Resources nobody wants
By
I was very shocked when I discovered last week that President Olusegun Obasanjo has a Special Adviser on Human Resources, Science and Technology. The office of a Special Adviser on Human Resources, on its own, would have been a very important one. It should have frequent references in the way the Federal Government conducts the business of governing a people whose importance to their leaders is minimal.
The last time anything resembling seriousness happened in Science and Technology was in the closing months of 1999, when colossal sums of money were budgeted for an enlightenment campaign on the millennium bug. The rest have been cosmetic speeches on the importance of the ‘new’ information highway, the Internet, to human existence.
Before then, something happened that could have rescued Science and Technology, if President Obasanjo had an atom of interest for these areas. His minister Chief Ebitimi Banigo resigned. The Government gave Nigerians no explanations.
Chief Banigo, I learnt, quietly went back to his banking business when he discovered that Science and Technology would always rank less than foot-notes in the Government’s priorities. Nobody persuaded him to stay, as would have been the case if he was one of the ministers primarily assigned to getting the President a second term.
Many people who have come into intimate contact with the running of this Government have made the same discovery. The problems are not all about the years of military mis-management of Nigeria, of which President Obasanjo played a major role. It may be convenient for his people to think that he was not a part of the problems that we have today.
Whether he was or not, during the campaigns, he had told us that his experience in government (military), something his opponents lacked, placed him in the best position to solve the problems of Nigeria. He has failed woefully.
There is no doubt that President Obasanjo recognises problems and can solve them if he wants. I have three examples of the rapidity that he can bring to removing irritants. Ask the people in Odi who he wanted to blast out of existence because they were a threat to the oil wells in their land. The excuse, a good one, was that they killed some policemen. Genocide is not the punishment for murder in Nigerian law. The President got away with it, the Odi people being mere statistics, and worse still, the most minor of minorities.
Other problems that straddled the President’s way were from the Niger Delta youth. Their agitation for a say in how their environment is ruined was militarily decided. The President in double pace created a division of the Nigerian Army in Benin City, the first time a new division was created in peace time. The target of that formation is to keep the Niger Delta in check. For as long as the oil wells are protected, Nigeria has no problems.
Then in the last few months, the President has orchestrated a campaign about his needs for new jets so that he would maintain his track record of running this country from abroad. After a few muted complaints from the National Assembly temporarily cured him of the habit, he is back again. Sometimes you would never know in what part of the world our President would have his breakfast, not to talk of lunch or dinner.
Sometimes he arrives in places where he is not expected. London was one; a junior official in the Tony Blair government had to receive him at the airport. Our President believes that one of our national problems is another set of aircraft in the presidential fleet.
In his transparent garb, he has refused to discuss what happened to the plane that was serviced in Seattle less than a year ago and whose problems have become worse ever since. The re-fitting in Seattle drilled a $9 million hole in the Nigerian economy. The President would not discuss this.
The major problem Nigeria has today is a President who has no inkling of how excruciating living in Nigeria is. He can surround himself with the best advisers in the world, but if he does not feel it, he will not know it. On their part, some of these advisers are there for the fabulous allowances that they earn, and the limitless opportunities to loot, which are created by the absence of transparency in governance, even if the President has made a song of transparency.
I do not know how many Nigerians know Professor Babatunde Thomas. If you don’t, it helps make my case. He is the President’s Special Adviser on Human Resources, Science and Technology. He is about to return to his base at a United Nations agency, after six fruitless months of trying to impress it on the President that things were in a "sorry state". He is not a politician, so he refused to be more explicit with his frustrations on the job. He threw some lights though.
It took him three months, half of the six months he was willing to stay (on sabbatical) to get to know how things "work" here. He is optimistic that when he goes people would take over from the ground work he did in three months. He also believes that the President is serious about Human Resources, Science and Technology.
I think he judged the President too fairly in terms of his interests. A presidential jet is more important than teachers and health workers who are on strike. Our poor roads, food crisis and the impure water we consume do not affect the President. These make me wonder the quality of human resources that we want.
As for Science and Technology, the approaches so far are a ruse. NEPA does not work, cannot work and has made science and technology, businesses, education, health, and the gamut that adds up to the quality of human life, almost impossible. After his early effected attention for NEPA, the President has been quiet. When he missed the 2000 target, he chose 2001. One of his aides has just said NEPA will not work in a long while.
It is possible that issues like these do not feature in talks between the President and his aides. I heard that Baba, as they all call him (not exactly fondly) tells them what he wants them to do. So the buck stops on his desk.
Do you blame him? The education and health needs of top government officials are met outside this country. Our President might not suffer from a power cut (they made such fuss about his jet landing in darkness). Do they live in Nigeria? How is he to solve problems that do not exist, even in his imagination?
The human resource is the best any country can have. Nigeria should pay hers some attention. Well-developed human beings would make the scientific and technological discoveries that would move the society.
May be Professor Thomas’ departure will get the President’s attention. I think Professor Thomas would have stayed if he found the President serious with Human Resources, Science and Technology.
He is not a politician; there are no trappings of office to cage him in the prison of Aso Rock. (Thanks Mr. Vice President for that innovative description of the seat of power).