“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…..
DailyPost
The
Coordinating Minister of Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala has pledged to donate some part of the proceeds from the
public presentation of her book, Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons
from Nigeria, to flood victims across the country.
Four
armed men on Monday robbed and killed a middle-aged car dealer, Chief
Emeka Ekwerendu, at Modebe Avenue Junction in the commercial city of
Onitsha, Anambra.
“Remember,
democracy never last long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders
itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” -John
Adams.
Members of a group, the Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM), yesterday organised a peaceful rally in Lagos.