The Nigerian Tragedy

                          The Nigerian Tragedy

   Nigeria, the most populous nation in black Africa well endowed with crude oil and gas wealth has fallen on bad times. It is not because of lack of human and natural resources but a drifting leadership that is not sensitive to the yearnings of the people. A leadership which has imposed holiday on itself and a hostage to political forces dominated by the Hausa Fulani oligarchy of the north and actively supported by the highly educated middle class of the Yorubas in the South West, with the Igbos of the East as errand political boys whose trademark is blackmail and picking few crumbs as merchants.

   Thus forty nine years down the road of independence, the nation is yet to find its bearings and a stunning contradiction of rich nation but poverty and destitution continue to decimate the population. The middle class is on the verge of extinction and highly trained professionals find comfort as dish washers and taxi drivers in Europe and America. That Nigeria has come to this sorry past is traceable to the chaotic and trouble infested politics and electoral system. In Nigeria, politics is the easiest way of breaking the cycle of poverty and parachuting oneself on to the lap of affluence. Thus those western nations that blame Robert Mugabe of manipulating Zimbabwe electoral system should come to Nigeria and that old man of Harare really needs an unreserved apology. In Nigeria, there is no such thing as election. Because as you are in the polling booth, the state controlled media would be announcing the results of election. What is operating in Nigeria, by any shade of political imagination can not be called democracy. It is dictatorship, pure and simple.

   Recently, the government of President Umaru Musa Yar`Adua had to doctor its own panel on electoral reform. The panel which was headed by Justice Muhammad Uwais, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, recommended that the chairman of the electoral body should be appointed by the National Judicial Council and be responsible to the Chief Justice of the Federation. But the political hawks within the president political party, the Peoples Democratic Party of Nigeria will not have any of that. Thus the obnoxious clause of the president appointing the chairman of the electoral commission remains. Thus the hope of having a renaissance in the electoral system has been aborted and the losers are the mass of the people groaning under the harsh condition of poverty and destitution. The unfortunate aspect of the political trajectory is that Nigeria has acquired the unique but dubious distinction of a nation where the rules of elections are observed more in breach. This has alienated most of the nation elites as credibility crisis continues to dog the Yar`Adua administration. And no amount of propaganda via the official launching of the rebranding project shall save the nation. The propaganda project is another way of enriching those people who are close to the corridor of power.

   The absence of a credible electoral system and the legitimacy crises facing the Yar`Adua administration have also affected the economic sector. Despite the billions of dollars pumped into the energy sector by the former government of Olusegun Obasanjo, electricity supply is not regular in the country and this has adversely affected the manufacturing sector. Most companies in Nigeria depend on generating sets for power and the cost of production transferred to consumers. That is one of the reasons for the high rate of inflation affecting the country. This has also made foreign investors to avoid the nation like a plague because the cost of doing business is very prohibitive. Even the abundant gas reserve that ought to be used in generating power is being flared because of lack of political will on the part of government. The lower house of the national legislature, the House of Representatives, is currently probing the power sector to unearth where the billions of dollars budgeted into that sector had gone. This wild goose chase may end up mocking the nation because, Obasanjo, the man at the storm still has powerful allies in government and would surely make sure that the report of the probe does not see the light of the day.

   It is this lack of accountability in the oil sector that turned the Niger Delta region, the area that gushes out the oil wealth into a killing field. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company have different records on how much is got from the proceed of the sale of crude oil. The corruption and rot in the oil sector has spread to the other parts of national life. The people of the Niger Delta region faced with environmental hazards, pollution of the air and lakes, and joblessness of the people via the insensitive nature of the oil prospecting companies and the government, had taken up arms. That is why expatriate workers are kidnapped akin to the pirates of Somalia. The fault must be placed at the doorstep of the government which entered unholy alliance with the oil companies to deprive the people of their just entitlements. The trouble in the Niger Delta is a signal of a dying nation. The indications are that the Abuja authority lacks the political will to address the problem and the Nigeria sad story continues.

   Most infrastructures in Nigeria are in the state of decay and rot. The missing Nigerian satellite in the orbit is symbolic of the general decay of roads, hospitals, schools, water projects and other amenities that make life worth living. The tragedy of the matter is that the yearly budget ends up in the pockets of few Nigerians who have made profession of milking the masses and living on their sweat and blood. The more than fifty universities of the nation have been turned into a haven of cultism and profession. The government is ill equipped to run the nation. The so called seven point agenda of President Umaru Musa Yar`Adua are diversionary and could be liken to a lousy housewife weekend romance to lure Nigerians away from the realities of their circumstances. The Nigerian tragedy is self inflicted and it also depends on them to solve the problem. But the bad trait of the average Nigerian is the indifferent and docile attitude. That must change if the nation is to occupy her rightful place in the comity of nation. The quest for permanent memberships of the United Nations is the least of the nation problems. The right political atmosphere must be established for the abundant human talents in the nation to blossom. It is also the right political atmosphere, a product of free and fair election that will make majority of Nigerians enjoy the benefits of the crude oil wealth. Unfortunately the administration of Yar`Adua is not looking in that direction and is more enarmoured in the domestication of power. It shall surely take a long time for Nigeria to leave the economic mess.