Captive Country: The Nigerian Conundrum.

One of the Nigeria’s greatest sons, Herbert Macaulay, wrote that the dimensions of the colonial masters looking after the interests of Nigerians were “algebraically equal to the length, breadth and depth of the white man's pocket."
Regrettably, that attitude still applies today but replace the white man with Nigerian politicians.
It is very doubtful that Herbert Macaulay would have foreseen the day that Nigerians would be denied the basic rights of life - education, healthcare, personal security, the right to elect, and not select, their leaders and the pursuit of happiness - by fellow Nigerians. It is obvious to all that our leaders have failed to deliver time and time again on any of these as more than 100 million Nigerians still live in penury (Obi Igbokwe, 2009).

In the 80’s, Nigeria’s military ruler of that time was criticized by the late king of Afrobeats music; Fela Anikulapo Kuti in a song titled “Beast of no nation” for his acerbic criticism of the average Nigerian. He lyrically spoke these words “Mek you hear dis one… War against Indiscipline o Nah Nigerian government ooo, dem dey talk o my people are useless, my people are senseless, my people are indiscipline.”

The dictator may have been insensitive and careless with his verbal bashing of the Nigerian then, but taking a retrospective look at Nigeria and the Nigerian today, one may be tempted to agree that those stinging words nearly accurately describe the reality of the typical Nigerian, and thus you will be left with no other choice than to ponder if there is anything wrong with being a Nigerian. Perhaps the reason why the late Anikulapo Kuti found those words unpalatable is because as humans, there is a proclivity to ostracized truth and virtue at the slightest opportunity. This habitual inclination is shared by all humans, irrespective of race, religion, sex or any other differentiating factor, so the Nigerian should not be perceived as holding the bragging rights for it.

This is not an attempt to disparage the Nigerian, but rather, to take a contemplative look at Nigeria and the Nigerian, x-ray his mindset and ultimately to try to grasp why progress in Nigeria only seems to be by sleight of the hand. It may sound a bit extreme but judging the trend of events as they unfold in Nigeria, I hold the view that it is either Nigeria will continue in this endless loop of progressive stagnation or it may eventually retrogress in such a manner as to confine this straggling nation of disparate nationalities to the pages of history books.

In today’s Nigeria, we have a paradox in progress, looking back at the last ten years of pseudo democratic governance in Nigeria, we observe that while all the major indices used to gauge the health of a country’s economy has witnessed remarkable improvement for Nigeria, the corresponding indices used to measure the quality of life of the human being, in this case the average Nigerian citizen has been on a consistent decline. From life expectancy, to infant and maternal mortality, to the number of people living on less than $1 a day, the performance is no doubt disturbing. For those of us intimately familiar with Nigeria, we are well aware that the major cause of death in the country today is not malaria or the dreaded HIV/AIDS, but hardship and suffering caused by chronic and endemic poverty across the country. Today, Nigerians are dying of hunger and diseases that could be cured with as little as $10.

The Nigerian government agency charged with the responsibility of collating national statistical data puts unemployment rate at about 19.7%, which is astronomically high by any standard, however, I consider this figure is as a joke and not a true reflection of the joblessness in Nigeria today, all that is required to find it lacking in correctness to take a tour of Nigeria’s most important commercial city (Lagos) on a normal work day and you will be shocked by the large army of jobless people of working age loitering the streets with little or no hope of getting a job anytime soon. Bearing in mind that Lagos is Nigeria’s most vibrant, commercial and cosmopolitan city, where everything seems to happen, where job seekers from every nuke and cranny in the country converges in search of the proverbial “greener pasture” and if Lagos is so unemployed, you can only imagine what goes on in the other smaller towns across the country, perhaps they would be more correct if they called it the employment rate. Take a cross country drive around Nigeria; lying before you is a vast expanse of idleness and dormant capacity.

Nigeria’s politicians, with their mercantilist ruling style, extract more from the people than they ever give to them. In more than 10 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, the country’s citizens have found themselves worse off than they were in the past. Nigeria is a country struggling to become a nation, in its quest; it has found itself beholden to powerful forces that continue to undermine its efforts at making appreciable progress. The twin forces of religion and ethnicity constitute the dorminant factors, with corruption in the most recent times also emerging as a major contender, as it reinforces its lethal grip on the health of the country by serving as a huge drain on the meager resources of the Nigeria.

A third world country with majority of its citizens living in abject poverty that still finds it comfortable to spend millions of dollars to finance Christian and Muslim pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mecca, yet there are frequent religious crisis which claims hundreds of lives year on year across the country, makes me to wonder the rationale for government patronage and financing of religious extravaganzas knowing fully well that religion is supposed to be a private affair. But it is clearly evident why governments in Nigeria patronize the religious establishment, because they use religious leaders to achieve a measure of control over their followers and also to manipulate such ignorant followers.

The same control and manipulation structure is used by governments through the so called traditional rulers, Obas, Emirs, the Sultan, Igwes etc scattered across the length and breadth of Nigeria. Needless to say, realising their power and importance in the scheme of things in Nigeria, the religious leaders and traditional monarchs now form a parallel power block in Nigeria, trying hard to maintain their hold over their sphere of influence, because they understand that the only way they can remain relevant and maintain government patronage is if they can maintain their grip on their geographic power base. Thereby continually undermining the Nigerian state to ensure their survival. In modern Nigeria, these parallel and informal institutions have no relevance, how do you integrate monarchs and religious leaders into a system supposed to be founded on government of the people, for the people and by the people? Or a religious leader who thinks he is the rightful representative of God upon the earth and thus not subject to questioning? Institutions which by their very nature are absolute and totalitarian. With their unchecked strength and continued relevance, the Nigerian state has been left in tatters, carved up into fiefdoms and spheres of influence which continue to grow stronger. And because, we continue to wallow in self denial, we refuse to confront the most significant, albeit shadow structural issues that continue to undermine the modern Nigerian state.

The contribution of the cabals both in Nigeria’s business and political environment is also noticeable. Nigeria’s business environment, which is supposed to provide the main engine of growth for the economy has become a captive of influential business men with political ties and politicians who also have numerous business interests. Electricity, road and rail transport, and the oil and gas sectors are the major victims of these cabals who operate with “Mafioso business plans”. Nigeria’s business environment is under siege of the cartels, the generator and diesel business cartels ensure that electricity generation and distribution on the national grid never works; thereby ensure that what we have in this country is a run economy, virtually everybody or company owns at least one generator, in some cases you find households owning a backup generator to serve while the main generator is down. The refined petroleum products import cartel ensure that Nigeria’s four refineries that which in the 80s and early 90s operated optimally, are today ghost towns, producing at barely 20% of installed capacity, the haulage business cartels with their tens of thousands of trailers and tankers ensured that the Nigerian Railway

Corporation, which used to be Nigeria’s largest and most prestigious employer of labour in the 60s and 70s is today a completed dead organization, in spite of all efforts to rehabilitate it. Geopolitics teaches that the foundation of a national strategy is the existence of a nation. This is an obvious fact, but there is something that needs to be pointed out in within Nigeria’s boarders, we have people living in it who call themselves Nigerians, but the reality on ground is that Nigeria is a state with many competing nationalities, living in a chaotic order difficult to resolve. The average Nigerian sees himself first as a Christian/Muslim or being affiliated to one ethnic group (which has one monarch as its head and sole authority), this has made submission to the collective interest of the Nigerian state difficult or nearly impossible, ever wondered why zoning of the presidency or the so called federal character (which seeks a representation of all the ethnic groups in government and national appointments) hot issues in Nigeria today? It is imperative that these structures be dismantled as a matter of urgency. There is hardly any room for a middle of the road approach or a compromise for a side by side existence for them and Nigeria. Religion is a private affair and, it must remain so.

This is not to say that Nigeria cannot evolve a sense of nationhood and identity. The truth is that such things take a long time to create and rarely emerge peacefully. In Nigeria’s reality, these powerful forces continue to make the creation of a Nigerian nation difficult if not unachievable simply because it does not serve their self interest; Nigeria’s case is made even more difficult because of high attrition amongst its people. This explains why corruption thrives because institutions meant to punish the corrupt are already captive to forces. The same goes for democratic and governance. Apart from these macro factors, the “not my business” attitude adopted by the average Nigerian citizen has only helped to aggravate the situation; it has helped to sustain corrupt and unaccountable leaders in power.

A good number of Nigerians prefers to be sycophants and praise singers, than to demand service and accountability from public office holders, there is an urgent sense and desire for immediate and self gratification at the expense of the collective good. Funds meant to build or maintain a public infrastructure can be easily diverted in Nigeria; so far a few relevant persons can get a share of the booty, which also trickles down to a few lesser significant persons, who does the same in a pyramid structure. This pattern of greed, corruption, eye service and patronage has even compounded the already bad mess the country finds itself in, thereby making life worse for the average Nigerian.

No where in the world is Garret Hardin’s epic essay “the Tragedy of the Commons” so brazenly replicated as in today’s Nigeria. The country’s wellbeing is nobody’s business, pursuit of self and group interest reins supreme, and as it naturally follows in Hardin’s essay, when such self interest becomes paramount, the commons start to decline irreversibly. Nigerians need to start placing their collective interest above their individual or sectional interest, the reason why the rulers remain aloof to the responsibilities is simply because the followers have refused to demand service and accountability, there are many ways by which people can speak out and demand what is rightfully theirs, it doesn’t matter the methods they adopt, so long as it achieves the right results of ensuring good governance, prosperity and progress for Nigeria and Nigerians, as Deng Xiaoping said, “It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” If we continue to defer, and the status quo continues, Nigeria will be the loser. That we are still one nation 50 years after independence is an act attributable to divine providence, it must not be taken for granted.