Nigeria is a country that is so blessed with material and human resources but like the biblical prodigal son, she is hell bent on gambling away what almighty endowed her with through graft and massive corruption.  Nigeria is like the old man in Kenny Roger’s “the Gambler.”

Nigeria since independence is like a train bound to nowhere.  This is because neither the leaders nor the lead is willing to allow the train to go anywhere.  In 1966, a group of idealistic young military officers lead by Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu struck because they perceived Nigeria needed a mid-term correction to perceived nation’s rudderlessness and to reduce or eliminate the 10% graft received by corrupt leaders.  The coup did not fulfill the purpose for which it was intended but rather, the Northern officers saw the coup as an Igbo coup and so, there were coups and counter-coups.  This is what has lead us to where we are today.

Many of the coups exposed politicians that were hiding in the military uniforms.  IBB and OBJ are living examples.  Instead of correcting problems of the ills that 1966 military coup of Nzeogwu sort to address, the coups exacerbated and magnified the weakness in all human being, corruption which brought about insane capital accumulation of wealth.  We now know that when given unchallenged opportunities, human beings will exhibit corrupt tendencies especially when such corruption comes with power and women.   Ibrahim Babangida, like the true gambler Kenny Roger described, was able to read the faces of Nigerians, knowing where their cards were by the way they held their eyes, and he always knew that Nigerians were all out of aces.”  This is because IBB once said that every Nigerian has a price for which he/she’ll fold.  What a smart mortal human?

Nigeria was slow to action on or before the 1966 coup and the leaders took “merely” 10% bribe whenever the contractors executed the contracts.  Today, Nigeria is permanently stagnant with each successive government and leaders demand 100% graft from contractors who the leaders are not morally courageous to demand completion of the contracts.  One wonders if Nzeogwu and his colleagues had 20/20 hindsight, they would have planned their coup.  Nigeria is more corrupt today than before.  Each successful administration is now better inoculated against corruption because each successive leader is too timid to probe the previous in order to prevent being probed.  The only way a leader can be probed is if he is dead and offended an unforgiving soul like OBJ (ABACHA).  Nigerians are better gamblers and risk takers because the rules of law no longer hold especially the higher the amount that is scandalously looted.  The stultifying effect of corruption is everywhere in Nigeria from political to the religious leaders, from students to Professors, from business men to those giving contracts, from children to parents.

Instead of being our brothers and sisters’ keepers, an average Nigerian is a gambler.  What every gambler knows is the secrete to surviving, “knowing what to throw away and what to keep” but Nigerian leaders are wreckless gamblers.  According to Kenny Rogers, “every present hand is a winner and every future hand may be a loser in future” but the leaders don’t know this.  Our leaders have taken us for granted.  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, knowing that he was just lucky to ever become a leader decided to create an artificial political class by bringing the sons and daughters of past leaders like Ironsi, Akintola, Saraki, Fanni Kayode, and Awolowo instead of allowing a crystallization of leadership by natural selection.  Even to such an extent that when a father bastardizes a state, sons and daughters take control of the states as if they are their family’s inheritance.

What we presently know about what is wrong with Nigeria follow:

1. Our leaders are not groomed by experience and longevity of tutelage and not even psychologically ready for challenges and changes in globalization;

2. Corruption is now firmly set in our DNA.  Yet, our government and its corrupt laden leadership still have fundamental roles to play in our common prosperity by letting Nigeria be.  Administration after administration failed to see that corruption has devastating dislocative effect on a nation’s economy;

3. Corruption is not bringing needed liquidity to our economy.  The capital flight that results take capital liquidity to those nations where the loots are transferred.  Therefore, those that loot our treasury must at least be discouraged from laundering the money in the first instance and be punished for depriving all Nigerians from economic growth and improved standard of living;

4. That an average Nigerian is a “coward” that is unwilling to fight for a nation he professes to love.  Instead, citizens have all turned the other cheek in order to one day live to join the looters.  Hence, we are all contributing to the destruction Nigeria by our inaction or by our participation in graft.  By fighting, we serve at liberty for our common good which should be the core principles of citizens;

5. Nigerians complain about poverty in the midst of plenty but they do not recognize that our corruption needs painful reduction and correction;

6. That in Nigeria, trust is lacking in families, in churches, in business and in politics.  We do not trust each other in business neither do expatriates trust us for a few fraudulent citizens amongst us;

7. We gave Chief Olusegun Obasanjo the benefit of doubt for eight years to move us every which way but the right direction, yet he, as our maximum leader, failed to perform satisfactorily in all areas of measurable economic indices and his corruption is now compared with that of General Abacha.  Time heals wounds, they say and time wil surely be kind to OBJ;

8. We have also found that corruption does not care about tribal affiliation, gender and indeed, corruption is an equal opportunity enabler;

9. While the greatest democracy in the world is outsourcing its jobs and borrowing heavily from China, Nigeria is selling everything that is not tied down to China without proper patriotic negotiation simply because few Nigerians want to make money out of our collective sweat and blood.  Yet, we stand in awe worshiping our new slave owners (the politicians);

10. We have also given benefit of doubt to our servant leader to change our state and make our economy dynamic; allow the rule of laws to work; let those who have the courage to loot our treasury also have the courage to allow probes and if found guilty have the courage to go to jail.  Nigerians should never again allow sacred cow as set forth by OBJ.  We must, from now on, make the thieves among us uncomfortable at all times. We must appreciate the little that President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua has done so far by firing those he considered corrupt.  He cannot leave the big fish to enjoy their loots while sacrificing the small fish.  Let UMYA show us he has spine by going after OBJ as demanded by many;

11. We fought a civil war but refused to bring everyone back into the fold.  It will be nice to bring the embittered and ask them to partake in all that will make all citizens Nigerians.  If we are able to bring people together, we can find common goal to prosperity;

12. Nigerians seem to be incapable of seeing the bigger picture but rather are willing to short circuit the system to get immediate gratification.  At this point in time, it is noteworthy to see that India has developed its technology partially through America’s outsourcing and because of their ingenuity.  India is about to buy the Jaguar, and Land Rover in order to create technology-based jobs.  This is what Nigeria ought to be pursing with her oil money not building or buying morally worthless mansions;

13. We have neglected development of our infrastructure beyond what we inherited from the British; we destroy even the infrastructures we built just to reconstruct and re-award the contract over and over again.  If devil has a nation, our nation at this point in time will be his nation of choice; and

14. It is unfortunate that the old leadership is not aware that old rules no longer fit today’s new world order.  If Nigeria is to survive beyond just mere selling and buying, she must look for new leadership starting with encouraging the servant leader to be a true democrat.  We need new leaders that can get us out of the current economic and moral rot.

Nigeria is being duped every day by those who do not want administration after administration to succeed.  We can be theoretical about why we should accept the state of our nation or we can find a pragmatic solution to our current situation.  Nigeria’s economy cannot be stagnated and our economic progress cannot be measured by the corruption index only.  It is time to stop jeopardizing tomorrow‘s prosperity for today’s expediency.

In an article published in Nigeriaworld.com 1999, I proposed a ground zero strategy.  In the said article, I acknowledged that corruption exists in all human being and in all nations.  That in order to minimize the effects of corruption, we must break away from past leaders that fan the ember of corruption.  With the type of opportunity, financial and power to acquire wealth corporately, one wonders why some of these past leaders found it necessary to be kleptomaniacs.  The corruption is a decease that needs immediate remedy.  If we had set the path to recovery in 1999, set a new standard on how the nation would punish the new thieves, take out the immunity clause for crime against the nation and determined how our dividend would be used to develop Nigeria for all Nigerians, can anyone imagine where Nigeria would be today with $100.00/BBL crude?  It is time to take the bull by the horn, go to the confessional and make amends for the sake of OBJ, Buhari, IBB, Abacha, Abdulsalam, Yar 'Adua, Adedibu, Saraki, mine and your grandchildren and indeed the next generation of Nigerians.

There is a real corruption chasm between those who support the corruption because of their association with the looters and those who are violently opposed to corruption because it is morally wrong and economically suicidal.  We must allow the thieving politicians to restitute and reconcile with the Nigerian people by renouncing corruption because we really can find enough jail space to keep all the thieves.  Let us look for new leaders that believe in the rule of laws and denounce the immunity clause because they are sure they’ll follow the rule of law and know that they are capable of generating income aside from taking bribe and being corruption.  The leaders cannot and must not pretend to know more than Nigerians and create artificial politician class consisting of children of those leaders that destroyed and created a 419 democracy in the first place.  Nigeria is bigger than the sum of all the destroyers and they must know it.

Many have called for a takeover, violence or otherwise; civilian or military but I reject this.  I believe that the way Nigerians can be relevant is for citizens themselves to reject the status quo, reject corruption, refuse to give bribe, know their rights, and believe in democracy while understanding that even the oldest democracy exhibits a right to be corrupt and to be arrogant.  America’s corruption is not magnified because the loots are not transferred to any other nation, not to Nigeria for sure but are kept within US to create jobs and to be distributed through several invest and new market product strategies.  Nigerians are not as dumb or as impotent as the leaders make us believe.  We can fight when pushed to the walls and fighting back peacefully or violently must be an option that can be exercised.

The faces of many Nigerians have lost all expressions of economic pain and psychological defeat because the pain has been rendered for so long.  So, let us start over from grand zero to make life better for the next generation because we have disenfranchised them enough.  For all that is said here, let us find the “aces” we can keep to improve our nation.  Sometimes, we’ve got to fight for each other’s rights if we are true citizens – just because we are presently gamblers on a train going nowhere. 

Robot  # 1 | 22.09.2008 08:37

Nigeria is a country that is so blessed with material and human resources but like the biblical prodigal son, she is hell bent on gambling away what almighty endowed her with through graft and mass...Read the full article.