Today, October 1, 2012, the Nigerian
state under the supervision of President Goodluck Jonathan will perform
the ritual of celebrating the country’s independence. It is noteworthy
that the Jonathan administration has decided not to go for the pomp and
pageantry associated with such celebrations which really would have
added insult to our collective injury.
But typical of our ruling elite,
the planned sombre celebration may just be another ruse meant to pave
way for a more elaborate, yet misguided, multi-billion naira celebration
in 2014 to mark the centennial anniversary of the amalgamation of
Nigeria in 1914.
By every standard one decides to judge
Nigeria, it has failed abysmally as a nation. It is worth repeating
because there are those afflicted with eternal delusions about, to use
the weasel words of our politicians, “moving it forward”, the way it is
currently constituted. It is mere wishful thinking. No amount of fancy
talk or transformational balderdash can alter the fact that Nigeria is a
full-blown “kleptocracy”, in the words of Niyi Osundare, on the way to
imminent implosion.
It has been said that Nigeria is a
country of great potential and promise. It remains just that after 52
years: a country of great potential and promise. The reality, to quote
Chinua Achebe, is that “Nigeria is not a great country. It is one of the
most disorderly nations in the world.
It is one of the most corrupt,
insensitive, inefficient places under the sun. It is one of the most
expensive countries and one of those that give least value for money. It
is dirty, callous, noisy, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short,
it is among the most unpleasant places on earth.”
That was almost three decades ago. We
have since raised the stakes. “Today, rogues, armed robbers are in the
State Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly,’’ former President
Olusegun Obasanjo said a few months ago. Obasanjo should know. He, more
than anyone else, facilitated the emergence of these scoundrels who have
taken over our democratic space.
Very few countries in the world can take
the unrepressed pillage, outrageous abuse and unmitigated violation
which the self-acclaimed giant of Africa has received and remain
standing. David Cameron, British prime minister, has been quoted as
saying, “If the amount of money stolen out of Nigeria in the last 30
years was stolen in the UK, the UK would not exist again.”
There are many figures in the public
domain about how much our leaders have siphoned from the country since
independence. From Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), we learnt that the amount is “more
than six times the total sum that went into rebuilding Europe in the
aftermath of the Second World War via the famous European Recovery
Programme (ERP) or Marshall Plan.” The ERP was $13 billion.
Interestingly, Germany, the choice location for medical care for our
leaders, was one of the beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan.
We can spend the next few weeks
cataloguing the problems of Nigeria and we would not have scratched the
surface. Where do we start? Is it something as basic as education where
it has been revealed that “Nigerians commit about N160 billion ($1
billion) to the education of their children and wards in Ghanaian
universities every year.”
A recent newspaper report quotes the
chairman, Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Wale
Babalakin, as saying, “The cost excludes huge amounts also spent on
education of Nigerians in other countries such as the United States of
America, the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia.” From Babalakin we
also learnt that there are about 75,000 Nigerian students in Ghana, a
country which, in the last decade, has been spending up to 35 percent of
its annual budget (far beyond the UNESCO recommendation of a minimum of
26 percent) on education.
Let’s take a minor issue like polio
eradication. Just recently, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of
the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) issued a report which
noted that “of six global sanctuaries for the poliovirus (which stand
against the anticipated eradication), Nigeria’s Kano and Bornu States
are the most problematic.”
“Apart from Afghanistan,” the report
further said, “Nigeria’s northern region specifically constitutes major
concern for global polio fighters, who now worry over the quality of
local personnel and efforts. Although Kano, Bornu, and four other global
(problematic) spots represent a relatively tiny proportion of the
earth’s land surface area, the Monitoring Board had hinted that they
‘pose disproportionate risk to the likelihood of success for the entire
globe’.... There are now just six countries with persistent polio
transmission.
Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan have
never interrupted transmission. Angola, Chad and DR Congo have
‘re-established’ polio. Nigeria has slipped back in a quite alarming
way. Afghanistan’s programme is consistently performing at a reasonable
level.”
This is a snapshot of the sorry story of
Nigeria. We are not just the poster child for corruption. Whether we
are talking about education, maternal or infant mortality, security,
justice and rule of law, we rank at the very bottom and are constantly
in competition with the world’s most retrograde countries.
