By

 Christopher Odetunde, Ph.D

The mid course correction needed for democracy to take root in Nigeria can only be made by the electorates themselves. For far too long, the highly spirited Nigerians have been broken by the military, the political elites, and of course, by the elusive electorates who surrendered the country to the despots. The electorates have been disappointed by the actions or inaction of the international community. Nigerians have also been so battered that nothing makes sense to them any more, not even the current political dispensation. 

In deed, many electorates although enjoying the fruits of democracy still think they are in a military dictatorship because they are fixated on the past rather than concentrating on the present and the future. The political lens with which Nigerians now see leadership is blurred, justifiable so and their sense of truth and humanity has been perverted. Nigerians have forgotten that in a democracy, political power and sovereignty resides in the electorates themselves and the constitution gives them the right to override and remove any leader for deceit and non performance as they collectively deem fit.

Few things can help Nigerians more than to place on them the responsibility on deciding their social, political and economic fate, and to know that they can be trusted and capable of making far reaching positive decisions with unprecedented consequences better than all their leaders have made on their behalf. No doubt, the spirit of Nigerians has been broken and has been mangled to the limit not only by looting of the national treasury but also by visionless acts of the past leaders. There is no gainsaying that most of the leaders meant well initially but few advisers and even some citizens that misadvised corrupted them. The questions that should be on every Nigerian’s mind are: "can Nigerians conduct their political business as usual for the 2003 election or can they create a new lease on their lives? Did leaders foresee Nigerian economic situation within the global economic context? Were leaders able to predict population explosion in line with educational demands? Can Nigerians separate social gathering from political survival? Can Nigerians accept that, so far, their votes have been taken to be worthless and meaningless? Can Nigerians make a change in their political choices, for the first time, so that citizens can collectively choose their leaders and yield the dividend of politics as Nigerians rather than as Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba? Will Nigerians again be able to work towards meaningful coexistence, shared vision, collaboration, and cooperation instead of outright confrontation?

The calls for SNC, resource control, and State Police comes from lack of trust among different nationalities within the nation called Nigeria. One cannot just believe that a Hausa man hates a Yoruba man, a Yoruba man hates an Igbo man, or an Igbo man hates a Hausa man. In fact there are many intertribal marriages among Nigerians. Therefore, there is no discernable reason for such hatred except those conjured by evil-minded leaders. There are, of course, many reasons for these calls and they are:

1) Apparent contradictions from Mr. President himself. For instance, when he got into office he unequivocally stated that there would be no sacred cows but we soon found out that Babangida is a scared cow. If Mr. President knew that he didn’t have the capacity to challenge IBB, he ought not to have made his overzealous "no sacred cow" pronouncement. The president also said among other statements credited to him that there would be no fuel scarcity, but there has been and always will be fuel scarcity as long as greedy Nigerians causing the scarcity are still around and are still powerful. Recently, fuel scarcity was eliminated by the president's instruction to NNPC to release fuel. Was the president part of those that knowingly cause artificial scarcity? Was fuel scarcity a strategy that finally fail to yield an expected result needed to remove the fuel subsidy? Another apparent contradiction can be seen when the president stated at the beginning of his administration that NEPA-lessness would be a thing of the past, what a painful and cruel joke the statement has been to Nigerians. Military president Babangida also played mind games with Nigerians while in office. One of such games was that the asked Nigerians to debate advantages and disadvantages of the IMF loan when he already accepted the loan;

2) The tyranny of governance, endemic poverty, acute ignorance that persists within the cadre of Nigerian electorates;

3) The defeatist attitude of Nigerians which often lead to immediate questioning of a leaders’ intention right from the word go;

4) The absence of the rule of law and order as seen by the boldness and confidence with which armed robbers operate in Nigeria;

5) Lack of transparency in governance;

6) Insecurity of life and properties causing failure of Nigerians to embark on and discourage capital flight, and of foreign investors’ repellence of the president’s call for infusion of capital into Nigeria. Nigerian government believes that the way to create employment is to give concessions to and beg the multinational corporations while sidelining and stifling the Nigerian entrepreneurial spirit. This method may have once worked during the "chop-I-chop" days of the military, it will not work in a democracy; and

7) Dishonest canvassing of political zoning for presidency. This is another way Nigerians are accepting the failure of the democracy handed down by military oligarchy and a way of creating opportunities for graft and embezzlement. In order words, what zoning is saying is "I have finished embezzling mine, it is your turn and you dare not probe me." Citizens do not benefit from zoning, only the leaders do. How much did Southwest gain from Obasanjo’s presidency? How much will the Igbos gain if their son gets on the saddle? The answer is an equivocal nothing. Judging from the experience of the north, we know that Northerners collectively did not gain anything from the thirty-five year zoning and leadership rotation from the North to the Egba sons. In the North, only the Gowon, the Muritala, the Shagari, the Buhari, the Babangida, the Sonekan, the Abacha, the Abdulsalem Abubakar, and their cohorts gained. If the Northern people gained from zoning in the areas of education, peaceful coexistence, religious tolerance, technological advancement, infrastructural development, and job creation, one would have gladly acquiesce to zoning. The zoning and power rotation experiment is a failed one and should not be visited on Nigerians again.

What some Northern leaders have thought Nigeria is that they are only in office for self-aggrandizement. Why on earth would Abdulsalem Abubakar not trust his money to be invested in the North but instead engage in official money laundering to US while he leaves the suffering masses in the north desolate, begging, and fighting a holy war he and his top of the hill colleagues do not believe in. What does Abubakar and his colleagues know about democracy that the world is dying to find out? Charity, we are often told, begins at home. Therefore, professor Abdulsalem Abubakar, start your literary quest from northern Nigeria. I do not have any problem with any Nigerian including the former heads of states to infect others with their incalculable academic achievements. What I am against is that the very people that partook in the destruction of the Nigerian universities are the ones rushing to develop universities in America. It seems to many Nigerians what these leaders are saying is you have destroyed our credibility in Nigeria but we have your money to rebuild our credibility outside Nigeria, with the help of people like Jesse Jackson, and institution like Chicago State University, hahaha!!!

The game plan in Nigerian politics is to create chaos in order to distract Nigerians from seen the big picture. Such "minor" distractions are: religious bigotry; the ethnic invocation; employment of the destructive and abusive strategies, and if the above methods do not work, create sycophants from the opposition and bribe them with the nation’s money. Some Nigerians have also cut up with these game plans. They shout on top of their voices, get noticed, get invited to the high alter of looting and the stage is set for the next buffoon, c’est la vie. I define corruption as lack of vision and courage to move an institution forward. Nigeria can recover from massive looting of a treasury but may never recover fully from the acts of the visionless leadership. If Nigeria has concentrated on pursuing her vision and de-emphasize the recovery of the loots, the nation would have moved forward.

We can no longer allow corrupt leaders to exploit our weakness of wanting to survive, wanting to be employed, wanting to be peaceful and secure, wanting to have fuel to purchase with our money, wanting to have pipe borne water, wanting to have access to constant supply of electricity, wanting to have good roads, and wanting to do legal business without having to beg the multinationals to provide crumbs from their tables. Any Nigerian that defends past leaders on selfish grounds must be told in plain language that he/she has committed treasonable felony against the nation. I cannot personally shy away from defending a leader on ideological grounds but it would be ridiculous of anyone to defend a leader from an emotion point of view, on graft to be received, and/or tribal grounds. A good leader will be good no mater what tribe he/she comes from and the converse is also true.

Nigerians, let us again not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. In other word, both the leaders and the citizens must be honest with themselves. Nigeria has the resources and the brains to develop her resources, it is time for Nigeria to be faithful to the call of the nation. Nigerians must again believe in their ability, as a people of one voice, to rebuild, redeem their self-esteem, and build the batter national psyche. It is time for the action of the incognito electorates to bear fruits. It is time for Nigerians electorates to vote their conscience and let the chips fall where they may.

What is needed is a united front to whole-heartedly fight against adventurers in power, career opportunists who turn public service into looting and visionless service, and fight corruption by those governing, decimate nepotism, religious bigotry, tribalism, parochialism, and destroy the promotion of authors of Operation Fool Nigerians. Nigerians have collectively sucked the nation into lethargy of infamy and international opprobrium by their inaction against evil deeds, and by joining the no future association forces. Now, it seems, Nigeria has no future to boast of even with the efforts that the present government is making. The blaming game should be stopped forthwith. General Abacha has been blamed for even things that are yet to happen but the Nigerian situation has not improved two years after his demise. It then seem to any thinking man that should one want to be probed, should one want to be blamed, one ought to simply die. We probed Abacha and collected his supposed loots while others are rooming the corridor of power with impunity and with the same draconian power they once had. Nigeria has potential to be a great country if Nigerians of every religious persuasion, believe that "whatever we want men to do to us, we also must do unto them, for this is the law and the prophets," Matthew: 7:12. Both the bible and the Koran tell all believers how to live a decent incorruptible life. Although, religion is said to be the opium of the masses, religion cannot override wisdom, understanding, common sense and sensibility. A stupid person that is religious is simply a stupid person no matter how one looks at it.

The dilution of power at the center would go a long way to give Nigerians a good leader. One wonders if past rulers would still want to run for presidency if the center is diluted and money is no longer controlled and concentrated at the center. Suppose the answer is a no, the insincerity of seeking office is obvious. If, however, the answer is a yes, then, one sees the seeking of office as atonement for a perfidious past and may God/Allah forgive us all. The restructuring of Nigeria as in the following exposes "Reining in the Nigerian Military Establishment" by Okenwa R. Nwosu, M.D., and the "Restructuring the Nigera Army: A 21 point set of suggestions presented by Professor Mobolaji Aluko  although fantastic ideas can only be relevant if each citizens make noble changes in their attitude toward Nigeria for every Nigerian has committed sins against her. No amount of restructuring can rejuvenate the national polity if there is no paradigm shift and refocusing of Nigerian minds. A mind, we are told, is a terrible thing to waste. The manifestation of malfeasance by current national and state office holders is a reflection of societal values and present accepted norms. It has nothing to do with Babangida, Abacha, Obasanjo, Gowon, Buhari, Abubakar, or any other leader for that matter. It should not be surprising that if these former leaders were not in our lives, others like them would have waited in the wing ready to take the baton. The searchlight must, therefore, be placed on self first before others. What we need is a rededication of our minds to do well for the sake of doing well not for grafts. We must be cordial to one another in order to move the country forward.

In order to create a new Nigeria, one that is capable of achieving our collective vision for the country, Nigerians must be ready to abide by the following conditions until such a time our political system is sanitized:

· Ready to serve Nigeria with their might;

· Refuse destruction of Nigeria by foreign encouragement and never partake in acts that are injurious to the nation;

· Leaders who desire to leader Nigeria must be willing to die for her in the cause of doing the right thing;

· Nigerian leaders must send their children to the same schools that ordinary Nigerians attend;

· Nigerian leaders must use the same healthcare systems that ordinary citizen use. This will assure the citizens of a good healthcare system for all Nigerians;

· Leaders must purchase their vehicles with their salaries just as ordinary Nigerians do;

· No Leader shall be given furniture allowance but they can go to the same bank and borrow money for such furniture as they deem fit. When the leaders leave office, the furniture automatically become theirs;

· Leaders shall be governed by the same laws the legislators make and there will be truly no sacred cows;

· Police must be well paid and work hard to eliminate armed robbery and collection of money from "danfo or molue" buses

· A leader cannot use his influence to collect diesel allocation and embark on oppressing neighbors with noisy generators. If NEPA works for all Nigerians there will be no need for generators. The generator overlords may be put out of their financial gratuity from sale of generator but other legal business opportunities will come up;

· Leaders must invest 80% of their money in within Nigeria in order to assure Nigerians their gratitude to service and international investors that they too have confidence in the system;

· Universities shall be autonomous and be free from the whims and caprices of leaders. Textbooks and technology related materials should be provided. Professor that are petrol sellers yam sellers will desist and go back to their true professional calling;

· Professional military personnel shall be encouraged to serve the country and be given respect they deserve. They shall be trained to their maximum intellectual capacity;

· Nigerians can create legitimate business and be allowed to compete on a level plain field as their foreign counterparts. Such level playing field must include elimination of insider business trading that often exclude Nigerian businesses;

· Scholarships shall be provided to qualified Nigerians without favoritism. Embarking on this new process with bring the best out of Nigerians and also help bring home Nigeria’s best and brightest form their overseas sojourn;

· All leaders shall declare their assets when going into office and when getting out of office. Let it be known that it is possible for a leader to have $10,000.00 going into office but have a million dollars coming out as long as the source of the money is provided and it is as a result of sound economic policy of government. A leader is free to invest in any venture within the country. Indeed, this is a sign of confidence in the economic policy of a nation. A leader can be made a director of a corporation or its CEO once he/she leaves office as long as such honor is not bestowed upon the leader because such leader helped to give undue advantage to such company while in office or manipulate the system to his own advantage; and

· Each citizen must have a summary of Nigerian constitution in their care so that they can confidently challenge illegalities by citizens, by the police, by the military, by foreign citizens, and by politicians.

 

The above is not supposed to be an exhaustive suggestion of things to do in order to nurse Nigeria back to sanity. In the past, we collectively sang our national anthem almost very religiously, "Nigeria, we hail thee; our own dear native land; though tribe and tongue may differ; in brotherhood we stand; Nigerians all are proud to serve; our sovereign motherland…" For Nigerians, there should be one tribe, the human tribe; one destiny that of getting Nigeria back to loving herself again; and one hope, that of bringing Nigeria back to her glorious past. Will Nigerians be able to rekindle their spirit before the 2003 election and make a political statement? Cry o you nations of Nigeria for your ignoble past is catching up with you but move forward in unison to tackle the rebuilding of a viable nation. Cry our beloved Nigeria to atone for the sins of the past for the wages of sin is death. This is a tall order but collectively, we can achieve this by rebuilding our self-respect, self-esteem, and our nation’s battered psyche for our sake and our children’s while we engage in rebuilding our infrastructures.

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.