Ayobami Oyalowo: Nigeria’s DemoCRAZY… And the madness continues

“Remember, democracy never last long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” -John Adams.

Nigeria is a country of absurdity. The more you look, the less you are likely to see. Governance is shrouded in mystery & secrecy. Everything, including simple issue like salaries and emoluments of elected & appointed public officials is shrouded in mystery, in the guise of public interest or national security. Health and well-being of public official is always shrouded in mystery, leaving room for speculations, innuendoes and rumour mongering.
Nothing is ever as it appears in Nigeria. Simple informations that ought to be available for the benefit of the people are often treated like classified information by public officials, thereby orchestrating monumental paucity of necessary information and statistics which in turn make it impossible for scholars, researchers or interested citizens, to make informed and accurate opinion about most if not all national happenstance.
The general hoarding of information in Nigeria is responsible for several scams and politically motivated financial heists of unimaginable proportion. For instance, the approved Budget for the year 2011 was N4,971,881,652,689 as passed by the national assembly, N250billon was budgeted for as fuel subsidy, but as at today nobody knows the exact figure spent on that cesspool of corruption aptly nicknamed fuel subsidy scam 2011. Same problem is noticeable in the administration or pension in Nigeria. Billions have either been mismanaged or outrightly stolen but as I type, nobody can confidently give accurate figure nor does any Nigerian have the foggiest idea of what transpired and what have been done to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice and the reoccurrence is forestalled.
While information has consistently been hoarded by the Nigerian government officials to aid and abet them in their criminal plundering of the Nigerian commonwealth, another noticeable conundrum is the absence of strong institutions to ensure that things are properly done and in case of any proven laxity to correct and if possible sanctions errants. Nigeria currently operates like a jungle where the stronger can get away with any offense, no matter the magnitude, it is a known facts that those who have been accused of stealing billions are either friends of the government or are even members of the cabinet. For instance, the current senate of Nigeria has a huge number of former governors, majority of whom have been accused and even tried of monumental mismanagement of funds belonging to their states, although not any of those cases have been diligently pursued, in fact a few of them are just free on bail.
It is a well know fact that most ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) of the federal and even state government have a bloated and poorly executed budget. In the recent past, a few ministers, some permanents secretaries and other seniors officials have been tried and found guilty of falsification of budget figures, just to accommodate enough money for sleaze and outright embezzlement. This has led to situations where some item have been consistently budgeted for year upon year, yet nobody have ever been arrested nor found guilty of falsification and embezzlement. For instance Benin-Ore expressway have been consistently budgeted for, for several years, yet not only has the road not being fixed, it stands as a constant death traps to hapless Nigerians who ply that road daily.
A democracy is supposedly a government put in place by the people to cater to the need and welfare of both the rich and poor, the strong and weak, the secure and the vulnerable members of the society. But the Nigerian brand of democracy is a queer one. It is a democracy bereft of any scientific analysis.
For instance, governors who came into government as average men, becomes overnight multimillionaires and rather than calling them to account, such men either become senator or ministers and “power brokers”. Elections are supposed to be a time when ordinary citizens either reward good perfomance or or punish racalcitrance & irreponsibilty in leadership. But in Nigeria, elections are generally a mere charade. People who wish to serve, will stop at nothing to win elections, even to the point of murder, all in the name service.
The reason for the above is not farfetched. Winning an elective position in Nigeria automatically translate to a positive change in financial fortune of the winner. In fact the common people derides anyone who leaves public office and does not have a fleet of cars, palatial mansions scattered allover the country and at times, choice places all over the world. This change in financial and pecuniary fortune has made a mess of commonsense in Nigeria.
Those in power, either by election or appointment, becomes alienated from reality. They talk down on those on whose back they rode to power. The view of the ordinary citizens never counts anymore, since the overlords in power have arrogated to themselves power of the immortals, who knows better and should deciders for lesser mortals, not minding the fact that those lesser mortals were the donkeys whom the politicians rode unto power.
The mismanagement and outright greed of the rascals with state powers have seen several abandoned projects, and this present government in Nigeria has defined a new low in kleptomania and shameless embezzlement of public funds and as usual most law abiding citizens wither do not know or do not care what happens to the Nigerian commonwealth. In the ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs, for instance, three phantom projects were executed in the last year budget and as usual no many Nigeria, knew, nor raise an eyebrow. The phantom projects are:
1. Contract for the canalization of Odoubou-Bololou creek project-Ogbaba-Gbene, Burutu Local Governmet for the sum of N1,259billion.
2. Contract for Land reclamation shoreline protection at Ogbobagbene for the sum of N2, 431
3. Contract for canalization training of Foupolo -Bibu Ndoro Creek project -Burutu for the sum of N370
These projects above are phantom and nonexistent, yet the money involved have been fully paid by the ministry of finance.
It is very clear from the forgoing that top level secrecy is constantly being maintained by those in the government of Nigeria, presumably because they are not only greedy and corrupt thieves, they also have no interest of the masses at heart. A case in point of their selfishness is the handling of the accident of Pilot Suntai, who have been flown to Germany for treatment, while his aides who were with him in the ill fated plane crash are being treated in the national hospital Abuja and you wonder whether the lives of those aides are less important than the life of the governor.
The government of Nigeria will remain a kind of a secret cult as long as graft and sleaze is the sole purpose and main reason of those who either contest elections or were appointed into political position.
As the madness continue and the greed of those in power thrives and fester, it is obvious that secrecy will remain the watchword of the government but as John Adams said in the quote above, I hope Nigerian rulers wake up and smell the coffee so that the young Nigerian democracy do not fade off. The amount of sleaze and greed is monumental, but equally devastating is the cover ups, in the name of secrecy and national security. As at today, no ordinary Nigerian knows how much as been expended in the current year’s budget, meanwhile they are already appropriating another budget for next Year 2013.
2015 is another year for Nigerian citizens to make a statement and free themselves from the shackles of ruling greedy fiefdom, but if the apathy, docility and outright political illiteracy among the teeming populace continues and the madness in government circles thrives unabated…… I fear if there would be a 2015…… But…..
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