Written by:
Yemi Adegbite
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
yemiadegbite@yahoo.ca
January 19, 2009

A Hard Look At Nigeria

I took a very hard look at my country since the birth of the entity called Nigeria.  Apart from the oblivious nature of a child plus ignorance and bliss associated with childhood, Nigeria had always been at a disequilibrium state for as long as I can remember.  I have come to one conclusion, Nigeria needs help! No doubt, Nigeria is a blessed land with vast and numerous natural and human resources, but, sadly, when it comes to the issue of leadership to garner and harness these resources, we are at a very precarious position.
I asked myself many questions, the more I ruminate over these questions, the more confused and perturbed I become.
With the enormous wealth of the land, why do we have a very rich nation with so many poor people?
Why is it that Nigeria has not been so lucky to produce a visionary leader with a clear vision of what Nigeria should be?
Why Nigeria’s history is rife with dear-devil leaders/politicians that are in politics only for what is in it for them?
Why as a nation our leaders have always been the megalomania and hypocrite type only taking the nation for ride?
Why is it that year after year, term after term and regime after regime, the condition of the people and that of the country is on the decline?
How many governments will it take to make things right in the country? Why is it that things are going from bad to worse with every regime?
Research shows that, the ultra poor are overwhelmingly concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa which accounts for three quarters of the world’s ultra poor community, and by our share population, it follows logically that, Nigeria will take the lion share of this percentage! This is not a statistic any leader should be proud and brag about. Take a look at all amenities that make a nation tick, which of them can Nigeria boast of?
Check out electricity, look at all roads network, how about security of life and property, think about employment rate, have you or anybody you know been to the hospital lately? What is going on in our elementary and secondary schools, don’t even talk about institutions of higher learning. The whole scenario is disturbing. The politicians do not seem to think straight nor see clearly.  Greed is the driven force, service to the country is in a far distant place, and none of them care about the plight of the nation and the ordinary Nigerians.
When I was younger, I thought things were bad. People in my generation complained, we protested, we became very restive, on many occasions, we confronted the authorities, and we were labeled and chastised. What we experienced then was a child’s play compared with what the youths of today have to contend with, the rots in the system these days are indescribable.
I was rather taken aback when NANS recently declared Maurice Iwu the INEC chairman as their man of the year. The man who presided over the worst kind of cash and carry elections in Nigeria is NANS man of the year!  Something is fundamentally wrong. One thing that came to my mind is that, the NANS leaderships have lost their minds. I also concluded that, they are also suffering from the hangover of the over-stressed and socially maladjusted society.  Youths are disillusioned and disenchanted with the system. The system that should protect and provide for them has failed them; youths generally have imbibed social vices and resulted into self help methods, that is why many undergraduates are now part of robbery gangs.
I was lost in thought, thinking about what could be responsible for Nigeria’s backwardness. I researched what makes a nation underdeveloped; my findings corroborated what people have been saying all along.  The common denominations of poor and underdeveloped nations are:  very low per capita income, very high population, high population growth, high inflation rate, adverse balance of trade, poor infrastructure and VERY HIGH level of corruption (emphasis mine), I will like to add these new features such as institutionalized robbery, job and seat reservations, larger- than- live cut-outs of politicians and lousy judges granting relief and interim and perpetual injunctions to all rogue politicians in the country,  the last one is almost unique to our country.  Suffice to say that the opposite of all the above will make any nation to develop by leap and bound.
Nigerian leaders are ruled by their appetites and greed. We have a system of free for all and all you can steal in place; and when  officers who have squandered, misappropriated and embezzled  multi-millions of naira are caught in the act, they are only fined a couple of millions  and set free to enjoy their loot. EFCC, the only credible institution that fights corruption in Nigeria under the able and fearless Nuhu Ribadu has been dawn graded, watered down and gravely compromised.
This has ballooned to a system whereby every department is headed by a psychopathic and pathological thief.  In Nigeria, we have different types of robbers: we have the office robbers; there are corporate robbers, robbers in uniforms, what about the systemic robbers and the least dangerous of them, the high way robbers. These days, they have focused their attention on the banks. People make a lot of noise about the spate of robbery with violence in the country just because the activities of this type of robbers are overt, in actual fact, they have killed less people and wrecked less havoc compared to other types of robbers we have in charge of our affairs in the country on daily basis. Take a look at trillions of naira and dollars carted away and stuffed in the off shore bank accounts by the local government chairmen, governors, their commissioners, ministers, heads of department, ambassadors,  police affairs  and the armed forces, you will see what I am talking about.  No na
tion, I mean no nation can progress with all the state officials stealing freely and taking care of their interests only.
Men and women of honour and valour go into the public service of their countries to develop and contribute their quota so that the coming generation can live better. Our leaders govern like there is no tomorrow.
A quotation from Jacinta says it all:
” GREAT is the nation that takes care of its poor, its sick, and its underprivileged. GREAT is the nation that does not take from the poor and give to the rich. GREAT is the nation that looks to its future through education, and provides sufficient monies for every child to receive a world-class education. GREAT is the nation that does not undermine its citizen’s constitutional rights. GREAT is the nation whose citizens can democratically elect a government without fear of cheating and vote-tampering”
All and sundry, through the lenses of the above quotation are able to view Nigeria from their past and present experiences and decide whether right now, Nigeria is great or not.
Garrard Winstanley described government as “a wise and free ordering of the state and the manners of mankind by observation of particular laws or rules so that all the inhabitants may live  PEACEFULLY in plenty and freedom in the land where they are born”
Garrard opined that in the government of the land, there should be laws, fit officers and faithful execution of those laws.  I began to think aloud within myself, where does Nigeria stand?  Your guess is as right as mine.  We have government chosen or elected not based on the free will of the people, not that alone, we have unfit laws executed by unfit officers; hence, the faithful execution of the laws is inconceivable. The officers put their will above the law the laws of the land, which accounts for the extra judicial killings and many summary executions in our society.
In Nigeria, apart from the fact that we still struggle with attaining “fit officers whose spirits are humble”, the officers that execute the rules in our society are not only full of covetousness, they also make the established laws of the land their will, No doubt, Nigeria needs help. This is everybody’s work. I mean all of us. Whoever does not belong is against the movement and such people will not be on the right side of history when the history of Nigeria is re-written.  We need a government that meant what it said a government that will face corruption heads-on, not a government that will flip flop, we need a government that will match its words with deeds and actions, and we need a government that will lift Nigeria out of the bondage of ages.
Let me use this medium to inform everybody that, a movement is in the offing, willing to aggregate all people who believe in the ascent of Nigeria.  The “SAFE NIGERIA PROJECT” (SNAP) is gathering momentum, we have received a very encouraging response from all friends of Nigeria, and very soon, the movement would see the light of the day. The movement intends to empower Nigerians through the power of political and civic education. For more information, you can direct your enquiries to info@nigeriahorizon.com