The nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, humpty dumpty had a great fall readily comes to mind when one looks at the state of affairs in the nation. Nigeria, the land of the extraordinaire, a land where it all happens, a land that never ceases to amaze many, the land of Generals, from the good, the very good, sometimes the best, to also the bad, ugly and dirty, the land famed for the biggest fraud called PDP. However, who really cares because we are again following the status quo, going the same old vicious circle. A circle of greed, corruption, bad leadership, docile citizenry, confused government, a badly prepared diet of rice, yam and corn with cocoa-yam stew, a meal prepared by a group of insane chefs in a kitchen that suffers want in the midst of plenty.

In the last few days I have busied myself going through every material I could lay hands on, with bias for the politics, corruption, thuggery and violence of the First and Second Republics, from 1956 to 2006, 50 years of cultured corruption. I have tried to convince myself that we are not repeating history, the more I read, it strikes me that till today, our leaders and even the led have continually behaved in a fascinatingly repulsive manner.

We wake up and that is for those who sleep not knowing what to expect from our corrupt leaders.

The position we find ourselves in this nation has become one of a 'humpty dumpty', a peculiar mess traceable as usual to our culture of corruption. Corruption is an insidious scourge, in Kofi Anan's words "it is widely understood that corruption undermines economic performance, weakens democratic institutions and the rule of law, disrupts social order and destroys public trust, thus allowing organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish". In this situation only the public good suffers.

Our culture of corruption has put basic public utilities beyond the reach of those who are not up there in the society. It affects the Nigerian masses in their daily life, pushing them down the ladder of poverty and deprivation, thus fundamental needs such as food, health and education become luxuries only affordable by those on top.

Our humpty dumpty is as a result of our inability to build a multi-monitoring system for prevention of corruption instead we are chasing shadows, while political corruption continues, manipulation and nepotism, still thrive.

We have a culture that does not help us in evaluating integrity level, and results made public.

I once asked a friend at the EFCC, and discussed same with his ICPC colleague, have we provided anti-corruption education at the primary and secondary level of education, a group that account for a sizeable percentage of the population, how about our tertiary institutions, what comprehensive educational plan do we have that can assist in tackling the 'humpty dumpty'.

With all the noise, it took several weeks before we were finally told that the controversial Obj Shares were actually not blind after all, so all these while, that the shares could see, why did Transcorp not tell Nigerians, does the brain behind transcorp not know there is something referred to as Corporate Ethics Support Center that is saddled with providing the public with the truth, nothing but the truth, and in cases of scandals or where public perception is wrong, you right it with the best practices in conflict management as it regards to Information management.

The present leadership in all this present drama lack moral rectitude and have no respect for traditional values, they lack discipline and it runs down to the ordinary Nigerian on the street that lacks discipline. Between, the President, his Vice and their foot soldiers, there are no values of patriotism, honesty, diligence and hard work, trust, personal discipline, tolerance, mutual respect, justice and fairness, love, care and compassion, rather as it is now generally a Nigerian culture, their corruption blinds them with slothfulness, nepotism, indiscipline, bitterness, prejudice, ethnic jingoism and parapoism.

What more for a populace that believes that 'god' is a Nigerian or that there is a Nigerian 'god' and somehow we feel, we will still scale through, call it faith, call it perseverance, call it foolishness, call it being politically naive, whatever term we apply, it is just that inherent thing that makes us Nigerians, because strangely we sail through...The Nigerian in Nigeria and the Nigeria in a Nigerian you might want to say...

Each time I had resolved that I would take a deeper and retrospective outlook to this never-ending experiment called Nigeria from as many positives that I can lay my hands on. The more I thought of it, the more sickening it was for me and I am sure a considerable amount of Nigerians feel the same way. I took a close look at the number of Nigerians both home and abroad that are doing well in various fields of endeavour.

I took a census of the figures in both Naira, Dollars, and Pounds spent on Energy, Education, Healthcare, Infrastructural Development, Sports, Security, Roads, Info-tech, Transport...in the running of government I got stock as the figures defied my small calculator, the trillions that have gone in managing our democracy. The enormous material resources, the natural endowments at our disposal and the colossal waste that greets it and I concluded that we are a nation of miscarriage before pregnancy.

We are all critics in our own right but have we really talked about what matters most, that while we have engaged in infinitesimal arguments that sometimes are as clear as the sun can be from the moon we have left out the very important. Is it far from the truth that we are yet to make headway, that we lack an ideological base and that the system is still morally bankrupt, epidemically inept, grossly inefficient and compromised despite all the noise of reforms.

Nigerians love Arsenal Football Club of England more than, Yar'Adua, they love Arsenal, a football club in England that is older than Nigeria, makes more money than most of our so-called States, richer than all the noise making mineral rich States. Nigerians, while they affiliate with a club that is miles away from home, cannot attach themselves to an Eyimba, Ranchers Bees, or Kwara United.

We love Arsenal, a club that makes more money in endorsements, sales of players and merchandising, yet we have States that no company would brand for a Naira.

I feel hmm, as my car is branded Arsenal, from steering cover, seat belt band, head cover and I have an Arsenal clock in my parlor, wear an Arsenal wristwatch, my sons have their arsenal sweatshirts. I know more about ex-gunner Thierry Henry than I know of Yar'Adua.

We are dreaming 2020, and one question I ask is that would those nations we are chasing wait for us to get there,

We have all it takes to be better than Arsenal, better than England and its entire football clubs but do we have the guts. We have combatants in our National Assembly, crooks man our States, and ruffians coordinate the affairs of State leaving us in a state of humpty dumpty.

Finally, it is good that some government officials can acknowledge that our society is heavily dysfunctional as we face all the fundamental challenges of transition from statism and rent- seeking in an economy dominated by a fraudulent public sector. The deep vested interests that profit from the system have proved resilient. They are the same profiteers that sang third term and I dare say until concrete steps grilled in political will are exercised all our efforts will remain humpty dumpty sat on the wall; humpty dumpty had a great fall.

Robot  Villager

# 1 We wake up and that is for those who sl...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 20.08.2008 07:44

denker  Villager

# 2 Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again. Posted by denker| 20.08.2008 17:48