Nigeria at fifty: fifty years of fitful existence

By Ilobi Austin

At independence, from Britain, in 1960 so much was expected of the new nation Nigeria and for good reasons: beneath the length and breadth of her soil laid an assortment of every imaginable natural resource in great demand across the length and breath of the globe; and to reduce exploration cost and make them competitive in the international market, nature equally endowed her with a proportionate human capital.

But alas! Nature did not consider it her responsibility to impose leaders, imbued with the right aptitude and attitude, on the peoples welded together as Nigerians believing that her peoples contact with rest of humanity would avail the country of choices from whence she was to make her pick. A monumental mistake this turned out to be as those thrown up by circumstances turned out to be either fanatical tribal missionaries or uppity elite with an unwritten manifesto, designed to keep the people servile through a mismatch of the peoples need and their so-called developmental agenda.   

Fairer were the early years upon independence, with regionalism as the form of government. This created, comparatively, more economically sophisticated region in Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s South-Eastern Nigeria; an enlightened and consequently, internationally more influential region in the South-West of Chief Obafemi Awolowo through his mass education program; and an agriculturally dominant Northern Nigeria of Sir Balewa. The South-West got too propagandist about it achievements—real and imagined—thereby making one or the others uncomfortable. Enter Akintola and the disruptive politics in the west that reverberated across the country.

So long to development as Major Nzeogu took charge of some military officers and embarked on what he imagined was the restoration of order in the polity by killing some prominent figures in the country considered parasitic, then. Months later, the sectional nature of the killing came to the fore through the Western media and was immediately capitalized by Britain that saw the economical advancement of the South-East region as a future threat to her home economy. Through her foot soldiers in the country as high commissioner and citizens, BBC and Radio Kaduna they carved up the country into the Igbos and the rest and helped with bombs and fighter planes to destroy key economic nerve centres in the east, including research centres like the UNN.          

This done, the so-called war ended; with a resolve to regulate henceforth all economic activities. Military administrators were then sent off to newly created states to enforce this new regime by the General Gowon led government. So even with so much revenue in the vault of the government, he elected to spend it more on monuments like the National Theatre and high ways to ease movement of imported finished goods and very little on industrialization. The rest of the revenues were then parcelled out to neighbouring countries in the form of aids and salary payment. He even complained openly of not knowing what to do with the money even when the country was not a force in any acknowledged economic activities—remember he ceded Bakassi!

Based on his non- stellar performance, Gowon got the boot, and was supplanted with a revolutionary officer; who was determined to bury the past and re-start the country.  Violently, he was sent to the grave by his military colleagues. Chief Obasanjo—a man of history—his second in command stepped-in operationally—nominally— as Head of State with the duo of Generals Danjuma and Yar'Adua functionally in charge. This ensured that economically, the people’s activities or involvements were regulated and it worked just well during the transition to civilian rule as it ensured that Obasanjo handed over the reins of power, when it was time to do so.

Alhaji Shagari assumed duties as the new president under a federal form of government that was everything but a federal system of government as known in other climes. This was no doubt a continuation of the unofficial position of doing away with the economic empowerment of some regions, if not all. It was the era of the infamous import licence control and relocation of industries from one region to another— Ajaokuta.

Under this regime of de-industrialization Nigeria’s economic development could only go in one direction; south-ward; as public utilities were deliberately allowed to age and die off through the manning of the agencies charged with their responsibilities with incompetent fellows from the right side of the Nigerian divide. Soon this policy that designed to slow down a particular region became an unbearable national malaise with the ruling section—the North— the worst hit as it turned out beggars in their millions. Disenchantment was wide-spread and before long, it became obvious that the country could not continue with the policy.

Enter Gen. Buhari, a military office in the mode of the late General Murtala. He marched quickly and decisively against indiscipline and corruption and was set to do away with all forms of discrimination in the body polity. He, like Gen. Murtala, was too much of a new page, even for his military colleagues, and was consequently turned over after a short spell. His regime is best remembered for the war against indiscipline and corruption, WAI, under which the monthly sanitation exercise was introduced and the trial and conviction of some politicians of the second republic on corruption charges was achieved.

With General Buhari’s exist; Nigeria got her first master negotiator president in the person of General Babangida. Unlike the other past revolutionary military leaders, he craftily avoided the toga of a revolutionist while carrying out similar, if not more profound, reforms of the nation’s socio-economic and political landscape, as his predecessor’s had intended. So instead of the take it or leaver it attitude of his predecessor’s, he engaged the entire nation, particularly the intellectuals, on debates about the future of the country; this he did by laying before the country the, IMF loan deal and the SAP document, which precipitated the first reforms in banking, telecommunication, education,  privatization and commercialization. Policy somersaults and reviews were the highlights of his regime, as he struggled to extricate himself from the primordial sentiments of persons of largely his geo-political zone.  And even though his government conducted what is reputed to be the freest and fairest election in the history of Nigeria, he could not hand-over to the winner, chief MKO Abiola, for the same reason.

Instead chief Shonekan got the job to head an illegal arrangement called interim government. Abacha promptly took charge and took the country on a five years self-medication economic therapy as his government was denied international assistance from the country’s traditional allies in the west. He died in the midst of attempts to transmute his government into a civilian one—perhaps to satisfy the demand of the west: democracy. To his credit, he was able to run the country and build up the foreign reserve in spit of the sanctions that were directed towards his regime. He tackled the banks and got some directors thrown into prison for financial frauds. However, upon his demise revelations came to the fore that he was worst than the bank chiefs in the act of mismanaging public funds. This allegation, juxtaposed against his achievement with all the sanctions seems incredible. Little was achieved economically due to the elevation of security concerns of his government above the liberalization of the polity. This much was evidenced by the revelations that his murderous goons had gone after those opposed to his regime.

Gen Abdusalami took over after his death and nine months later, handed over—a rare occurrence—to Gen. Obasanjo with Atiku in tow as the country vice president. The new president, a conservative, still relishing his past records as a military ruler in the ‘70s initially thought little of the idea of government privatization of state owned firms. Fortunately for the nation, he handed the economy over to his vice, a progressive who somehow managed to get him to endorse his economic blueprint. An economic team was then assembled and the task of re-working the nation commenced, from where IBB left off.  So in the first four years of his second coming, the nation’s economy got so much rejuvenated that but for his needless attrition with his vice, things would have been much better than is currently the case, today.

At the end of his second term and the third term fiasco, he handed over to the late Yar'Adua, a very deliberate person. Whose determination to clinically confront the challenges facing the nation was only surpassed by his failing health. At the end, he gave up the ghost clearing the way for his second in command, GOOD luck Jonathan to carry-on. Since assuming office and with his declared intention to run for the office of the president in the next election, he has basically delivered words upon words to Nigerians.

The reality as it is experienced today In Nigeria after fifty years of existence is that little has been achieved when the resources of the nation is considered. Basic amenities of every kind are still a luxury to ordinary Nigerians.  Nigeria and Nigerians have lived fitfully for fifty years. 

Ilobi Austin a public affair analyst writes from Lagos, Nigeria

            

Presidential election: Beyond endorsements and grand rallies

By Ilobi Austin

I never expected Dr. Goodluck Jonathan the President and Commander -in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to declare interest in contesting the 2011 presidential election; for reasons that includes the following: it is against the official position of his party that zoning which, in the long run, is for the ultimate good of his south-south region, with its never ending factious ethnic tension, in particular and the entire south in general remains its guiding principle for  the distribution of political offices amongst the geo-political zones of the country; a position that should make his declaration an act of rascality against the party and therefore punishable by expulsion; it is bound to unlevel the playing field for both aspirants of his party in the race, and flag bearers alike since he cannot hope to win the primaries of his party and the election without a ramrod like the EFCC to keep his opponents and their supporters busy. But he did declare via the e-conference platform, Face Book, and the carnival-like display at Eagle square, Abuja.

Both comes amidst clamours and rash of endorsements from multiplicity of mushroom groups— most, fortune seekers and miners— from across the country for him to present himself for the race. An action that has been a standard issue, perhaps modelled after the American system, as far as Nigeria’s politics is concern. But can these endorsements produce the same result as is the case in America’s democracy? Most certainly not, if vote cast is allowed to be the sole determinant of the fate of candidates.

 It must be noted that Nigeria’s political elite class is largely not of the peoples of the country but of the media with the active support of the Nigerian state leadership for the purpose of creating a semblance of a mass acceptance of it retrogressive ideas, like the falsification election results, whenever the need arises. The ordinary Nigerian is totally indifferent to the political views or leanings of most of the persons that claims to represent their conscience. This people are “leaders” of the people for as long as the state with the active connivance of the media continues to avail them the use of state terror agencies for the purpose of harassing and intimidating opponents. Separated from such leverage they become nothing but fish out of water!  None of these groups that have endorsed the seating president, apart from those operating in the south-south which is understandable, can be relied upon to deliver a ward in the coming election particularly, those based in the Northern part of the country and, to a lesser extent, the South East.

In the North, voting pattern would be a function of the battle cry for justice as it relates to zoning, an arrangement that saw virtually all presidential candidates from the region giving up their ambition in 1999. As for the south east, the voting direction of the people would be anchored on the prospect of one of their own becoming the president in 2015; an exercise that seems, logically, more realisable under a northerner, within the zoning principle. In the south-west, the people are likely to vote for Dr. Jonathan. In addition to the above, the amount of information available to the individual member of the public on the possibilities offered by each of the candidates for the individual and then group and the antecedent of the aspirants and flag-bearers in promoting democratic ideals and stability in challenging times.

What Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has got going for him and from which he derives his strength and confidence in contesting the election is not these listless endorsements, which is more of a business venture and/or furtherance of personal political ambitions than an honest support based on convictions nor any reliance on any super performance of his administration on the key areas of need, but the power of incumbency with all that goes with it—drawing support from quarters that he would ,ordinarily, have drawn flaks. That was exactly why his declaration rally was what it was: a carnival, which does not in any way signified victory at the polls even if the presidential ticket of his party, the PDP, is his for the asking— a most testy submission given the order of the primaries that would produce the flag-bearers for the different categories of office seekers with that for the presidential candidates coming last.