(This is the full text of a speech delivered by Majekodunmi Adega at the 50th Anniversary Symposium organized by Carlton University in conjunction with the High Commission of Nigeria in Ottawa which took place on September 30, 2010)
(This is the full text of a speech delivered by Majekodunmi Adega at the 50th Anniversary Symposium organized by Carlton University in conjunction with the High Commission of Nigeria in Ottawa which took place on September 30, 2010)
I will like to start by thanking the organizers of this event for inviting me and the efforts put into the event, especially the moderator, Prof. Blair Rutherford of the Institute of African Studies. I will also like to thank the High Commission of Nigeria in Ottawa and Ambassador Hagher for taking part in the symposium despite our diametrically opposed and irreconcilable views on the methodologies employed by the government in dealing with the myriad of problems confronting the nation. My positions that I am not for sale and will not tone down my criticisms of the Nigerian government at the symposium and his assurance that he was not trying to buy me or get me to tone down my criticisms of the government went a long way in influencing my decision to attend.
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If this presentation is superficial it is because analyzing the problems confronting Nigeria after 50 years of independence is going to require far more time than this symposium will allow. But attempt we must. So here we go.
I am not so certain where to begin to tackle this gargantuan issue but I am going to give it my best shot. In my opinion, the single most important challenge facing Nigeria after 50 years of so called independence from Britain is corruption. As much as we would like to camouflage the issue with other sub-issues, the fleeting of the nation’s resources by those who ought to be its guardians, has left the nation unable to meet its basic needs despite its boundless endowment. True, there are other issues like ethnicity, nepotism, religious intolerance in the equation. However, I consider these to be sub-issues the intensity of which have been exacerbated and magnified by those who wish to prolong their amnesia of distorted comprehension through a denial of the reality on the ground. In my opinion, the other so called issues are addendums or appendages to the main issue of corruption. In 1960, Nigeria started the journey into independence and statehood with levels of industrialization and capability comparable to what existed in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Argentina to name just a few. Today, we all know those countries that can proudly say “we ran a good race, kept the faith and have arrived” and the one that continues to wallow in the illusion of greatness and steadfastly refuses to catch up despite its enormous potentials. My feeling about Nigeria’s failure to live up to its potentials is akin to the feelings of a father or mother about a talented who obstinately refuses to apply himself/herself.
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Our chronic inability to generate enough power to meet our consumer and industrial needs has nothing to do with paucity of funds. The criminal neglect of our obligation to repair our roads in order to prevent the daily carnage has nothing to do with funds not being allocated for this purpose. The fact that one has to bribe to secure the most basic services in the public and private sectors has nothing to do with our culture because no one has come up with empirical evidence that Nigerians are genetically pre-disposed to criminality. Those who formulate or are supposed to formulate and implement public policies are not unaware of the benefits of decentralizing the formulation and implementation of policies and delivery of government services. The sorry state of major state or state supported enterprises like Nipost, PHCN (mockingly called defined as Problem Has Changed Name), Federal Mortgage Bank and Nigeria Railway cannot be attributed to the lack of funds. One re-occurring feature about the above mentioned entities is that the billions that have been allocated to these institutions over the years have been stolen by people now in government or their friends. Another common feature is that those who supervised their demise or put them into their near-comatose existence have gotten very rich from doing poor jobs. Those who looted the billions allocated for the re-construction of roads in Nigeria have again taken central positions in the current government of Nigeria. Those who looted the billions allocated for the improvement of power supply in Nigeria are running around the country seeking opportunities to create mayhem and further complicate the lives of the victims of their theft. Like every other problem bedeviling this country, we know those who looted the people’s resources but we are lacking the political will and integrity to confront them. If we got to where we are now for lack of political will and integrity to confront the perpetrators of the myriad of economic crimes that are threatening to push this country over the cliff after 50 years of so called independence, are there indications that the next 50 years will be any different?
The Clarity of Solutions:
It is easy and often tempting to couch the problems with Nigeria in some exoteric exaltation and their inevitable concomitants. While I do not take issues with those who do, it is also quite possible to explain Nigeria’s problems in basic prosaic language. The later is what I am going to do here.
Interestingly, most Nigerians are united in their acknowledgement of the solutions to the country’s problems. They are aware that if the country is to pursue the same economic policies that have propelled the meteoric rise of countries like China and the economies of the other so called Asian tigers, we know that we must do so in a political climate in which the country begins to invest massively in the development and maintenance of capital infrastructure, provision of leading edge education, sanitization of crucial institutions to meet the challenges of industrialization and nation building, a well conceived comprehensive and modern tax system with robust enforcement procedures particularly in the area of lifestyle assessments and a reward system that recognizes legitimate achievements and punishes criminality.
Most Nigerians know that properly conceived and executed underground transportation systems in cities like Lagos and Kano will have profound effects on travelling time, stress on our roads and its users and lost production time. The nation can afford it. We all know that a well articulated education policy that recognizes the crucial role of mathematics and other sciences in industrialization will involve a program for recognizing, capturing and nurturing talents in these fields. Rather, the situation on the ground is that government officials who are in charge of education have lost faith in the academic system themselves. They steal the money allocated for education and use part of it in sending their children to universities abroad. Some of those students might be in our midst here at Carlton University.
We all know the spinoffs of investing in a good road network. In addition to the fundamental objective of facilitating the safe movement of people and goods, we know that reduced cost of automobile maintenance will in the long run translate to cheaper cost of transportation and higher disposable income for ordinary Nigerians who seem to be swimming against the tide. The availability of a reliable cargo rail system and functional inland ports will reduce the stress on our roads and get goods to their destinations faster. It will also enhance the abilities of industrial producers and farmers to get their products to their final destinations faster and fresher, and reduce the length of time to achieve turnover. More money for farmers means more disposable income to spend on education, home renovations and improved standard of living.
We know that money laundering cannot be equivalent to banking. Our banking industry has become a magnet for some of the most daring criminal elements in the country. A lot of people saw the rot coming except the government. When a group that I belong to demonstrated against branches of Nigerian banks in London England in January 2009, a lot of people accused us of trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg but were eventually vindicated by the government’s eventual recognition that our banks were nothing more than money laundering outfits. When they eventually saw it and decided to do something about it, they took billions of naira from resources that could have been spent on other programs and directed the money towards saving the banks. Yet, no one has been convicted or is even being seriously prosecuted for any of the crimes. The pre-election grandstanding that is currently on display by way of arrests and arraignment of bank officials will evaporate if the ruling party is returned power. I hope I am wrong for the benefit of Nigeria.
But what will be the motivation for anyone to do the right thing in a country where the fastest route to wealth is not by doing things right? In fact, many Nigerians have lost their jobs for attempting to perform their jobs according to the job description and requirements. We all know that a genuine clampdown on corruption will help re-direct a lot of the creative abilities that Nigerians are currently spending devising the most sophisticated techniques to deprive the state and innocent people of their resources into making inventions, building world class businesses, creating genuine wealth through actual production and providing employment opportunities for the teeming masses.
We all recognize that in order to pursue a genuine rule of law agenda, we need a judiciary that is free of corrupt judges, police officers and prosecutors. The benefits of speedy resolutions of legal disputes cannot be over emphasized. Important legal disputes affecting the constitution, commerce, politics and other crucial matters need to be decided with the dispatch they deserve. The evidence that our judges are as corrupt as the criminals whose faith they decide is as clear as daylight. In addition to the violence they routinely do to the jurisprudence and the common man’s perception of the meaning of justice, these judges are living lifestyles which clearly mark them out for prosecution for corrupt enrichment. By the time you see a judge living in a choice area of Abuja or any of the other cities, you are most likely looking at a judge who has repeatedly perverted the course of justice for his own benefits. Rule of law is not equivalent to half-hearted investigations and prosecutions. It is the supremacy of the law over all.
Possibilities of Change
There is no doubt about Nigeria’s ability to emerge from the current ashes to become not only Africa’s leading economy, but one of the top twenty in the world within the next decade. It also has the obligation to debunk the long held stereotype that the average black person cannot lead a nation in addition to providing a rallying point for all black people around the world. But this is only possible if our leaders are prepared to change.
Having said the above, realism dictates that one is obligated to shout fire even in a crowded theatre if there is an actual fire in the theatre. An honest evaluation of the history of political developments in this country does not give even the most optimistic observer the slightest hope that the current political configuration is malleable or elastic enough to undergo the required iconoclastic transformation needed to reposition it in the right direction without precipitating convulsions that could potentially be fatal.
The level of acknowledgement that corruption is the greatest obstacle to Nigeria’s economic and political development is in the realm of truism but we are lacking the political will and integrity to confront the problem. Those who are expected to solve the problem are “Oscar-winning actors” in the show of shame called corruption in Nigeria. The road to leadership in Nigeria is paved with so much corruption that those who arrive at the final destination do so well coated in the garments of corruption and are left with no other option but to protect the clique behind it in order to save their own back. Because our leaders are corrupt, they no longer have the ability to confront the nation’s biggest problem. Rather than perform the radical surgery needed to exorcise this cancer, all we hear are worn out clichés and refrains about accountability and probity in words only. They gloss over their crimes and those of family members, spouses and friends while building castles in the air about their zero tolerance for corruption and commitment to the fight against corruption. They only pretend to be enforcing the law when attempting to cow their political opponents into silence. The word “investigation” has now become synonymous with conviction in Nigeria. Law enforcement agencies, particularly the now notorious EFCC, would have Nigerians believe that its most important responsibility is to announce to the nation that it has commenced the investigation of Mr. A or Ms. B, conveniently taking refuge in selective amnesia when questioned about the countless other investigations that led nowhere.
Where the ruling party has done a woeful job of leading the nation in the last eleven years, it has done an excellent job in becoming the most efficient and largest assembly line for the production, renovation and re-absorption of aspiring, seasoned and discredited treasury looters. Majority of the few senior government officials that have been charged with and or convicted for corruption in the last decade were and many continue to be important members of the ruling party. How did these elements emerge as leaders within this party if we are not to believe that the culture of corruption and impunity within the party is responsible for throwing up these so called leaders some of whom Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the EFCC, described as not intelligent enough to be your gate housemaids or “maguards” in local-speak. Anyone interested in getting a glimpse of members of the country’s criminal elite only need look around the corridors of power to find them. Internal party discipline that served the country well in the past has been confined to the dustbin despite being a useful tool to employ in the grooming and eventual emergence of a new generation of leaders. I will tell you the story of the late Prof. Ambrose Alli, former governor of old Bendel state under the Unity Party of Nigeria that was led by Obafemi Awolowo. The governor lost his mother in 1981 or thereabout and in a political culture where subordinates climb over each other to do leaders favors, the state assembly passed a declaration making the mother’s funeral a state funeral and therefore entitled to financial sponsorship from the state government. It was reported that Obafemi Awolowo who got to know about the event post facto invited the governor to a meeting during which he admonished the governor for using or accepting state funds for a clearly personal endeavor and urged him to refund the money. When the governor responded that he did not have the money to effect the refund, Obafemi Awolowo offered to lend him the money. Can anyone imagine a party leader in our current political dispensation admonishing a governor for what many now view as a benevolent and justifiable use of state resources?
Our sense of outrage at the theft of public resources and allocation of recognition has become warped and diametrically opposed to basic logic. Those who complain about the looting of resources are often met with responses like “nobody is clean in Nigerian politics” “it is okay to steal as long as you are performing” or “ provided you invest the stolen money in Nigeria” In the words of the late Dele Giwa “thieves have become chiefs and morons have become business barons.” Add to that the fact that certificate forgers and those who brought the nation’s banking system to its knees have now become recipients of national awards and aspiring presidential candidates.
On the political terrain, membership of political parties now has nothing to do with ideological beliefs. The basic consideration has become how to gain the fastest access to public funds. The parties cannot be counted on to actively seek and nurture genuine leaders for reasons already mentioned. Nigerians now see elections as events to be rigged and the glory of the successful rigging exercise giving to God. You question when God started rigging elections or why God would need to rig elections in order to confirm His anointment or choice of a candidate for office.
Describing the elements holding Nigeria hostage as cowards is not an act of kindness but a reflection of my inability to find a better word for them. We have all been witnesses to the periods of convulsion in our polity where resistance by ordinary citizens put a screeching halt to government shenanigans. Nigerian students were responsible for killing the Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact of 1962 that would have committed Nigeria and Nigerian soldiers to the execution of British wars; Nigerian students and workers were responsible for hastening the departure from office of self-styled military president, Ibrahim Babangida in particular and the military in general; and more recently Nigerians as a whole rose in unison to oppose the attempts of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to amend the 1999 constitution and run for a third term. What these efforts demonstrate is the ability of Nigerians to change the course of events in their country if and only if they want to.
The easiest thing to do is joining the bandwagon and becoming a praise singer. No special skill is required for that. What requires boldness and determination is the courage to stand up and be counted. Even if you are a government official hiding under the defence of “I am only doing my job” the post World war II Nurenberg trial of Hitler’s lieutenants stands for the proposition that there is a limit to the kind of obligations that can be discharged on behalf of a state under international law. Standing in opposition against the juggernaut called the Nigeria government is like trying to precipitate a train wreck with all the attendant risks. But those who have chosen to do it do so not because “it is easy but because it is hard” as stated by the late president John F. Kennedy. According to Obiageli Ezekwesili Nigeria’s former education minister and now World Bank’s Vice-President for Africa, it is in the interest of the rich that the poor be taken care of because the hungry poor cannot and will not go to sleep until they are fed. It is in the interest of everyone here today to get involved. Speak up and be heard. The only prospect for Nigeria getting better is if ordinary citizens get involved. My experience tells me that the politicians do hear when enough people shout. They maybe hard of hearing but they do hear when the decibel is loud enough.
Your real enemy is not the Hausa guy who works as a gateman next door or the Ibo guy who runs a provision store down the street nor is it the Yoruba woman who hawks garri or palm oil past your house everyday. The real enemies of the people are the men and women of high society who collect billions for contract that they never execute. They are the “ten-percenters” in the words of the late Major Kaduna Chukwuemeka Nzeogwu. They are the people who have looted the banks and brought them to their knees. They are the politicians who cannot differentiate their personal bank accounts from those of the state. These are the real enemies of the people.
Nothing is impossible but the prize of inordinate ambition is abysmal failure. The emancipation of Nigeria is a real possibility but a possibility that is contingent upon the willingness of our leaders to change. However, I am unaware of an oppressor that has voluntarily set the oppressed free and I do not expect those in Nigeria to blaze that trail. Any genuine change in Nigeria must be grassroots based. Consequently, Nigerians must answer the question of what prospects there are for Nigeria. In a rather Socratic approach, they will find the answer to the question by answering the earlier question of whether Nigerian leaders can change their ways. Convincing the world that Nigeria is serious about building a modern state and developing a sound economy is a very difficult task because the man who challenges the buffalo to a wrestling march is going to find it very difficult convincing observers that he is not destined to die a violent death.
Notwithstanding what becomes of Nigeria in my lifetime, I will in the words of the late President Ronald Reagan “die with the greatest love for this country and an eternal belief in its ability to remain the greatest country on the face of the earth” President Reagan was obviously referring to the United States of America but I think those words apply to Nigeria with the caveat “if only we can change our ways”
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