Patitos Post

President Yar'adua on his recent trip to Brazil

I have warned on several occasions that even though the Nigerian political elite carry on  as if actions do not have consequences, sooner or later they have to come to terms with the reality that in fact actions have consequences. This is a spiritual and scientific law. In the spiritual, people of faith describe this law thus-you reap what you sow. Those of the scientific leaning quote Newton to the effect that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This law comes to my mind every time I read about the political class complaining about the rising state of insecurity in Nigeria, the armed robbery, the kidnappings, the high level militancy and what have you.  The truth remains that the actions of Nigeria’s political class is the cause of these instances of insecurity the reaction. How? Let me expantiate.

Our political system as it currently is is completely disconnected from the electorate. Most elected officials are not elected in the true sense of the word and therefore do not reflect the will of the people. Now because they do not reflect the will of the people they act in manners that are against the interest of the people and in favour of those who put them in office (here, read God Fathers, Cabals and machine politics). Take for instance the president Umar Yar’adua. At a time when the nation is on fire as a result of the militant attacks by the ‘Boko Haram’ sect and when over 300 lives has been lost, the  president in his wisdom feels that this is the most opportune time to jet out to Brazil on a state tour (he flew out on Wednesday 28th June, 2009). He did not think it necessary to pay a condolence visit to the affected areas to offer succour to the victims and families of the dead. But just a few days ago when Ikedi Ohakim was decamping to the PDP, president Yaradua was there.  They say actions speak louder than words. The president has by his actions shown where his priority lie. He may want to consider the example of Hu Jintao. Just three weeks ago, the Chinese president Hu Jintao arrived Italy for the G8 summit, as soon as he arrived he received news of the riots in Western China and though he had just arrived, he immediately departed Italy considering the trouble in his country of much more importance than the G8 summit which had in attendance ALL the world’s most powerful men. Also consider that Former British PM also left a G8 summit in 2005 after the London bombings. These are the actions of leaders who have the well being of their people at heart. The question to president Yar’adua is this, as he goes to Brazil, does he think the Brazilian president will visit Nigeria when there is trouble at home in Brazil? The answer they say is blowing in the wind. The president has to offer an apology to Joshua Dariye who was impeached by former president Obasanjo for among other things abandoning his duties as plateau governor to play golf in Abuja while his state was on fire.

Another very good example will be seen in how the governor of Oyo state on many occasions would have running battles with teachers over unpaid salaries, but even as these teachers are not paid, the state government continued to make monthly allowances to the late chief Lamidi Adedibu. Why? Because the teachers who form part of the electorate are not the source of his power, rather the late Alhaji Adedibu was. Now considering that these ‘elected’ politicians were not really elected by the people, the question becomes how did they assume power? Well the truth is that as we saw in Ekiti state recently, many assumed power by controlling  the means of violence. In many instances our vulnerable armed forces were used, and in other instances thugs were armed to the teeth to bring about their election. Now after the elections the armed forces returned to their pure military activities and earned a monthly salary. Now consider this if you will-after arming these thugs and assuming power what positive ventures have these politicians provided for them to engage themselves in? The answer is as plain as day-nothing.

Now please follow-having provided nothing for them to do till the next election, they begin to live an ostentatious life. Their attitude of displaying wealth and brazen materialism in full view of the public further infuriates the citizenry who never voted for them in the first place. Now most of us can’t do anything to resist them beyond non violent means such as civil activism and constructive criticism. But what of those thugs who were armed for election purposes? They have weapons, they see unbridled displays of wealth and they are like the rest of us hungry and living on less than a dollar a day. What do we expect from them? So rather than do what we do, they take to armed robbery, kidnapping and militancy.

The situation is akin to that of a man (our political elites) who gets a tiger to chase his enemies (conscientious politicians who do not use violence) and is left to win the bride (Executive positions-governorship and the presidency) and when he gets on the seat he now starves the tiger. Now what will be the result? Of course having chased away the man’s enemies there will be no one left and  the tiger will consume the man. Herein lies the real reason behind the rising wave of insecurity and violence all over Nigeria. The root cause is that politics in Nigeria is conducted like criminal activity using criminal elements who are left to their own devices after they have been used. This type of ‘the end justifies the means’ zero sum game is at the height of our problems.

So when we complain about and fight armed robbery, Niger Delta militancy, Kidnappings in the South-east and Niger-Delta and of late the ‘Boko Haram‘ sect, we should realize that we are fighting symptoms and unless we cure the disease, we will never be free of the symptoms.

And what is the solution? How do we come out from under this vicious cycle? The solution lies in electoral reforms.

Unless Nigerians can have full control over those who rule over them, unless elections are a true reflection of the will of the people, Nigeria will never have genuine peace.

So how do we get there. Well, the Justice Uwais Panel is an excellent place to start. The panel’s recommendations to my mind are the panacea we have been waiting for. Unless the president gives up the power to appoint the head and board of the INEC, we will keep having tainted persons like Professor Maurice Iwu who are  appointed by the president simply because they can be teleguided to achieve a hidden agenda.

The power to appoint The INEC board must be surrendered to the National Judicial Committee . This will not just happen as no one acts against his own self interest and our current president knows that. We have to insist and keep this issue burning and maintain it it the consciousnesses of Nigerians through the media and if possible engage in non violent mass action to compel this government to fulfill it’s promise of electoral reform. We have to remember that if we want a better Nigeria WE have to create it. Our help does not come from foriegners and the west, our help comes from within.

Also before the elections, we need to reform our security forces particularly the police to make it impossible for the executive to use them in unleashing violence on the electorate as we saw in Ekiti recently. For the police, we need to retain an Inspector General of police because Nigeria is not yet ripe for full blown state police, but we need to place him under the control of a joint council to include the President himself, the chief justice, a representative of the opposition (who must not be a crony of the president) and a member each of the Muslim Ummah and the Christian clergy to be taken from the Nigerian Inter-religious Council (NIREC). The same scenario must be played out in the states where the governor will be on the council with the chief judge of the state, the ranking federal judge, a member of the opposition from the state (again, not a crony of the governor), a member each from the Muslim ummah in the state and the Christian association. This council has to be backed up by law which will make it impossible for the president to change.

If we can find the will to bring this about, we will actually begin to see that elections in Nigeria will be a true reflection of the people’s will and gradually, this will weed out the problems we are facing with insecurity and misgovernance. I honestly look forward to that day.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU

I have spent considerable time of late trying to encourage youths from various parts of Nigeria to get to know each other and engage intellectually and socially and I do this for a reason. You see, there are too many divisive forces in Nigeria and a large percentage of our people have bought into these divisions and we do not seem to have enough leaders on the national sphere who care enough to want to halt this trend. If we do not start now in addressing this trend we will find that very soon there will be too many contending forces in Nigeria and we will waste a lot of energy fighting each other.

For instance the idea that you have to have a state of origin is really taken us backwards. I know this may not be popular but we really have to understand that when we force people to return to primordial roots before they can get admission into schools, get civil service jobs or run for elective post, what we are really doing is telling them that you are first a tribalist before you are a nationalist and we really can not afford to promote that ideology.

Take for instance a child who was born and raised in Kano, of Yoruba parentage, who speaks the Hausa language and who has immersed himself in the culture of his birth place. Now with the way we currently have Nigeria, this child will be considered a non native of Kano, and will be reminded of the state his parents come from when he wants to go to primary and secondary school as well as university. Imagine the emotional scripting, the subliminal message being passed onto that child. The message is this-Yes there is one Nigeria in theory, but in practice not so. As long as this child stays in Kano, he will feel like a second class citizen who is inferior to the ’sons of the soil’.

And so we go in Nigeria creating truncated personalities, truncated in the sense that while children are born with a blank slate ready to accomodate any possibilities, the Nigerian state as it presently is truncates the natural course of nurture which makes an individual develop fond feelings for his place of birth. Thus we have people saying I live in Lagos and was born here, but I’m from Kogi though I have never been there. Now how can you be from Kogi when you have barely been there?

Even the patriotic vision of General Gowon in setting up the NYSC has been so bastardised that it is now a national joke. Parents routinely influence their children’s posting to areas within their comfort zones thereby frustrating the idea of national integration and cohesion. Civil servants have followed suit and reject postings to areas outside their comfort zones even prefering demotions to promotions outside their ‘native’ areas. And national cohesion suffers as a result.

And what do we have as a result? We have adults and youths who are growing up and circulating within just their ethnic group and religious faiths. You have Igbo boys growing up with fellow Igbo, going to school with fellow Igbos, serving in an ‘Igbo’ state and marrying Igbo girls (which is not a bad thing, but the issue is that they do not have to feel that they are limited to these choices). Ditto for Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Tiv, and so on and so forth.

Now I have so many friends on facebook and out of curiosity, I spent 2 hours this past Sunday going through the friends list of as many friends on my list as I could and I noticed a pattern. People from the North seemed to have only Northern friends. Even then, there was still a division. Those who have Islamic names largely  had friends with Islamic names and those with Christian names followed suit. The same pattern existed with people from the South.

Now we really have to understand that there really is one Nigeria. Of course our leaders may not always behave as if that is the case, but the truth is that this really is the case. And we have to begin to break the limitations of the past.

To my audience I say take time to make friends outside of your comfort zones. Get to know people from other parts of Nigeria. If you have no friends outside your ethnic group, make some. If you have no friends outside your religious faith make some. Nowadays with the Internat and social networking tools like Yahoo! facebook and myspace, it is easy. Northern youths should add as friends on facebook Southern youths and vice versa. I advise youths to begin to see beyond tribe and stereotypes of tribes which give you a truncated view of   the individual.

When people who live in what we call the South say to me that Northerners want to dominate them and have to be resisted, I ask them if they are aware that Northerners overwhelmingly voted for Abiola a ‘Southerner’ in 1993. Not only did they vote for him, in Kano state the citizens voted for Abiola against Tofa who is a ’son of the soil’. When some people from the North say to me that Southerners look down on them as inferior, I ask them if they were ever in the South when Murtala was murdered? Men, women, children, old and young were weeping openly, rolling on the floors and mourning as if their own loved father died. Was Murtala not a Northerner.

The point is that when you do not take time to know other people you become vulnerable to people who want to manipulate you for their own selfish reasons and who will spread myths and falsehood and create a bi-polar world in order to continue their zero sum game.

And what is the solution? How do we progress as a nation on the continuum of maturity from dependence to independence to interdependence which is the highest form of maturity? I posit that leadership is the key.

Just like  JFK and later LBJ forced The civil rights bill on some parts of America that actually resisted it and forced them to accept the intergration of the black man into mainstream America, Nigeria needs her own JFK who has that nationalistic vision coupled with a patriotic zeal and passion that is governed by conscience who can initiate legislation and most importantly mobilize the organs of the federal government to enforce legislation which makes reasonable  residency of a state the prerequisite for accessing all the benefits of that state including running for office. If this is done, you will begin to see all hands on deck to develop a state because the key to participation is involvement. Rather than amass a fortune in a state and repatriate it to another state of ‘origin’, you will find people working hard and contributing their best to the growth of their states of residence because they are no longer onlookers but stake holders.

Issues like the persistent Plateau conflict, as well as the periodic ethnic clashes all over the country will be reduced to a bare minimum if we can find the political will to make Nigeria a home to all Nigerians rather than some. Now it will not be easy. Some people will resist it as they did in America when JFK and LBJ passed the Civil rights bill, but where we have a steady hand at the plough with the will to see things to the end, people will accept the inevitability of the law and accept it as reality. Then we will begin to see a Nigeria where everybody’s state of origin is NIGERIA-not Sokoto, Ogun, Anambra or Kwara.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU

*This article was first published on May, 29th, 2008.

Sometime ago our country went through yet another transition.  It was celebrated as a Civilian to Civilian transition, without precedent.  Even though the transition was marked by disputed elections and crisis of legitimacy, we embarked on a journey of hope.  The question today is how well we have walked the path of hope this last one year.

Even if a review of press reports and street commentary suggest despondency, informed critique and responsible opposition ethos require that our reflection be sober, fair minded, and focused on nation building, especially on our desperate need to ensure the ascendancy of progress-sustaining values and the building of institutions which set boundaries for acceptable conduct.  Our view on the state of the nation includes reviews of progress or lack thereof in the Power Sector, Petroleum Resources, Infrastructure, Rule of Law Security, Education, Health Care, Niger Delta, Urban Development, Electoral Reforms and the Economy.

We shall begin with the state of opposition politics and Civil Society.  The continuing state of weakness of opposition politics confirm the point about the crisis of performance not being limited to the government in Abuja.  On the part of the Yar’adua government his public profession of respect for the idea of opposition is one of the more comforting developments of the last year.  The practice remains to be seen.  Certainly there is an easing of the tense state of the nation from in the years before May 29^th, 2007 when the government was in a state of war even with the idea of organized opposition and used methods within and outside the books to decapitate opposition and pressure Nigerians into a state of surrender and feeling powerless.  Approach to elections  by PDP during the last year persists in reflecting little regard for the electorate and the idea of a loyal opposition meaning loyalty to the cause of the Nigerian people, and so not a sabotage of those serving their interest, in position’s of Authority, yet distinctively different from current corporatist tradition of settling opposition chieftains.

Opposition efforts, where they have not succumbed to material lure of being in bed with the party in power, have generally not shown much depth of understanding of issues and evidence based suggestions of options to drive the common good.  Where we have made effort it has been at very teething stages.  Fortunately we are able to announce today a series of developments that should elevate the quality of opposition just as we commend the Common Wealth Secretariat for scheduling a workshop on opposition politics for West Africa to hold in Abuja in June.

Several months ago we announced the institution of shadow team to serve the Nigerian people to provide competing views of policy at the federal level.  Drawn from a coalition of willing political parties outside of the PDP.  Today the web portal of the shadow team www.shadownigeria.org will be up life.  Citizens can be part of a participatory e-government from the opposition side.  The build up of the portal will continue until its final formal unveiling on October 1^st when it will allow many kinds of governance initiatives not thought of till now.  

Even though the pending cases at tribunals have delayed the announcement of the full complement of the shadow team we must pay tribute participants of the inaugural meeting with Adams Oshiomole, Jimi Agbaje and Dr. Kayode Fayemi and the work of the shadow team’s economic working group that has been a mix of hot young economists from academia and older troopers like Dr. Kalu I. Kalu.  We must also acknowledge the health team that will have Dr. Leke Pitan as Spokesperson; the Transport and Aviation spokesperson Engineer Ibrahim Usman, and the many others who have worked hard at this project without public praise.  Other Ministerial teams with spokespersons in the main federal shadow team include Education; Health, Infrastructure; Employment, Entrepreneurship and Poverty Alleviation, and Cabinet Ombudsman and Citizen Participation.  Further ministerial departments include International Trade and Industry (MITI)   which will be assigned the enterprise of developing six factor endowments based industrial parks and new cities to emerge around them; Labour and Management and Budget Monitoring; Finance; Energy; Niger Delta and Special Projects; Defence, Water Resources; Foreign Affairs, Police Affairs and Law and Order; Women Empowerment and Gateway Cities designed to make Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano dual responsibilities urban centres with federal involvement.  Youth Empowerment, Niger Delta and Special Projects also constitute areas of special attention.  We are also recruiting from Nigerians around the World into a start up team of a Think Tank, we hope will grow to the stature of the Brookings Institution.

ENERGY

The Power Sector remains a national embarrassment, to use the words of Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan.  We have enough evidence that low political will slow decision-making processes and the failure of project management has allowed it to degenerate into

National emergency before the government could study it enough to declare its proposed state of emergency, one year after.  This emergency, even as diesel prices have gone past N140 per a litre is reducing the recently re-emerging middle class to penury, preventing artisans from practicing their trade, and deepening poverty in a country earning unprecedented revenues from unprecedented highs in crude Oil prices.

We urge the setting up an emergency task force, the deployment of top project management team from anywhere in the world with mandate to lease power stations on barges to bring short term alleviation while putting in place medium term and long term strategies drawn from the pool of studies that have been commissioned and executed by government on these issues.

RULE OF LAW

The mantra of Rule of Law that has been the great anchor o the Yar’adua government is a great idea.  Ordinarily it should help with institution-building and property rights necessary for economic advance and a just society.

Unfortunately the mode of implementation has left a public impression that the phenomenon was a ruse to allow those who have violated the commonwealth, raped the sensibilities of Nigerians from their positions in Public Office to now act as victims rather than victimizers, in some cases carrying on in a manner suggesting they were robbing it in as clearly stated by respected discussants on the NTA Network News programme Tuesday Night Live just a few hours ago.  This perception must be changed quickly or it can spell the doom of our democracy.

ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

It will be uncharitable to suggest that the economy is comatose as common parlance tends to indicate.  The truth is that significant economic growth is taking pace.  It probably could be much bigger than nearly 9 percent (9%) of GDP that is expected but more important is that the benefits are far from reaching the people.  What is the point of growth if the quality of life like recent infant and maternal mortality ratio’s of UN agencies suggested, is one of the worst in the World. What is the point of this growth driven, not by outcome of policy ideas but by Oil prices, when some women in the Niger Delta will need to travel half a day by canoe, bicycles and motorcycles to reach a maternity ward.

The worsening Gini index, measure of the gap in income distribution, is a time bomb that requires concerted citizen-government collaboration and action so we may rescue tomorrow.

Revitalization of agriculture and industrialization is so central to the process that activities should be seen on the front burner.  This is not the case today.  The global food crisis should be a wake up call not only for our food security strategy but also for coming alternatives to fossil Fuels and future Crude Oil pricing.  We seem to carry on oblivious of the need for saving from today’s crude Oil rents for the future, as the Saudis and others are doing.

More troubling for the economy is the sense that there is no clear direction.  We must eliminate that now.  How can there be security if majorities feel alienated and cheated by the system in addition to being poor and hungry.

OIL AND GAS

We welcome filtering news about the restructuring of the Petroleum sector especially in the hope that is will truly make NNPC an autonomous, profitable global Oil concern like PETRONAS.  We however urge that we pressure and provide incentives for Nigerian content to be deepen to prevent the Oil sector from continuing as an enclave sector, unable to bring the gains of that sector to stimulate growth of the rest of the economy.

INFRASTRUCTURE

When Transport Minister Deziani Alison-Madueke cried as she was shown some roads in Nigeria, people’s hopes were raised for some dramatic turn around in that sector.  Today it seems that the most unfortunate symbol of Nigeria’s misplaced priorities is that while the country’s single most important commercial artery, the Lagos –Benin – Port Harcourt Highway is in near total collapse fancy new ring roads are emerging everyday in Abuja. While it is desirable for Abuja to have those road networks the priorities seem bizarre in logic.

ELECTORAL REFORMS

Inspite of all of these we must hold out hope. That hope must be that Nigerians can reject non-performing governments, providing politicians a lesson that the key to public life is service to the people. So far the electoral process makes that not plausible. The setting up of the Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reforms committee is supposed to address that. We continue to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope for Nigeria’s sake that it produces outcomes that will advance the need for good governance.

CONCLUSION

When a health care sector that is so absent that surveys suggest the neighbourhood Chemist is the anchor of Nigerian’s healthcare system and as much as four hundred million can be unspent in the Federal Ministry of Health in one budget year, with consciences so limited in sensitivity that people can agree to pocket such public funds in the ministry, the crisis we face are very obviously monumental. We cannot blame the Yaradua’s regime for it all.  But the buck must stop at the desk in Aso Rock.  The need to act before the cup boils over is the imperative of the moment.

When you consider the amount of misappropriation and direct theft of public funds that occurs almost on a daily basis in Nigeria, one thing becomes clear-in Nigeria of today we have lost all sense of proportion when it comes to corruption. Hardly a day goes by without one news item or the other about a public official being arrested or charged with embezzlement. The puzzling thing is that you rarely hear of millions, it is usually billions. Imagine my surprise at today’s headlines ‘Director General of National Arts Gallery Charged With 1 billion fraud’. Now how much can the national arts gallery have that it would be possible for its director general to steal one billion naira!

And then I got to thinking. I frequently if not daily read of arrests, charges being brought and firings on account of fraud, theft of public funds or other forms of corruption. What I do not read or hear about however are  CONVICTIONS for these charges.

Since this administration came into being, many have been charged but few (maybe none) have been convicted. So where is the deterrence? As I have always said, the behaviour of Nigerians is as s result of their condition. Nigerians are not more apt or more genetically susceptible to crime and corruption than any other race or nationality. The truth is that if Europeans are subjected to the same conditions as Nigerians, they will act similarly because behaviour is again by and large a function of condition. Just as you get a good harvest when you subject your seed to the right condition (good soil, water and sunshine) so will you get a bad harvest when you subject your seed to bad conditions (eroded soil, no water or too much water, and little or no sunshine). As it is with plants so it is with humans.

Now let’s take Europeans for example. The major reason why Europeans do not commit as much crimes as Nigerians do is because there is a deterrence. You are as likely to read in their papers of arrests and charges as you are to read about convictions. They know that where you are caught stealing public funds, no matter your position, you will be brought to justice. It is this knowledge that keeps those who have those thoughts in check. For instance, a number of years ago the famed writer Jeffrey Archer was a Member of Parliament as well as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in addition to receiving a peerage from Her Majesty The Queen. He was a wealthy man who once entered the Guinness Book of Records for receiving the largest advance at the time (20 million pounds) for a book he had not yet written! But because Archer committed Perjury in court, he was arrested and sentenced for perverting the course of justice and imprisoned.

Take another scenario. The British Parliament recently suffered from a rash of high profile resignations with the largest casualty being Speaker Martin who has to resign his Speakership because MP’s fudged their expense claims. The amounts were not very large ranging from 50 pounds to a couple of thousands, but even though no crime was committed, the level of public uproar resulted in heads rolling in parliament. Heads rolled because ultimately the people are the bosses of the government and this adds credence to what I often say publicly in Nigeria- that in a democracy it is the government that should be afraid of the people and not the people afraid of the government.

I have used these two instances to show that government has a role in creating an atmosphere and condition which deters crime by punishing  crimes with a series of actions leading to convictions irrespective of the personality involved. And secondly, I have shown an instance that proves that where government quibbles at doing this task, the public can and should  rise up and demand that appropriate punishments be meted out and keep up activism until this happens.

This is what we have to do in Nigeria.

You see in Nigeria, officials know that if they are caught in the act of corruption the most that will happen to them is a show arrest and trial, a comfortable detention at the EFCC’s executive detention centers, a short period of having a low profile until the matter dies down and then they can come out and enjoy their loot. In fact they can soon bounce back to greater heights of power if they are willing to donate to the ruling party. If you doubt this, then consider the number of arrested ex officials who after being arrested and charged have had their cases being frustrated and eventually are publicly received at our presidential villa. What subliminal message are we passing to our youths when our authority figures act in this manner? We are actually saying to people that in Nigeria it is not that officials are corrupt, but that corruption is official! If not, why do we have corrupt persons being received at the highest executive levels? Why do we see them as power brokers and kitchen cabinet king makers?

And we the citizens do not have to feel powerless. We should rise to the occasion where the government abdicates its responsibilities. These corrupt people are not impervious to public opinion, we need to speak out and keep this issue burning in the media. We need to stop recognizing these people in our churches and mosques and for our traditional rulers to stop giving them chieftaincy titles. We need to stop inviting them to our parties and stop attending theirs, and most importantly we need to stop using the term ‘honourable’ on people who are quite frankly crooks and criminals.

I can say with all sense of responsibility that officials in Nigeria are brazen in their corruption because they know there is no consequence and not only are there no consequences, there is no deterrent. We have a high tolerance for crime and we need to lose this tolerance. When we start reading about convictions in court and imprisonment as a result of that conviction we will also start seeing a massive reduction in crime.

For those who doubt this, I ask you to cast your mind back to the days of Murtala Mohammed (assuming you are old enough to remember his time in office). Because Murtala was swift at delivering justice with his ‘With immediate effect and automatic alacrity’ approach, Nigerians were at their best behaviour. The man was incorruptible and fired his own cousin for corruption. He was not beholden to anyone’s tribe, religion or position and most importantly people knew of this trait in him and because they knew, they avoided any act on inaction that would incur his wrath. Now some may quarrel with his style and some may call him a dictator with a volcanic anger,  but the point I am trying to make is that Nigerians have the capacity to reign in their baser natures and refrain from massive corruption when there is a deterrence. This again goes back to my earlier assertion that condition typically drives peoples behaviour and if we want to progress as a viable vibrant and prosperous nation we need to engender those conditions that are conducive to these goals and if the government will not do it, we the citizens have to seize the initiative and create these conditions until we have the opportunity to change our government by democratic means.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU.

THE simple life, as a preferred way, received my embrace a very long time ago. Evidence afterward justified why my preference for this way was truly inspired. My decade old book of autobiographical reflection: To Serve is to Live, draws from encounters with Ajie Ukpabi Asika to illustrate the profundity of the idea of the simple life. But it was not until Botswana’s President came as guest of the Nigerian Economic Summit two years ago that the full weight of the thought came down to me. Said he of the trouble with Nigeria - it is the making of the lifestyle of Nigerian politicians. If 2007 is to be meaningful we must debate the issues that paralyse the Nigerian promise and leave the country prostrate and the lifestyle of politicians is a major issue.

Discussing the issues is already enough trouble in a political culture more focused on power than purpose. Even when they feel the pressure to make some noises about issues they barely manage some words about power, petrol and privatisation. Unlikely to find a place in how many of our potential men of power evaluate our troubles, is the very heart of the matter - the crisis of values that denote the Nigerian condition. Of these crises, the big man syndrome as part of a problematic lifestyle that has come to symbolise the Nigerian way is a major challenge to progress.

On the road, as a presidential candidate, I have come to realise how remarkably accurate the president of Botswana was in identifying the lifestyle of our men of power as being at the core of Nigeria’s challenge. Even the victims of this awful lust for the conspicuous consumption and the trappings of what is fitting for the big man, the poor citizens, have come to expect that you have to conduct yourself in a certain “oga” manner if you are in public life. I have therefore found my attempt to be with the people, embedded in them to ferret out where they hurt so we can jointly evaluate options that best solve problems, considered a little peculiar, even among some of the people, not to talk of those who think the arena of contestation is their mansion or government house. I am still amazed at why people see it as inappropriate for me to stand on a queue, buy my own ticket at the airport or walk down the hallway all by my self.

My recent experience suggests the disconnect between state and society, a deep chasm between the leaders and those they lead is sadly the reason for failure to take ownership of the much touted reforms and the source of most policy failures.

I have also found that the big man syndrome is a major driver of corruption. The big man’s measure of his networth very often projects the culture of “possessing” even humans. These usually come in the form of companions of the opposite sex. Invariably a high price comes to be placed on those relationships. To give each of many wives and concubines comparable good life, as comparing relative well-offness of each by the prize trophies, is part of those arrangements, one’s budget balloons faster than that of the country that has just had income from mineral discoveries spike its budget. More children than normally disciplined life allows, usually from 12 - 40 children, at schools where upper middle class Europeans and Americans have to struggle to keep their two children, inevitably point to plunder of the treasury and the commonwealth until the conscience is so seared it does not recognise that millions are dying from the games played to ensure rent-income from the system.

In the country of the big man, only a strong personal commitment to the simple life can save a person from a feeling that something is wrong with them if they do not live the norms of their status. It is presumed among my peers, for example that a home abroad is signal that you are with it. I have friends who “donate” money in first class ticket terms to British Airways because they feel the need to spend a few days in their London home that has been without an occupant for some months. Net-net, the drain on this economy is probably responsible for much unemployment and miscreants terrorizing us all in Nigeria. I have never felt shame as some of my friends feel about not having a house abroad. Instead, I consider it a thing of pride that when I lived abroad, I got mortgage for a flat and sold it as soon as I returned to Nigeria.

The nature of our money politics is also driven by the idea of a big man who knows not what to do with money, so all who come their way are geared to find schemes through which they can relieve them of some of the loot. The shortsightedness of the player prevents the scheming small guy from realising that the big man will steal more to his detriment for the little pound of flesh he extracted.

The lifestyle of the Nigerian politician indeed creates a mental disposition which translates into a total disregard for the rule of law. How could a man in a motorcade of SUVs respect the right of the small guy or the authority of a little policeman. Yet if we look closely one of the reasons wise investors worry about Nigeria is the consequence of the absence of the rule of law for the sanctity of contracts.

Many times I wonder why General Obasanjo as Military Head of State introduced the low profile campaign and reduced the state limousines to the Peugeot 504. I wonder if it is not because superior thinking held sway in those times. For leaders to routinely chase their people off the roads so they can pass, shut down airspaces so the big man can fly feeling safe even if lives of many others flying at the time is put in jeopardy and millions lost to the economy as people wait for the airspace to reopen, is to me evidence of both a failure to understand what drives human progress and a crisis of values that erode the dignity of the human person.

It is therefore not by accident that one of the issues I am placing in the public domain for discussion and the debate between myself and the other presidential candidates is the lifestyle of the Nigerian Politician. It is the reason I have declared my willingness, if necessary to sell off the presidential fleet of an aircraft to fund the education budget.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU

*This was published in The Guardian 17/7/2009.

What do you think of President Barack Obama’s visit to

Professor Pat Okedinachi Utomi, former presidential candidate on the platform of the African Democratic Congress who shares the same concept of ‘Change’ as his motto with that of President Barack Obama of the United States, spoke on Obama’s recent visit to Ghana. By Debo Oladimeji.

What do you think of President Barack Obama’s visit to Ghana?

This is President Barack Obama’s first visit to Africa, therefore it has very symbolic value. Obama has shown from his visit that Ghana is the kind of Africa that he desires. It is auspicious and logical that he chose an African country that has shown evidence of having a democratic ethos, a country that has managed to see transition twice from a government in power to opposition. That is clearly evidence of a democracy.

Ghana, for that matter, is going to be very important oil producer. We may not realize how important that will be for now but the finding suggests that Ghana is going to be a major oil producing country as a matter of advancing America’s future interests. So the lesson for us here again is that Americans plan far ahead. We are always looking at the moment. And because they have seen the mistakes that Nigeria made and are already working to avoid those mistakes, Ghana may be a much more stable oil producing country. These are some of the lessons from Obama’s visit to Ghana.

Are you saying that the visit leans more on the economy that the political?

I will say both are important. Usually, l will say that politics is shaped significantly by economic interests. Obama as President of the United States will visit Nigeria someday not because politically, Nigeria is of interest to America but because Nigeria has economic value. Nigeria has the population that nobody can ultimately dispute . Obama will come because interests are important but not because Nigeria is something that he treasures.

Politics or economy, which one comes first?

The political and economic interests are both important but the political stake seems to have been put forward more. That political interest drove the choice of Ghana over some other African countries, over even Kenya which you can truly say is the home of his father. Both Kenya and Nigeria do not equal to the kind of Africa the world will like to see in terms of democracy. But economically, Nigeria is important for now, therefore sometime in the future, he is likely to visit Nigeria. But Nigeria is not reckoned with as a serious stable democratic country.

For now, Ghana is a smaller economy but don’t put too much stock on number of people because Singapore is a much more smaller country, and a more important economy in Asia than many of the huge ones. If you look at the fact that many Nigerian businesses are already moving from Nigeria to Ghana, you will see that already, Ghanaians are taking up more strategic economic roles. If we don’t reverse the trend in Nigeria, no doubt, 10 years from now, Ghana will be more important than Nigeria.

What is the way out?

First, Nigeria has to be led. Right now, Nigeria is not being led. When l say led, l mean at almost all levels. The local governments are not working for the Nigerian people. At the state level, many of our state governments are not working. At the Federal level, we have an invisible government. The mystery index in Nigeria is growing out of proportion. The quality of life in Ghana is superior to that of Nigeria today anyway. If you check infant mortality, we are there among the worst in the world. Life expectancy is worse in Nigeria than in Ghana. Nigeria is badly managed so it is making it poorer and poorer when it has enormous potentials to be a country that can drive the sub-region.

But instead of going to Ghana, why did Obama not go to South Africa?

I think it was important for him to visit a typically African country. South Africa in many ways is a peculiar country. Ghana is more typical of an African country than a country that was once an enclave of colonial outpost.

The visit should pressure us into saying to ourselves, how should we do things differently? How should we do things so that the quality of life of our citizens should improve? But right now, we don’t like to admit our faults; we prefer to engage in name calling. Oprah Winfrey has said very derogatory things about Nigeria. They are basically crooks and all of that. The first thing we did was to attack Oprah Windfrey instead of finding out how she arrived at that conclusion. Just has Obama has pointed out, we need to build the right institutions to run the country. The dominant face of Nigeria is the crook. This is because we don’t have leadership that focuses on creating the best environment for its people to live a better life.

Will the visit remove or add anything to Nigeria?

Why should it remove or add? It doesn’t have to remove or add. But we should look at ourselves and ask: What can we do better? St Augustine said that an un-examining life is not worth living. What it means is that the world does not have any regard for Nigeria as Nigerians think that the world should. Nigeria is not as important to the world as we sometimes make ourselves to believe. That is why we were not invited to the G20 meeting. It was not an insult. What we should be concerned about now is what to do to get there.

So what should we do?

We should do a self -examination of what makes the world not to have as much regard for us as a country. The world suffers from the fact that Nigeria is the way it is. Because it is to that world that Nigerians run to, constituting a nuisance in their immigration.

Are you saying that Obama’s visit to Ghana is an embarrassment to Nigeria?

Of course he has to go to one country so he made a choice of Ghana. That is a statement to the country that think they have a greater right to be considered. And if you were a leader in that country, what you should be saying to yourself is, wait a minute, what l am doing wrong? What should l do that will make a difference? Obama’s visit has more to do with what is in America’s best interest. Nigeria should be pushing for what should be our own best interest.

What do you think of Nigeria’s peace keeping role in Africa and other parts of the world?

Of course, Nigeria has done a lot. But it has not taken advantage of that which it has done. If we have done so much in peace keeping and all of that, we should be able to build on it. But because of our shortcomings in many other areas, we have failed to do what we should have done.

Do you think that the crisis in the Niger Delta is part of the problem?

I was not there when Obama was planning his visit. All l know is that how we manage our problem really matters. Indonesia had the crisis in East Timor for many years. But Indonesia did not become any less significant a player in the global community because they had the sore of East Timor.

The question is how Indonesia managed East Timor was different from how Nigeria is managing the problem of the Niger Delta. You have to consider that.

What do you think about Obama’s African Foreign policy?

I am more interested in what l think should be Nigeria’s foreign policy so that everybody, including the Americans, will respect us as Nigerians.

What do you think Obama should do to help Africa?

What Obama said is that they are ever ready to help those who are willing to help themselves. Ghana is one country that has shown evidence that it wants to help itself and Obama is saying we are going to be there for you. What that means for me is that we should do more to help ourselves.

What do you think about Obama’s relationship with the Arab world?

Obama is somebody that has a background that enables him to feel more sensitive to injustice. So he is going to apply more of balance and fairness. He has to find a way of winning the confidence of all the parties.

How about his efforts to reduce nuclear arms proliferation?

If we spend all the money we spend on the arms race on productive development, it will help us. It is a good thing that the arms race is slowing down, so that we can invest more in human development. We need Nigeria to be run by serious people. I mean, from the bottom up. Political life in Nigeria has become something for two people, people who jump into the political arena to scramble to grasp, and those who have somehow accumulated money and are trying to stay relevant. Unless you understand that, there is something bigger here.

*This was written Thursday, 27 October 2007.

It is amazing how what you think about can define you and hold you hostage. Take ethnicity. There is so much of it around that unless something thrusts it to the fore of your consciousness; you forget it is the prism through which some people see everything. I became sensitive to my good fortune when a reaction of the ethnic dimension on the N628milion House of Representative Scandal hit a List Serve (e-group) that I subscribe to. I probably would have thought little of it all beyond acknowledging that some held and expressed strong opinion, a democratic privilege, until someone I know whose views I shared, felt very strongly about people who made sweeping remarks regarding his ethnic group, and reacted.

I agreed with him that it was improper to attack his ethnic group because a principal player in the scandal comes from that ethnic stock and some chieftains from that geographic group had said the person in question should be defended on account of that persons place of origin. Even if there were not so many people who are of that ethnic origin, that have spoken critically of the House of Representative Leadership and called for resignation, the slamming of an ethnic group for the sin of one, or a few persons, would still be most inappropriate.

But that is not so much the object of my writing as the desire to share a personal testimony on the futility of ethnic chauvinism and how it can hold us captive. As is the nature personal testimonies it will be in the first person and names of individuals, some of whom are well known will be mentioned. Let me apologize up front to those who may not like that mode of narrative.

Earlier this year, someone surprised me by saying that a major challenge to my candidacy for the office of the President of Nigeria was that I was too Nigerian. I found that quite a paradox. Yes, as a young man I fancied myself an All-Nigerian youngster, in the American manner of usage. For some, open mindedness meant your ethnic group could not trust you enough.

I always took pride in my Pan-Nigerian upbringing. How come being seen as free from the captivity of the ethnic group is a handicap. In reaction, I raised the profile of how I grew up, making the point that no other candidate for the office of the President of Nigeria had as complete a Nigerian background: born in Kaduna of parents from Delta State, raised in Jos, Maiduguri, Kano, Gusau, Onitsha, Ibadan and Lagos before University education at Nsukka. I was not going to be apologetic about the fact that I grew up unable to tell the difference between people beyond the content of their character.

Then I ran into Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. His comment, unsolicited, reinforced my disposition. Said he to me: your remarkable strength is that people never think of where you come from. You belong to all Nigerians. It was a comment that made me feel good because that really was how I saw myself. My puzzle was how to make every one else feel that way. Do they have to have nomadic parents, like me, to be Nigerian. Then I thought of the person who made the comment about my being too Nigerian.

He had lived most of his adult life outside of his state of origin. So, even if moving around helped me, I needed to find more reasons. Surely many have been freed of some terrible prejudices by one year of National Service in the NYSC than some have from living in Lagos, Abuja and Kano for most of their adult lives. It occurred to me that friendship, open minds, set people free of becoming captive of simplistic stereotypes about others that makes it easy to judge without difficult evaluation of the content of each character.

My thinking was validated when shortly after the April elections, I went abroad for a bit of rest. Many friends from both sides of the Atlantic were kind enough to invite me, and in some cases my whole family, to be guests in their homes. At the time I did not think much about the scope of the network of friends in terms of the spread of ethnic backgrounds of those who welcome us into their homes. From Charles Gilbert and Mohammed Hayatudeen, of Ondo and Borno States, in Florida, to Linus Ojukwu of Anambra State, in California, Jimi Akiboh and Chris Obeime of Ogun State and Edo origins, in the American Midwest. There was also occasion of being hosted by a group of doctors and other professionals from Katsina and Nassarawa States in London, and across the Atlantic by Bassey Okon, where I found myself exploring the wealth of Nigeria, its people, without even a thought about where their parents claim as states of origin.

It was on one such visit that the true benefit of belonging to all, struck me. As I discussed the idea of a shadow government focused on helping Nigeria re-discover its compass, that plain-speaking Shehu Othman, who came in from Oxford to chat with me, said a welcome idea like that would usually draw suspicion of motives from the North, but for the fact it was coming from someone like me, whose motives were not distrusted in the North, or any part of Nigeria for that matter.

Beyond finding such, a complement, the lesson for me was that ethnic chauvinism was clearly an obstacle to communication. It got in the way of men, who could ordinarily have done much good, from getting their ideas across and building solidarity Nigeria writ large. That Pan-Nigerian solidarity is a veritable instrument for nation building. To what do I believe, I owe the good fortune of escape from tribal capture? I guess it has to do with making the most of the privilege of experiencing diversity, and allowing that to define my self worth.

Take my wedding nearly a quarter century ago, as example. On that day, Patrick Ityogheh, the NTA impresario, teased about who should break kola nuts, as Otunba Subomi Balogun sat between Ajie Ukpabi Asika, Chief Tayo Akpata and Chief Arthur Mbanefo. It did not take an effort to have the Northwest, North Central, South West, South South and South East at the wedding. It came natural to my network. The same feeling rises up in me as I engage the young, the old, the traditional and the modern with faith that the ultimate value is the dignity of the human person, the equal dignity of all persons.

It plays through as I reflect on the many young upwardly mobile professionals that I mentor, the Reno Omokris, Gbenga Sesans, Niyi Adesanyas Linus Okories and Kabiru Mohammeds etc and with the traditional rulers I have known most of my adult life. When Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto calls me on occasion, to pull my legs on some issues, he is counting on a relationship that dates back to when he was a young officer and friend to my brother-in-law two decades ago. And when I deal with the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Achebe, I go back 30 years to my visits to the Victoria Island apartment of the bachelor rising manager at Shell. In like manner, when I show up at the Palace in Iloko, I am visiting an Oba Olashore who has been like a family member for decades. But the real lesson from my experience is that being truly Nigerian does not constitute negation of the good of a more primary or parochial base. So the fact that I arrive Kaduna and head straight to the home of a long time friend, Ibrahim Usman, go off to Good Friday service as he goes to the mosque and we return to lunch in his home does not make me any less a Deltan, or Christian.

As Nigerian as I am, I still feel good about my Ibusa progeny, the Igbo heritage it brings me and pride enough at my South South origins to have been the one to give intellectual context to the idea of Resource Control when I delivered the first anniversary lecture at the Delta State Government sponsored celebration of the return to democracy on that sunny morning in Warri seven years ago.

Yet I relish when a Patricia Otuedon marvels at the fact that much older compatriots from across regional divides, like Alhaji Ahmed Joda, are requested to name three people to provide attestations to their life-time efforts for the TV series profiling Great Nation-builders, my name so frequently shows up. This privilege for me is at once a gift and the benefit of socialization. It should be the right of all and civil society will do well to devote resources to helping young people overcome the trap of the tribe.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU.

With the recent revelation that the minister for education spent 120 million naira on his 25th wedding anniversary bash at a time ASUU is on strike over poor pay,we begin to see the end result of our apathy towards how we are governed in this country called Nigeria. The RMAFC recently revealed that 8 trillion had been spent on political office holders since 1999 and there has been hardly a squeak from the media, nor civil society. It is this same deafening silence that greeted the news that 523 billion had been spent on the National assembly consisting of just under 500 people since 1999 with only 523 laws being passed during that time. Even more baffling is the silence that greeted the senate president’s request that senators be given automatic ticket which he made only two weeks after the 523 billion bombshell became public.It is such that any unbiased watcher of Nigeria will be forgiven if he asks the question, do Nigerians care about Nigeria?

Now Sam Egwu has risen from the ranks from commissioner to governor and now minister, and if his judgment is to spend 120 million naira on a wedding bash at a time when most Nigerians are living on less than 1 dollar a day, one can begin to see the mettle of the political office holders who cost us about 1 trillion naira a year to maintain. Now consider that Bill Gates, the world’s richest man who could certainly afford to spend one million dollars (the dollar equivalent of Egwu’s bash) did not do so and was reported to have spent his wedding anniversary on January 1st with wife Melinda at a modest dinner for two while he made plans to visit Nigeria (which he did in January this year, 2 weeks after his wedding anniversary) where he donated millions to help end the polio scourge in Nigeria.

What is even more troubling is that this wedding bash was attended by heads of parastatals of the Ministry of Education in tandem with university administrators and provosts of colleges of education along with Rectors of polytechnics. Now if these enlightened members of the ivory tower will attend this sort of wasteful bash, you can imagine the level of the decay that has set in in the education sector of Nigeria.

Now I was recently in Ebonyi state and visited what passed for a hospital in the state capital and I was moved to say a prayer for Nigeria. I remember that not long after my visit the resident doctors in Ebonyi staged a strike over poor remuneration. I began to ask myself when the Egwu story broke how these doctors would feel knowing that their boss of 8 years was rich enough to spend 120 million on a wedding anniversary while many of them can not afford to take a wife.

And as it is with Egwu, so it is with many of Nigeria’s political elite. I know Nigerians tend to forget, so I want to remind us that just this year, the president’s daughter got married to a state governor at a ceremony witnessed by her father the president and which was reported by several papers to have cost more than 300 million naira. So when we begin to castigate the minister for education, we will do well to remember that a leader is a model for his lieutenants. in Egwu’s reasoning, since the president can do it, the message to me is if you can not beat them, join them!

There in lies the dilemma of Nigeria-we have a leadership that is incapable of modeling behaviour that will inspire its followers to act responsibly, yet when the followers act irresponsibly the leadership is annoyed and over reacts forgetting that fish starts to get rotten from the head.

Only this week, the federal government was reported to have called ASUU insensitive and threatened to take them to arbitration. The papers have been full of the harsh words that government has for ASUU for daring to go on strike. But in reality who is actually insensitive between the government and ASUU. Or between the government and any number of striking professionals for that matter be it resident doctors, NUT or ASUU?

We seem to have lost all sense of proportion and our political leadership leads the way. What our current political leadership at almost every level does not seem to get is that there is enough for everyone’s need in Nigeria, but not for everyone’s greed. For instance, spending 120 million naira on a party is simply an act of greed, which we can not sustain in Nigeria. But had that money been sent on offering 120 professors a pay rise of 1 million naira per annum, their needs would have been met, and they will be highly motivated to give their all to lecturing and nurturing students who would emerge better graduates and more able to contribute to Nigeria’s progress as a nation.

We need at this time in our nationhood for Nigerians to lose their apathy, for civil society to be vigilant and raise awareness of the citizens to the shortcomings of government, and we particularly need our media to spear head the clamour for good governance. It is not going to happen by itself, it must be made to happen by the Nigerian people because as I have never tired of saying, Nigeria is a sum total of Nigerians.

We should not continue to grumble at beer parlours and under trees, we should speak out and act now, and tomorrow and if necessary be ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that good governance becomes a reality in our lifetimes. Lets remember that a people deserve the type of government they get. Take Lagos state for example, that Raji Fahola is doing well and making the lives of Lagosians better is as a result of the people’s decision to work with Tinubu to resist what Bode George called a ‘capture’ of Lagos state in 2007. Yes the police brutalized people, and soldiers even killed a few, but ultimately the people held firm and now they are reaping the rewards of their tenacity. My fellow Nigerians, let us consider what happened in Lagos as a pilot scheme for what should happen countrywide in 2011. Remember, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU.

In order to solve Nigeria’s problems we must accurately identify the issues. As such I have a poll on our site www.utomifornigeria.com where I ask all lovers of Nigeria to identify the most pressing problem militating against our progress as a nation. Please do take a minute to contribute to this poll. Remember identifying the problem helps us focus attention on solving it. Your opinion counts. I am having a panel of experts go through your opinions and they are only able to take opinions into consideration if they are captured on the poll . PU

I was recently asked a question on my facebook page about what I thought of Nigeria receiving foreign aid from Western Powers and China and whether this was desirable or not. I answered this question, and I was emailed on this issue by my FB friends and I was actually surprised that this was a popular issue amongst our youths. I have since decided to share my thoughts on this issue rather than answer each email one by one.

Countries are just like individuals. It is naive maybe even foolish to expect another individual to love you more than himself, no matter the level of religion such a person profers to practice. With nations, as with individuals self interest drives most actions.  No country has in its constitution a section that it must help another country grow. Why should it? So that that country can come and compete with it? It is in a country’s interest to pursue policies at home that help her citizens grow, her corporations flourish and her armed forces to become stronger. It is precisely for these reasons that such a country would pursue policies outside her own borders that while ostensibly are said to benefit another country are actually designed to promote her own interest. We should remember that humans are basically animals and as such it is a game of survival of the fittest.

So, while I do not think that Nigeria should reject foreign aid, my take on this is that we should not pin any of our hopes for the  development of Nigeria on outsiders. The truth is that Nigeria is a sum total of Nigerians and will be what we make of it. As we make our bed so shall we lie on it. 

Fo instance the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission has just revealed that Nigeria in the last ten years has spent 8 trillion naira on political office holders. Now of what use is foreign aid to us when we are not utilizing our revenue properly? For instance we should not be onlookers while political office holders rape Nigeria. We ought to speak up and act. How? Our media should do a thorough job of spreading this news, because where people are aware of this kind of misplaced priority they are more likely to act. Opposition leaders such as myself should not be so consumed with ambition that they have no time to lead the people in demanding an end to this insanity.

In the same period, Nigeria has spent less that 20% of that amount on education. Any wonder then that our political office holders are now unable to rest due to the rising insecurity in Nigeria which is fueled by able bodied unemployed youths who would have been in school developing their minds had we had the good judgment to spend more on our youths than we do on political office holders who constitute less than 0.5% of our population.

I am more for plugging waste than searching for foreign aid. As I said before, the best aid is that money that never leaves Nigeria. I sometimes wonder myself whether the leaders of these countries that give us these aid have ever bought a copy of Ovation magazine to see the opulence and splendour that is the life of the present crop of Nigerian political office holders. The opulence is sometimes even obscene. There are 300 million naira weddings, and multi million naira birthday bashes. I was stunned to read an interview in Thisday once where a young son of a former Nigerian leader boasted of taking his horse to Switerland for regular medical check up. I wont be surprised if the money spent on this young man’s horses is more than enough to construct a clinic in his Local Givernment Area for the care of pregnant women. I say this because the ambassador of a European country intimated me that his country is considering building such a clinic in this young man’s state of origin. Now do you see my point? If this European ambassador can persuade his government to enact laws which make it impossible for politically exposed persons to stash money in his country, there will gradually be no need for his country to give aid to Nigeria

Recently I advocated that if we are really serious at making our political office holders more sensitive to the people we have to enact laws that make it MANDATORY for ALL political office holders to receive medical services ONLY in Nigerian hospitals and for their children to attend ONLY Nigerian schools. I argued that the reason they do not care about the decay in Nigeria’s infrastructure and social services is because they do not access them and how can you advocate for something you do not use. Imagine my surprise when I received emails from a few Nigerians complaining that my idea was unconstitutional and will affect people’s liberty. To those who said that, I ask what they understand by the term government. Isn’t government meant to guarantee the welfare of the poeple?

But let me not stray too far. In conclusion, We should continue to accept foreign aid, but this should not be something we go about begging for, nor something we focus on. We should rather look inwards, and plug all avenies of waste, as well as stop capital flight by corrupt government officials in addition to working with Nigerians in the Diaspora to do for Nigeria what Diasporan Indians did for India.

Once again, God bless Nigeria.

PU