Mr. President Nigeria's poverty is an indictment of its leadership
 

By

Francis Adewale

The latest news from Aso rock is the proclamation by Nigeria titular head of state and paramount ruler, President Matthew Olusegun Okikiola Obasanjo, that Nigeria is a poor country. My instance retort is "really!" My exclamation is not borne out of any disagreement with his conclusion but the obvious faulty premise he advanced to conclude that we are poor.

Majority of Nigerians (home and abroad) knows Nigeria is very poor, not for lack of resources, or the burgeoning overpopulation problems as pontificated by the president, but as a result of years of stealing by its leaders who have almost succeeded in "stealing the country blind" to paint it starkly. The fact as set out in the latest corruption index by Transparency International makes it crystal clear that Nigeria wealth if it is equitably distributed will surely takes care of Nigeria's needs.
 

Lets examine the premise of President Obasanjo's conclusion, and I will seek your leave to quote him verbatim literatim as set out in the Guardian Newspapers of Friday, November 14, 2003:

"I feel worried at times, when people talk about Nigeria being in money. With our population of about 140 million, we produce as much oil or nearly as much oil as Libya with a population of five million. So, when you look at our land area, which we have to criss-cross by road, by pipelines, we are three or four times the size of Great Britain, which colonized us. So, when people talk about resources in this country, one wonders what really they are talking about because we are poor in spite of what we may think that we have"
 

Wait a minute, Mr. President, if the landmass of a country is the sole determinant for poverty then, Canada, China and United States should rank among the poorest nations in the world and but lo! We know that is not the fact.  A simple web search disclose the following information, courtesy of http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm

That website shows us that the top 4 countries with the largest land mass are the followings:
Russia with a total of 17,075,200 land mass and a total population of 144,978,573, followed by Canada, 9,976,140 and 31,902,268 land mass and total population respectively. Others are United States 9,976,140 with population of 31,902,268, China 9,596,960, with population of 1,284,303,705. Nigeria ranked 32nd on this list with land mass of 923, 768 and a total projected population of 129,934,911!

Granted that countries like Canada has less population than Nigeria, what we need to look at is the terrain in the respective countries. Most of the roads built in Canada obviously ought to cost thrice as much as that of Nigeria given the fact that their roads have to criss-cross snowy mountains, enormous lakes and artic like environment. Despite this enormous difficult we rarely see Canada used this point as a lame excuse for not linking Toronto to Vancouver BC. Why because they have learnt to prioritize their resources, and they do not engage in phony contracts to lackeys of government in power without adequate scrutiny as we recently witnessed with the South East roads contracts award in Nigeria. In the case of China, a friend of mine recently came back from the land of the orient and he regaled me with the tales of roads built linking remotest village in South west China to Beijing. The most viable means of transportation is railway and they worked! Their staff don't strike because they know the government will always take care of them when they retired. The last time I checked,  Nigeria railways operates on less than 1 % capacity fleet and their retirees queue up at their Apapa head office every month to receive payments due to them 3-4 years ago!

Mr. President mentioned Libya as having a population of 5 million, the actual population of Libya is 5,368,585 and they ranked 17th among the world largest per country landmass and their population is as far flung as the well populated Mediterranean sea coast city of Tripoli and Surt to the southernmost edges of the Sahara desert at Ghat and Al Quatrum. Interestingly Libya recently completed one of the lengthiest road in Africa from Tripoli to Faya Largeau in Chad, and they are working on more.  Around 93% of Libya's land area is semi-desert or comprised of the Sahara Desert. The country is generally low lying with two northern upland areas while to the south the land rises to form the Tibesti and Uweinat Massifs. In 1980, whilst we wasted our crude oil income on Akiloye's champagne and Babangida better life for Dodan barrack dwellers, Colonel Gadhafi started a trans-saharan pipeline that would have supplied the cheap and affordable petroleum to all its population south of the desert as well as neighbouring countries like Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali et al. A sister pipeline for supply of abundant water supplies from the Mediterranean sea coast to the desert heartland has been temporarily put on hold as a result of the Lockerbie sanction imposed by United Nations.

Below are the transportation statistics on Libya, China and Nigeria:
Libya: Has no rail roads; the total roads; length is 19,300 km (11,992 mi) as at 1987. The country has a total estimated vehicles as follows; cars 448,000 (1989), trucks and buses 322,000 (1989). Merchant Marine; vessels 112 (1990), deadweight tonnage 1,467,728 (1990). Air Transport; passenger-km 1,968,172,000 (1,222,965,000 passenger-mi) (1990), cargo ton-km 10,336,000 (7,079,000 short ton-mi) (1990).

Nigeria: Railroads; route length 3,505 km (2,178 mi) (1987), passenger-km 3,808,277,000 (2,366,353,000 passenger-mi) (1987), cargo ton-km 827,400,000 (566,686,000 short ton-mi) (1985). Roads; length 124,000 km (77,050 mi) (1984). Vehicles; cars 773,000 (1989), trucks and buses 606,000 (1989). Merchant Marine; vessels 249 (1990), deadweight tonnage 726,948 (1990). Air Transport; passenger-km 256,247,000 (159,224,000 passenger-mi) (1990), cargo ton-km 30,588,000 (20,950,000 short ton-mi) (1990).
 

China: Railroads; route length 66,918 km (41,581 mi) (1990), passenger-km 261,600,000,000 (162,551,000,000 passenger-mi) (1990), cargo ton-km 1,059,300,000,000 (725,515,000,000 short ton-mi) (1990). Roads; length 1,014,342 km (630,283 mi) (1990). Vehicles; cars and buses 1,464,297 (1989), trucks 3,463,735 (1989). Merchant Marine; vessels 1,948 (1990), deadweight tonnage 20,749,954 (1990). Air Transport; passenger-km 21,800,000,000 (13,546,000,000 passenger-mi) (1990), cargo ton-km 800,000,000 (547,920,000 short ton-mi) (1990).
 

The above are sobering statistics that Mr. President need to have chewed upon before belching out the "we are poor because we are many" harangue. The fact is China has less resources than Nigeria, but yet they are able to manage their scant resources handily. They have, as at 1990, a total of 66,918 kilometer of rail road route length whilst Nigeria presently stagnanted at 3,505 kilometer rail road route length, most of which were built by the colonial government. Whilst we have built more roads since independence to link our major state capitals, most of these roads are badly maintained and are out rightly in bad shape. Most of the bridges in Lagos during your military regime in the 1970's are derelict and dangerous trap, the Onikan bridge is an eyesore, and they are still standing today due to the well known ingenuity of Nigerian engineers. Now compare that to one of the bridges here in Spokane, Washington state in the United States of America- the Monroe Street bridge, built in 1881 which is still standing!
 

Infact the new works minister recently informed his staff that the ministry will no longer built new roads but would rather focused on the maintenance of the existing ones. What beats me hollow, Mr. President is where you found these skewed facts that we criss-cross our land area by roads. Is this not the same country where in 1986, we found the relatively unreached Koma people. The news then was that the people on the Mambilla plateau of the then Gongola state have never seen a road before and modern day civilization is as alien to them as Mars gnomes on their first visits to earth in any of the star wars movies! Yet, you claimed we have criss-crossed our land mass by road but alas 43 years after independence we still have a total roads length of 124,000 km! Is that not an indictment on Nigeria leadership, which you have been part and parcel of.

Next Mr. President you talked of pipelines, whilst we have a north-south pipeline built in the 1970's some of which are regularly on fire as a result of bad maintenance, we have built no new ones for more than 30 years. The refineries we built to service the pipelines are working way below capacity. I bet the so-called pipelines are figments of Mr. President imagination. Most of the states in the northern part of Nigeria relied heavily on petroleum supplied by haulage companies. These company's vehicles rarely made it to the biennial of their purchase as a result of the bad roads they are driven on. Mr. President, we are poor not because God does not endow us, we are poor because of the misrule by our leaders.
Here again Mr. President pontificate on this well worn out excuse:
    "The total budget of the Federal Government is about the budget of the Fire Services in the city of New York. And yet, we think that we are a rich country. Yet, the city of New York doesn't have to think of the foreign services where we have a little bit over 80 missions abroad. It doesn't have to think of a defence of Army, Navy and Air Force. It is only a city. So, when people talk about Nigeria being a rich country and they want to live without being productive but relying on oil income, we are just deceiving ourselves."
 

I wonder where Mr. President got this specious fact from, but lets agree "arguendo" that this were to be the case; is foreign service a priority for nations well below the poverty index? My respectful submission is no! I urge readers not to get me wrong here, I am all for Nigeria presence in countries that count. Some of our missions are bureaucratic hold outs for political lackeys and jobbers! Even the United States, the richest country on earth, do not have missions in every nook and cranny of the world. But Nigeria have missions all over the world, infact one friend of mine said if it were possible Nigeria will have an high commission at the Moon! At least the staff get their estacode paid and politicians fill their pockets. Nigeria is one of the countries that still makes 90 percent of its ambassadorial appointments from the rank of politicians, charlatans and Aso rock acolytes. Career diplomat suffered in places they ought not to be whilst politicians sit behind huge desk in London, Tokyo and Beijing drinking hot cocoa. What a shame!
 

Yes, it is true that New York City doesn't have to think of having a defence force such as Army, Navy and Air force, but what do we have to show for the stupendous amount of money we have expended during the years of military misrule, when 70 % of our resources was expended on the armed forces. Nigeria's rank and file military men remains poorly paid. The aircraft in the fleet of the air force has depleted so much that we have to wait for the United States to airlift our men to Liberia recently for a peace keeping mission. The same country saved the Nigeria navy from total annihilation of all her sea going vessels by giving us a 19th century refurbished vessel formerly used US coast guard, for cabotage patrol. So much for a sea-savvy navy! The question, is Mr. President what happens to the bank-bursting allocations made by the Babangida and Abacha regime to the ministry of defence. What happens with the report of the probe to the ministry of defense.  To imagine the otherwise taciturn General Danjuma will come out to publicly pin-point the root cause of your government misgovernance is telling indeed. He recently disclosed that your aides and lackeys frustrated the implementations of the budget meant for the same ministry of defense, which you now used as premise for your conclusion.  Why is the trial of one of the civilian permanent secretary of the ministry of defense stalled! Mr. President, we are not poor because we have Army, navy and air force, we are poor because of mismanagement, corruption and misadministration! By the way the Okigbo panel report is missing from federal secretariat as reported by Punch this week, do we need to look forward for reasons why we are so poor? Accountability, Mr. President is what makes us poor!

Mr. President sir, please stop blaming poor Nigerians for being over dependent on oil revenue, it takes a visionary leader to get a country focused. Your rapacious leadership, have done nothing to shore up our non-oil revenue, but have rather depleted it on white elephant projects like the Abuja stadium where we paid thrice the same amount it took other countries to built comparable stadium.
 

In conclusion, Mr. President, Nigeria is poor not because we have too much land mass; Nigeria is poor, not as a result of countless criss-crossing roads and pipelines we have built over the years (by the way, no evidence of such sir!); Mr. President, Nigeria is poor because of misrule by its leadership! Infact let me submit that Nigeria is actually rich in human and mineral resources but poor management is our bane! And the earlier you made your ministers and party members to realize this fact the better for us all.

Nov 2003