly any forceful response to avert the consequences of the global recession.
Senator Feingold’s observation may not have cut so deep if we were in a despotic or dictatorial dispensation as a nation.

The citizens of totalitarian regimes may be charitably labeled as victims and consequently excused from the plethora of the sins of their oppressors who invariably exercise power with the barrel of the gun rather than by the popularly expressed will of the people; the handful of citizens who dare to make, even, constructive criticisms of government policies do so from exile or at great risk to their lives.

But, here we are in a supposedly full-blown democracy, that should provide fertile ground for free speech, freer markets, efficient resource allocation, rapid development and improved welfare enhancement of our people, and yet, our nation has only succeeded in earning the ignominious tag of a ‘failed state’, in spite of our enviable natural endowments and vast markets!

Why, we may ask, do the salutary dividends of democracy continue to elude us? True, we share the same democratic structures with the most successful countries in the world; yet, the results of our efforts continue to fail to lift us from the rungs of the world’s poorest nations.

In other words, if the system is not to blame, then the problem must be with the people who operate the system, particularly the political leadership. Even if foreign observers adjudge our elections as free and fair, Nigerians are not fooled by the motivation of the quality of people who aspire for political office and consequently pilot our destiny.

While, for example, political aspiration in successful economies are critically driven by the need to serve or the zeal to make things better for the majority, if not all, Nigerian politicians, on the other hand, see politics as business and they make no secret about this.

We recall a Senate President in the recent past, who brazenly declared that politicians spend a lot of their resources, and may even borrow or sell property to seek political relevance, so they should not be blamed if they sought to recoup their investment!

Incidentally, even though the Senate President who made this observation was forced to step down, regrettably, the reason for his ouster had nothing to do with his views on politics as a business investment in Nigeria.

It would be an oddity as things stand, to find a political office holder, either from the Federal Executive or the Legislature whose fortunes have remained static after a year or so in office!

This is an admission that financial discipline cannot be a popular credo in government, and such best practices would run counter to the aspiration of virtually all who hold office, either as a result of individual election victory or political patronage!

Nigerians are sickened and frustrated every morning as they are assaulted with blazing media reports of both minor and aggravated frauds perpetuated individually or in concert by holders of public office, either in the Executive or Legislative arms of government!

For example, a cursory glance at a few newspapers on Friday, 6/2/09 reveal a cesspool of corruption and deceit that would present formidable obstacles to any attempt to redeem the lot of our people from poverty; the Punch Newspaper edition of that day carries a front page lead story on tension in the House of Reps “over a series of unresolved financial matters, including the N1.4bn which members allegedly spent on Christmas and Sallah festivals in 2008”.

The Punch report continues ”…Each of the 360 lawmakers in the House was given N4m (N2m for each of the festivals), which was later deducted from their entitlements. However, the Lawmakers disagreed with the House leadership, claiming they had thought that the money was a gift”.

The question that begs to be answered is, how much is the official salary and other allowances for the Senators for them to feel that N4m of the people’s money can be given to each one of them as gift? Besides, who has the power, apart from the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation committee (RMAFC) to determine Legislators’ remuneration?

The protest against deduction of N4m from allowances must be an indication that such gifts had been enjoyed in previous years, without any subsequent deductions!

In the same Punch story under reference, the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs also made mention of outstanding reports on the floor of the House; these reports include the power probe, which investigated the expenditure of trillions of naira on elusive power projects in the country; the investigative report on the probe of non-remittance of over N3 trillion revenue by government agencies and parastatals between 1999-2008!

Nigerians may not hold their breaths for the outcome of these reports as several such investigations have failed to punish or expose those public officers who dipped their hands into public treasury for self aggrandizement; in any case, the leadership of the House is yet to clear the odium of the N2.3bn car scandal blown open by a notable legal activist.

The Punch Newspapers editorial of the same date refers to bickering at RMAFC, the commission that is supposed to be “actively involved in diversifying the nation’s revenue base and prudently allocating the resources in line with the mood of the nation”.

In December last year, 25 of the 37 Commissioners of the RMAFC had petitioned Secretary to the Government on the unconstitutional and undemocratic style of the Chairman of the Committee.

The Chairman, Mallam Tukur, on the other hand, countered that the real grouse of the Commissioners was his insistence that they collect a monitoring allowance of N32,000 instead of the N400,000, which they had illegally collected, and his invitation for the EFCC to step in and recover the excesses from the Commissioners.

With such bickering relating to self aggrandisement, the decisions of this committee with regard to accountability and public welfare may be suspect.

In the same editorial, the Punch noted that escalating cost of running government has left little or nothing for development projects because of the bloated allowances to public office holders.

The editorial went on to claim that “In a nation blighted by unemployment and poverty, it is widely speculated that a Senator and his House of Reps counterpart earn up to N10 million and N7m respectively in a month as salaries and allowances.

It is no surprise that, in spite of the obvious, development need for recurrent appropriations in the nation’s budgets may never fall below 65%, and our hopes for infrastructural development will continue to be a mirage!

Again, in the Business page of the Punch, under the title “26 Jostle for PPPRA Top Job”, the related story confirms that Dr. Oluwole Oluleye, the Executive Secretary, would not be returned to the position. “Oluleye was suspended in October 2008 over the alleged disappearance of N64 billion from the Petroleum Support Fund!

In the same vein, in the Abuja News page of the Daily Independent (page A4), the report noted that a Non-Governmental Organisation by the name of ‘Banking Ethics Organisation of Nigeria’ has petitioned the National Assembly, accusing the management of the Central bank (CBN) and that of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) “of making the country lose about $125bn or N14.625 trillion revenue in the last five years!

The Group’s petition, which has been referred to the Justice Committee, claimed that the two organizations in their transactions caused great loss to the country, when money moves from NNPC to CBN! The Group lamented that in spite of the financial meltdown all over the world, yet, we are throwing money away; this is an irony”.

The above is a selection of fraud-related incidents in our body polity from just two newspapers in one day. The question as to whether these investigations will be resolved fairly and squarely in the interest of the people is another issue, but from the antecedents of our political and executive elite who hold public offices, we may expect that if any opportunity provides itself for further self-enrichment, the reports may never see the light of day, and if they do, they will be couched in such language that no one will be found guilty and punished severely as deterrent to other would be looters of public treasury.

Maybe only a handful of Nigerians truly recognize that abundant mineral resource endowment in a country may not bring much relief to the poor without a well-articulated and sincere monetary and fiscal policy.

My heart bleeds at the wholesale deceit on which our monetary policies are founded.

There is nothing more fraudulent than consciously killing over 140 million hapless Nigerians slowly with monetary policies, which are designed to increase the wealth of just a few Nigerians and their partners in the banking sector, while the rest of us are promised paradise in 2020.

How else do you explain a system that ensures we borrow our own moneys back from the same banks where they have been deliberately placed by the same people who instruct us on this path of perdition, or how can we say we still have dollar reserves when the naira fraudulently and unconstitutionally substituted for dollar allocations have been spent by the recipients?

It is a classic case of eating your cake and having it; indeed, the way our monetary policy is structured, we may be able to recycle the same dollars many times over in naira, but at great peril to all that is good for the economy.

In other words, high interest rates, comatose industrial landscape, increasing unemployment, insecurity in the land; these are all the offshoots of the deliberate arrangement which ensures that rising or indeed, falling dollar revenue will mean the same thing; i.e., increasing poverty for our people, while the makers of our monetary and fiscal policy and their friends in the banks have the last laugh and clink their champagne glasses in celebration with members of the Legislature and Executive, who provide them with the same cover associated with godfathers!

Meanwhile, even the CBN Governor has indicated at a recent seminar that we should not expect interest rates to fall to single digit, even when other serious economies are pulling down their Central Bank rates to all time lows below 2% so as to stimulate industrial activities and arrest the recession! My people, we are in bondage!

SAVE THE NAIRA, SAVE NIGERIANS

jamace:

We are in the dark ages of Nigeria's development .

jamace:


I like that name

jamace:

We are in the dark ages of Nigeria's development .

anonimi:

How about going beyond the tears and doing something practical as our (you & I without the "leaders" contribution to avoid tear-shedding by another generation down the line
You can spread the word about this case

Kobojunkie:

What does spreading the word about the case do? The Pictures were taken by unlookers, how many of them reported the violent acts and demanded the punishment of the perpetrator in question? And when I say demanded, I mean active.

noetic:

you cant ask for more considerin wat has been done against the perpetrator of this shameful act by concerned Nigerians (on the part of the media and CLO's). . . . . .but of course the authourities have refused to move an inch.

Its a two way traffic, when the people protest an inhuman abuse of power there has to be a positive response from those in authority.

Muza:

If you wan cry for Nigeria,u go cry a river.

noetic:

when will we gwt to the light stages. , . lol

jamace:

We are in the dark ages of Nigeria's development .

FBS:

there is no country called nigeria. its justa figment of our imagination.

meexteriox:

The most painful part is that the so called leaders are far flung from the reality on ground.
They have deliberately refused to acknowledge the fact that Nigeria in on the brink of sinking.

Kobojunkie:

Have we protested those leaders and demanded they step down if they are unwilling to do what we, the people want them to do for us? I mean how much longer do we continue to talk about the many, mostly, imagined walls that stop us from living the best life we can as Nigerians?

noetic:

are u suggesting that the continuous condemnation of yaradua by everyone home and abroad is not enough ground for a leader with a conscience to resign from power?. . . . . .if u havent noticed, he has continued to snub the populace like we don't matter.

noetic:

while I agree that a demand must be made for him and others to quit, a violent approach is however not welcomed (if that's what u have in mind)

noetic:

but a deliberate and organised approach via the shut down of the nations economy in protest, that this people step down from power as applicable in the western world and even Thailand will be appropriate.

noetic:

but of course, who in power will listen to protesters or strikers they are as good as rebels.

Kobojunkie:

Again, there is a difference between posting your dislike, of how he runs his administration, on a forum, or taking out a piece in the news papers to tell the world how the man is not doing well, and going out there to demand that he be impeached, doing all that is necessary to ensure the court look into it.

I have never and will never advocate violence. Acting is not to be confused with such.

If that works, then fine; there are so many ways to get the job done. What is left is actually getting people to act.

Well, who is really in power? The people or those we elected to government seat? When we answer that question then we understand where we ought to be in the whole.

noetic:

u r assuming that democracy actually works in Nigeria. NO, it doesnt.

noetic:

impeaching the Nigerian president is very close to impossibility, considering how unworkable the process is and the enormous financial and security arsenal at his disposal.

noetic:

How many lagisLOOTERS are accesible to their constituents? how practicable is an impeachment proceeding in an intimidating environment?

noetic:

Good to know that.alternative ideas are welcomed. the people need leadership, there has to be someone who can justifiably rally d entire country.

noetic:

Adams Oshiomole did so with his NLC but was very short sighted.

noetic:

The people never voted them in. The people are also not in power. If and when the people seize power Nigeria will definitely b a better place.

Kobojunkie:

Please tell me you are joking with that above. WE HAVE NEVER tried to fight to make democracy work, so why would we then conclude that it will not work? Isn’t that like expecting a new born to start running from the start, before even crawling to strengthen its leg muscles, and bones?
I am sorry but that is a ridiculous way of concluding something will not work. WE HAVE NEVER EVEN MOVED A SINGLE MUSCLE TO ENSURE IT WORKS, why do we think it sane to then declare it a failure?

So you know it is impossible even before you even try to be sure it is? WOW!!

Do they have to be for you to use the law against them to gain back power as a people? Isn’t that sort of like saying ALL NIGERIANS ARE CRIMINALS when you know there are many in there who are not?

I am so glad that not all Nigerians think this way, as there is hope for those of us who do not believe in messiahs to come save us from our own hands.

And so? You mean you can never accomplish the same thing as that man if you tried? You mean we cannot have thousands of Nigerians better than him if we tried? You mean there are no honest Nigerians out there who, if giving the same sort of backing this man got from his colleagues, would accomplish even more than this man has? Is he an alien?

Wait a sec. . .  you mention Oshiomole but then you immediately offer me the old way as excuse again? Can we be consistent?

I have already dealt with this back and forth with someone else already. One mentions Gani who has been able to show us that we can stand up, and then follow it with it can never be done. Don’t you see the contradiction in all this? Aarrgghh!! Lol

noetic:

sounds like we are on different pages here.
the beauty of democracy is the independence of the electoral system, effectiveness of democratic institutions and the upholding of the rule of law. It is up to you to reach an opinion as to whether this works in Nigeria or not.

noetic:

it would also b very unfair to say that efforts have not been made over time to make Nigeria's democracy work, the only difference has been the difference in approach.

noetic:

sounds like u were not around when nzeribe led an "attempt" to impeach obasanjo, or when naaba attempted same tru the house of reps. did they not have sufficient grounds to impeach obj? did this attempt of theirs, considering how bitter they were go far?

noetic:


while being pro-active it is pertinent to stay in touch with reality.you dont see the bigger picture.
over half of the present crop of legislators had their electoral "victories" challenged in court. The manipulation of the judiciary is anoda issue.

noetic:

none of the present legislators were congratulated by their opponents either in the elections of party primaries. that should tell a lot about the level of confidence they enjoy from the citizenry and the credibility of their elections.

noetic:

if u did not win an election tru the democratic means, it is safe to assume that such victory is owed to a cabal in power. How then do you impeach a president who belongs to that cabal?

noetic:

the picture u are creating is that of a western country where parliamentarians are easily approachable and are accountable cos of the quality of their electoral process. . . . . Nigeria aint like that.

noetic:

I have never and will not advocate for a political messiah to save anyone. but the people and revolutionaries need an identity, a voice and a face.

noetic:

that's when leadership comes in. What revolution, either formal or informal, do u know of that have no leading figure?

noetic:

Dont get me wrong. I only made an example of the kind of approach that would be effective in a failing state like Nigeria.

noetic:

I have never seen, considered or described Adams Oshiomole in any way as a hero, and i dont intend to do that now, for several reasons. Notwithstanding, his approach in shutting down the economy to get the attention of the rulers that be is a useful tool in demanding for change in nigeria without necessarily condoning violence.
Its not an excuse. . . , its as simple as this . . . a revolution to change Nigeria cannot be effective if the present crop of political leaders are involved in the process. . . . .its as good as recycling bad leadership with a new face or putting old wine in a new bottle.

noetic:

Kudos to Gani, he is a trained lawyer. . . . . .he fought for the good of Nigeria using his knowledge and expertise. If everyone can use their skills, profession and training to advocate for change in Nigeria like Gani did, then we will be in a better place now.
However, every revolution requires a face and a name. . . . . .this is called leadership not "messiahship".

Kobojunkie:


It is not up to me. It is up to you and I to decide if this will work in Nigeria or not. So far, I repeat, we have NOT TRIED to make it work, so there is no way to judge whether it will work or not based on the fact that we have YET TO apply it effectively in order to rightly judge either way. Let us stop ignoring the main beauty of democracy which is the fact that it is government for THE PEOPLE by THE PEOPLE. Anything thing else is secondary to this in my opinion!

Unless you can prove me wrong with detailed factual information on these approaches, my statement stands. I don’t want conjecture, neither do I want theories. Please provide facts to support your statement.

Arthur Nzeribe?  Sigh!!  Sounds like you think we all consider his cause ours. But I will ask you simple and direct questions here.
a) What were his reasons for attempting to impeach Obasanjo?
b) Did he say he was doing it for the people and democracy or was he just doing the usual we have always seen in that country?

c) Isn’t claiming that Nzeribe and the likes fought for justice in a democracy the same as saying that the reason Buhari, and Atiku filed petition against Yar adua’s presidency was to save democracy?

d) How many of the Nigerian populace put their weight behind any of those mentioned so far?
e) Don’t you see that in your own very statement on Nzeribe and naaba, you reveal that this was not really about the Nigerian people but these men and their agenda?

Can we please stop confusing one thing with another here? Sigh!

It is easy to assume to know what will happen before one actually takes the step to act. How you definitively tell me that it is 100% that if Nigerian people stand up against the current situation in that country, that there cause will be a failure? How many of those will be willing to manipulate the judiciary when at Nigerian people are watching, keen eyed?

That tells us of nothing but the fact that they see the Nigerians people for what we have been all this while. . . . a population of docile people too weak to fight for their own rights.  Knowing the people have no confidence in you does not stop these from pissing down your back; knowing the people will fight back does.

By getting up as a people and demanding change and actually acting to ensure you get it.

I am so glad not all Nigerians state above. I am watching as yet another group of Nigerians from abroad are organizing themselves to ensure that things function in Nigeria even better than they do in the west and you are busy offering me the above for reason why inaction is your goal? Sigh!

Always the case or just the case for those who want to wait for someone to add an identity to their cause?

Actually, it starts with each person making himself the leadership figure in the move for change. Look around you, cause after cause have had a people and not a PERSON, moving together towards a common goal.

I do not agree with that though.
There are more than a thousand non-violent ways to see change in Nigeria. We do not have to shut down economy across the country as oshiomole did to get attention. I am not sure involving the current crop will even amount much to a revolution, but taking back power, even if you have the same politicians is an option that should not be ignored.

If you require a face and a name for you to at least engage, may I urge that you find yourself a leader who is working to see change to at least act to see change in Nigeria. Some of us do not need to have a face or name to jump behind for to promote change in Nigeria but we do acknowledge there are those who do.

I was going to suggest you get involved by signing up with the movement started over the weekend by Nigerians like you but they do not have any face or leader per say. However, if you believe you can be as good as Gani with the skills you have, do feel free to join and become an equal member to see change in Nigeria. That is the most important thing here.

noetic:

I dont want to think our difference in opinion is as a result of me misunderstanding ur points of view, rather its as a result of the contradictions in ur postulations.
you advocate for a revolution by the people taking power away from their neo-colonialist oppressors, yet u also postulate that this oppressors be the agents of the change from the revolution. This doesn't add up. is there something I am missing?