Now the USA and other world powers are here, we may have an opportunity to ask questions and let the truth be told and heard. It is not everyday that a country commands the centre of world attention. It has taken the sordid abduction of possibly over 200 school girls for the world to turn their search light on us and offered to help our rescue efforts. It is a pity that it has taken such an odious event for Nigeria to be the headline news across the globe. But we knew that Nigeria is an accident waiting to happen and let’s hope this is not the beginning of a dark chapter in our history. Let’s hope the arrival of USA and co is not the beginning of the Afghanistanization of Nigeria. It always starts with a few advisers and technical experts – ask Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Last year in an article that brought out the salient points in my book, 1966 Crisis and the Evolution of Nigerian Politics, and Achebe’s There Was a Country a Country I wrote that, ‘suppose and God forbid that Nigeria is invaded today by a foreign power, who in honesty will be fighting for Nigeria with his life? This has now turned to be a prophetic statement. It preempted the possibility that if Nigeria is attacked there are many prevailing factors that will incapacitate the country as a strong and united nation capable of overcoming a serious challenge. Those factors are beginning to crystallize. If we are looking for evidence the upsurge and ruthlessness of the insurgents; the wives of our military men at Enugu protesting that their husbands should not be sent to fight the Boko Haram insurgents; recent report of our soldiers firing at their Commander at Maiduguri, and reports of ill equipped and ill motivated military are serious matters of concern.
This article is by the way not an indictment of President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration because the country was heading towards an irredeemable status before he came to power. He is a victim as any of us. In any case, the man emerged from the unconscionable political gimmicks of the last of the military dictators turned ‘democrat’. Our country is simply in trouble and we have to face up to that fact. Our sovereignty is being seriously questioned.
It is no longer news that our concerned and benevolent international friends have decided to lend us some support to deal with our present quagmire. But our friends need to know a few home truths about us. Our problem goes deeper than missing school children. This is not the statement of a callous Nigerian oblivious of the pains of unfortunate and innocent parents. This is the lamentation of a Nigerian who is well aware that life is worthless in the country and our leaders do not care if Nigerians are dropping like flies. After all Nigerians die needlessly in their thousands daily and our leaders do not bother.
Nigerians have been dying in ethno-religious and community conflicts without our leaders blinking an eyelid. Luxury buses and fuel tankers have been wasting lives in thousands and no one cares. People are lynched in public or missing without trace and no one cares. No member of the public to my recollection has ever read reports of any commission of enquiry on the legion of outrageous waste of lives in Nigeria. In fact, if the world did not explode with disgust who knows what our reaction would be to the Chibok abductions? I guess we would politicize it and even deny that it ever happened or as usual dish out fake figures to minimize the event.
Now the world is beaming their torch light on us we may take the opportunity to let them know who they have come to help. I will start by telling this story of an Igbo widow. A young Igbo man died leaving a young widow behind. In accordance with Igbo tradition his kinsmen gathered to arrange his funeral. His crying widow uninvitedly appeared before the assembled kinsmen and made this important request – ‘I know, my brothers-in-law, that you are discussing how to bury your brother, my own dear husband, but, please, as you do so can you also discuss who amongst you will inherit me and provide for me for the rest of my life?’
Well, the poor widow knows that after the burial the kinsmen will disperse and she will be left to her hopeless devices. Therefore, our powerful rescuers, before you go we have other matters you need to listen to. If you are here just to rescue our girls, we appreciate your concerns but we are in deeper trouble and we are beginning to wonder whether left alone we can cope with our overwhelming conditions.
The countries offering to help us know that we could do better than we are doing. We need to tell them that our main problem is our political leadership irrespective of political party affiliation. To our visiting helpers, we need to advise you that we are ruled by imperial gods far disconnected with the realities of the country. Be not deceived by the razzmatazz they are dazzling you with. The endless convoys with sirens ushering you to their imperial palaces; the sumptuous meals and expensive wines has nothing to do with the realities of our country.
Our political leaders constitute a great burden to us. We run one of the world’s most expensive democracies and yet the people have nothing to show that they have a leadership in place. Our leaders are the most selfish, self seeking, self indulgent and lacking in any sense of altruism. Power is sought and acquired for purposes not necessarily for the good of the populace. They believe that the legitimacy of their positions of power is derived from their conquest of us. They apparently believe so because our electoral process can be described as one big farce. They collude, squabble amongst themselves and ultimately buy their way to their positions. Mediocrity and criminality are not uncommon descriptions of our political class. When they get to their positions of power and authority they discard us and remember us only when the next election draws near. We are never in their reckoning and they are only accountable to themselves.
Resultantly Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Any country more corrupt than Nigeria must be hell on earth. Can you imagine that on record Nigeria has spent trillions of naira in defence and security matters but we can’t encircle and rout a bunch of armed hooligans camping in a forest inside our own country? It begs the serious question of the state of the nation: the cohesiveness of Nigeria as a nation with a common destiny, common vision and a common will to die for a common purpose. Our history, recent events and the utterances of our political leaders do not leave us with a positive and exciting conclusion. The complicity of some of our leaders in the emergence of Boko Haram has been the subject of open discussion. Suffice it to say that we are a much divided, corrupt, and ineptly run country. It has not much to do with the present administration. Those outside the seat of power are equally culprits in our despicable conditions. The President is as much a victim as also a perpetrator.
We therefore beg you not to listen to our leaders. They will beg for aids to equip our security forces. When they do, please ask them why the richest country in Africa should be begging. They will beg for aids to ameliorate stifling poverty and other forms of socially unacceptable conditions particularly in the North. They will try to convince you that these are the underlying reasons for armed insurrections. Please respond in the negative, otherwise you would be adding to what we call more grease to their elbows. Do also ask for an account of trillions of naira of annual budgetary allocations in education, health and other areas of public infrastructure. Do not leave until you have asked our leaders why they have discarded Nigeria’s once proclaimed motto of one nation, one destiny or strength in diversity; why they have abandoned our constitutional stipulation of a secular society and by insidiously using religion as a political weapon they left the door open for Boko Haram to sneak in. To our sympathetic international friends, please do ask questions because no one listens to us and I doubt if our democracy can rescue us.
Emmanuel Chigozie Osuchukwu is a London based writer. He can be reached on emmanuelosu@hotmail.com or tel. +447880600236
A succinct piece as usual.
The writer’s meticulous description of our political landscape whilst not stationed in the country grounds my 2 years experience since returning to this corner of the Globe for my retirement. What a country!
Absolutely essential that our rescuers are clued in to all other of our underlining problems and not just for freeing the kidnapped girls. Even this rescue mission I find would be difficult for them in many ways if a lot has been happening since the kidnap and passing unchecked like politicians’ allegations against themselves – one alleging the other knows the girls whereabout, another claiming he’d been passing what information he had of the terrorists and the girls to the federal govt to no avail. Not even the President has been spared in these allegations as he’s been severally reminded of his statement that the sponsors of BOKO HARAM had infiltrated his administration and he’s damn sure who they were! Now all these and more rumours have been floated for the last 5 going 6weeks since this saga began. No one – not the masses, not any civil activist group – none has been moved to challenge any of these claims and allegations.
We have half-baked News producers for media house in the country many of whom are on politicians’ payroll who use them for self service. As a backdrop to all these is the absence of a national stats record profiling everybody in the nation – and you ask, how do you gather the quintessential local intelligence from streets that have no names, households that has no documented evidence how many they are or their gender/age group? How do you begin to facilitate the foreigners who’s come with their sophisticated equipments and resources to assist if you have nothing to guide their strategic operations?
Press hard about national dbase and you will be told about the story of the national ID card drive that has stalled and now stuck in the groove of a slippery-slope agenda to date. As if these are not enough, we have the 1st Lady’s sham of uncultured and inappropriate public display – meddling in politics at the highest order where she’s said to be acting contrary to the national constitution by summoning seating governors to her ‘cry-baby; na only you wake come’ meetings to proffer ways of finding the missing girls. Some Nigerians even believe her antics are premeditated to distract the masses and temper their temperaments against the govt.
Our writer quite rightly drawing our rescuing supporters attention to our type of democracy that only serves the minority and richly positioned selfish leaders is very much in order. We even recently had a US official complain that they have not been given a clear information about the girls whereabout that has meant delay in starting their operations. And who can blame them if we have nothing in form of guiding directives for them to work from! We have been spending billions on our military department that has seen no need for any military operations apart from joining the quota keeping peace abroad in which case – they did not have to expend our own resources doing that – but like our Writer rightly said on here – yet, Sambisa forest remains a tall order for them…
Only a few weeks ago the House vetoed 2014 budget which GEJ handed over to Iweala to run with dividing it for the fed portfolio but no one has dared to challenge the Govt about the 2013 Budget spreadsheet to evaluate this as “good spend” – and how can it be if all national departments are struck by underfunding, mismanagement and misappropriations and you look around to find nothing done with the Budget!
No national problem has been resolved to date of all the embezzlements and corruption allegations in the land – the oduagate, the petroleum missing billions, Madueke’s private jet spending spree – you name it – they all have been fizzling out and poised to eventually die down like the ones before them respectively.
Until the fed govt can jump out of that bed that it so shares with religion – we will know no peace as it is contrary to the federal constitution of the nation as secular. Even with the little flicker of light from the CONFAD deliberation where they said no to the federal funding of pilgrimages of both prominent sects – the debate is still rife on the sustainment of the Pilgrimage Commission – and you ask yourself, whatever happened to the leaders oath to serve and protect all Nigerians as those who gain from the funding ponder over how they would be robbed of the privilege to fly out yearly and bring in excess luggages of goods to sell in NIgeria in the name of pilgrimaging?
Once again thank you for this Chief Osuchukwu. How I wish there was a Facebook button to share this!