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Whose North, Whose South?

June 30, 2010

It seems our ruling elite has now succeeded in reducing the dire doldrums they have plunged our nation into, to the ethno-religious nonsense. They have sworn to sow the seed of hatred and polarize our people. Their squabble over power being usurped from one part of the country to the other on ethnic and religious basis in not only nonsensical but irresponsible. Certainly, these people have so far exhibited how low so many of our ruling elite are.

It seems our ruling elite has now succeeded in reducing the dire doldrums they have plunged our nation into, to the ethno-religious nonsense. They have sworn to sow the seed of hatred and polarize our people. Their squabble over power being usurped from one part of the country to the other on ethnic and religious basis in not only nonsensical but irresponsible. Certainly, these people have so far exhibited how low so many of our ruling elite are.
The weaknesses of people who lead Nigeria is revealed by the day, hour, minute and even second through such behaviors that portend ineptitude and lack of willingness to sincerely serve.’

It is indeed an expression of all that is wrong with Nigeria’s politics, the manipulative propensity that has made politics the preserve of the most irresponsible elements of Nigeria’s ruling elite: the crass opportunism which suffocates life out of political culture and the triumph of the worst elements  of prebandalism’ as Kawu Modibbo angrily concluded. This retrogressive outlook which squeezes the complex geographical, economic and political diversity of the country’s thirty six states and seven hundred and seventy four local government areas into North, South, East, Central, North- East, North- West, North- Central, South-South, South-West, South East zones arose from a false premise that there are scarce resources in this country, and the distribution or sharing of these resources among the people of Nigeria involves conflict and competition along ethnic, geographical and religious lines. And that those involved this conflict and competition in sharing, distribution or even consuming these resources are actually representing their ethnic or religious groups. This outlook has no basis in the actual geographical, cultural, social, political and economic realities of Nigeria. These ethno-religious or regional champions are people who took or still taking advantage of their positions in government to amass wealth either ethnically, religiously, geographically or both. Their approach to life for now and before, openly show their commitment to wealth and means of accumulating more. They few who are dislodged or have not done so have now join force with those that are apparently in and somehow want a branch to cling to in the deceitful chorus of ‘we and them’. 

They simply perpetuate the illusion that the various parts of the country are engaged in a competition and conflict for the allocation of the scarce resources and that they are champions representing their various regions or ethnic groups in this struggle for the scarce resources.

The first explanation which may be called the Nigeria character hypothesis is just a racist nonsense. It merely express the refusal of our political ruling elite to admit their incapacity to maintain even the military rule structure at a tolerable level of efficiency. Instead of admitting their incapacity, they look into our people for congenital, inherited, character defects, just like any military coup speech. Nigerians are ungovernable! Cry is part of this attempt to deny politics and economics and go for psychology and genetics, and thus to refuse facing the brute fact of a political reality, which is inherently and congenitally corrupt and inefficient. They build a hypothesis that recent ethnic and religious conflicts are part of the inevitable competition for the scarce resources available. This they did largely because it seems to provide a scientific and rational justification for what would otherwise appear, for what is sordid self aggrandizement. For according to this hypothesis, if one gets a plot of land in Asokoro or Maitama, Lekki or Victoria Island or a directorship in NPA or NNPC boards or even one in any giant multinational corporation in Nigeria, one is getting a share of the scarce resources of the country on behalf of an ethnic or religious group one is supposed to belong to. Private and greed accumulation legal and illegal is rationalized in a smooth jargon of being ‘bonafide and eligible’ to acquire this wealth, deliberately ignoring the concept of nepotism. Gifts, a pittance of what they loot, at local functions and to the emaciated poor individuals that are daily scavenging at the doors of the ruling elite, seem to provide an empirical proof of this hypothesis, which is basically one of new marriages, riding lush cars, vacationing in Dubai or London all on behalf of one’s tribesmen or co- religionists who are starving, but somehow vicariously have no share in the luxury! It not only provides rational basis for corruption of all sorts and stealing, but makes all this part of the eternal order, since according to this bourgeois economics, resources are always scarce and it is the allocation of this resources politics is always and everywhere all about.

But let’s examine the two key premises of this explanation. The first one is that there is a scarcity of resources. The second one that there is a competition for these resources. In Nigeria the basic resources of labor, land, water, fauna and flora are far from being scarce, abundant in an almost absolute sense. What is scarce is the likes of General Muhammad Buhari, the Ganis, Soyinkas, Blalarabes, the Bekos at the helm of affairs to utilize these resources. Or more accurately, the organization and goodwill for their utilization. The first premise is clearly false and misleading. What about the second premise? Is there any competition going on for the allocation of these resources to their ‘kinsmen’ between these elites?

I was recently mulling over an Annual General Meeting Report (AGM) of one of Nigeria’s institution. I went through the composition of the board members and saw one Alhaji Samaila as one of the directors. I went downward saw some other names as follows; Mr. Shagaya, Mr. Vincent, Mr. Okoro, Mr. Ladipo and Mr. Ajayi. Are they involved in any competition in the boardroom of this institution? This is presumably what we are supposed to believe. We are supposed to believe that the Misters are somehow representing Christians and the Alhajis somehow representing Muslims, and they compete to obtain the scarce resources for their ethno-religious communities their names ascribe them to. Or take an example of the bribes shared in our federal legislative houses anytime the need arise. Or take the Ministry of Defense ND Education scam during Obasanjo’s term, there was Mr. Evans, Alhaji Ibrahim, Alhaji Garba Matazo, Mr. Makounjola and so on. Far from competing , every evidence indicates that they corporate fully, as the stake and the interest involved are same and mutual. Take those Bank executives caught for illegal lending, was there any competition or conflict in anyway?  In all the CBN and EFCC reports published, hundreds of billions of naira were involved, but what is the single shred of evidence that any competition or ethno religious preference hampered the deal through which people wealth was stashed away? The evidence is that of corporation and collusion, and where there was conflict, it had nothing to do, even as a preference, with ethnicity or religion but hard cash and individual greed! And this happened right across the country.

 There is now substantial documentation of the operation of this system for at least the period 1999-2010. What is quite clear is that there was competition , yes! But this was between the powerless Nigeria’s  peasant on one hand, and avaricious private interests of the ruling elite in ethno-religious  garb on the other hand.   

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