The Power of the Mind
By
As this year draws to an end, I think it is pertinent to ask ourselves the question which way Nigeria? I think we all need to sit back and look and decide whether our country is really moving forward or if it is business as usual. I personally think that the rut and corruption that had set in will take a rather long time to shift and this is really painful.
Nigeria has gone through many years of hardship, many years of turbulence and many years of confusion. It is perhaps a well-established fact that even our colonial masters did not expect Nigeria to survive. In the first place, they must have felt aggrieved and rather disappointed that their plans for territorial expansion and ownership of great vassal states and domination of the world had been thwarted by the monsters they themselves had created and the education they themselves had provided for these same monsters. They obviously could not tolerate this incessant agitation for independence spare-headed mainly by the so called enlightened southerner group.
We are no longer in doubt that their plan was to sow a seed of discord and make these ingrates regret ever asking for independence. Unfortunately, like most plans for evil especially when the Lord knows about it, he works it out for good. Indeed the initial beginning may look tough and turbulent but the end always turns out rather differently from what was expected.
So Nigeria's journey so far has been tough and turbulent, the seeds of the crisis sown manifested itself in a military uprising in 1966 led mainly by Ibo officers. The northern retaliation about six months later further deepened the crisis and led to widespread insecurity. Our colonial masters were looking on; let us see how they will survive they must have said to themselves. The crisis led to the civil war which the world thought would bring Nigeria down to its knees but by some miracle Nigeria survived, not only did it rise, it rose with outstanding oil wealth and instead of being destroyed, it started to build bridges and skyscrapers and the economy began to wax strong, so strong that its currency was competing with the mighty currencies of the world. Nigeria had become an interesting paradox and a great irony.
The colonial master then decided that if they could not control us physically, they would enslave us financially and economically, they used the oldest trick in the book to capture and ensnare a most unsuspecting nation. The love of money.
The biggest problem with Nigeria was an unsuspecting and immature leadership. Our leaders were just not prepared for what was thrust upon them, you can not really blame a 32 year old head of state, if somehow he lacks the statesmanship and does not have his priorities right. What really does anybody know at 32 after all they said that 40 is the age of wisdom. Therefore you found that most of our leaders between 1966 and 1979 were actually below the age of 40. They just could not cope with the responsibilities given to them and we found ourselves rolling around with corruption, poverty, ineptitude, and most painfully a lack of vision and direction. It is a well know saying that when there is no vision, the people perish or they cast off restraint and this is exactly what happened to Nigeria. The nation became wild and we had the audacity to say that our problem was not money but how to spend it. Now it is so bad that corruption had become embedded into our national fibre and this has of course led to a gross misallocation of resources. Where a lot of that should be done is not done because somebody somewhere does not personally benefit.
We all know that Nigeria does not have a shortage of plans and ideas, what Nigeria lacks the most is a great shortage of sincerity, and genuineness of purpose. The willingness to see the truth through is a big problem. So people do not tell the truth and they are not sincere one with another and we keep doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason. The consequent effect is that nothing ever gets done and progress is extremely slow, and very painful for a nation that is so blessed.
Now we have come to our great democracy, how is this democracy going to play out ? How are we going to survive ? What are we going to do ? Do we have enough will power as a nation to see us through ? Do we have enough collective sense of purpose to keep us going ? Is there sufficient genuine interest in Nigeria to ensure that things are properly done ? We need to ask ourselves these questions, So that we do not miss the opportunity of a second chance, it is if perhaps our third ?
Today ' look at the Oputa pane!, an opportunity to bring Nigeria together, to iron out our differences to tell ourselves the truth and reconcile warring factions. Yet some retired Generals who are above the law will not subject themselves to the discipline of the nation to whose predicament they have greatly contributed. You can imagine someone like Buhari chastising every regime except his own, if he had any respect for the rule of law, why didn't he corne to the Oputa panel ? How can he now be criticizing Babangida who he himself made Chief of Army Staff. Is he now saying he does not know the kind of person Babangida was?
Buhari can not absolve himself from the Babangida and Abacha mess, he was a major contributing factor to what happened after he left not only that he became a major player in the Abacha era. Had he not done a coup, we would not have had a Babangida leadership. He gave reasons for his coup - as far as I am concerned there was no justification for a coup, non whatsoever, I do not see how an unschooled and unprepared military can solve economic and social problems just because they are in possession of the people's gun. Buhari should have left the Shagari democracy to work itself out. A coup is illegal and therefore he is guilty of an illegality, so he should first of all apologise for that one before trying to beat his chest, he should also be grateful for the short memory, tolerance and forgiven attitude of Nigerians that allows him and all his other army generals to work free and maintain their dignity in a country they try so hard to decimate and plunder.
Nevertheless, one needs to sound a note of warning and caution at the level of bitterness and rancour in todays politics. Governors and their deputies do not see eyes to eye, there are allegations of backbiting, witchcraft, organized assassination, lack of faith, lack of loyalty, all sorts of things. The battle for the year 2003 is bitter, very bitter indeed, there is so much desire for power and the paraphernalia of power, the irony of it all is that non of these people running around and wanting to lead is presenting a plan or a manifesto to the people they want to govern all they are doing is fighting among themselves as though the people do not matter and the voters do not matter. They act as though the main issue is to eliminate their opponents that if you can eliminate your opponent then the election is yours, it is a pity indeed and the PDP as a ruling party is not showing a good example, the installation of Audu Ogbeh was a master piece, very good politics but terrible democracy. I admire the fact that they were able to persuade or force Gamade not to run any more, the same way Abacha got Shonekan to resign it was a great civilian coup Abacha style but I think it was bad democracy and it has set a tone for the way and manner in which things might be run come 2003.
For Nigeria to fully mature, we must move out of the politics of personality and self interest to a politics of issues and plans, we must move out of personal greed to personal sacrifice, we must move out of corruption to truth and honesty (if this is possible in Nigeria). We must move away from visionless and "power at all cost politics" to consideration and kindness, we must get a leadership that thinks beyond itself and thinks for the collective good of Nigeria. It is time for a change in this great country.
We can say all that we want to say, shout all that we want to shout, but the political and economic battle in Nigeria today is a renewal of the mind. For Nigeria to make progress, the mind set of the average Nigerian must change.
I was talking to a young Nigerian the other day, he boastfully told me that during the Abacha era he was awarded and received payment for a contract he did not execute. He used the proceeds to buy a house, after all he had to take his own share of the booty since everyone else was taking. He went on to say that what Nigeria needed was visionary and selfless leadership with integrity.
I said great if he was President what would he do, he paused and thought for a while, and then answered gleefully - he would do his best but he would ensure that he made money for himself and "freed" his friends. Now if the young average Nigerian has a mind set like that where do we start from? A friend was telling me that some governors have a monthly allocation of over N2 billion. Now - that's a lot of money. Who is going to want to leave control of that kind of resource and go back to the farm. If its only 1% (One percent) of that that comes back directly or indirectly you can imagine what kind of money that is. And it is like that every where no one gets into government or position to serve but to be served.
Another friend of mine is going for one of the houses - what is your main obstacle I asked, "the incumbent" he replied. I said why- he said the man is making over N500,000.00 a month, it would be hard for him to leave that position. Now this is a man hardly doing anything before, now making N500,000 for virtually doing nothing. So we can see the problem that Nigeria is going through. The attitude is wrong the mindset is terrible.
This same attitude pervades even the so called private sector. People treat company funds and assets as though they were their own. I hear of bank Managing Director's doing great foreign exchange deals, funding their own lifestyles.
December 2001