A nation’s inanities and infirmities

This is a country that kills its brave but arms its cowards. A country of unfathomable contradictions; a democracy where democrats do not want to get to positions by elections, a country that produces and exports oil, yet, imports petroleum products; a country whose rulers beat their chest for building world class hospitals, yet seek medical refuge outside. Welcome to a country where the abjectly poor victims of oppression now raise millions of naira to enable their richer oppressors to buy forms to contest in elections. This is a country of inanities and infirmities whose people have become the facilitators of their own victimisation! The people of Nigeria are aiding and abetting injustice and fearful insecurity by doing nothing about putting pressure on a government that has thrown its responsibilities to secure and protect to the dogs.

Freedom from fear, freedom from want and the right to liberty are conceptual foundations of purposeful democratic government. Unless government has become a mysterious conjecture, presently, Nigeria has no government! The roaring rage of riotously rapacious, cruel terrorists on our roads, rails and airport is a tragic evidence of failure of governance. The unending calamities befalling Nigerians from Kaduna to Ekiti and from Zamfara to Sagbama are not excusable. Worse still, this is happening when poor, hapless people are still being adversely affected by the energy crisis. Oil producing nations are glide-glowing on the rostrum of oil starved globe as kings in this season of oil boom but Nigeria, one of them, is roaming in the dungeon of governmental infamy like a rain-drenched chicken, scavenging for worms. I really don’t know why Nigerians cannot see through this fraud called subsidy. If subsidy exists at all, what is being subsidised is failure and incompetence of a government of an oil-producing nation importing what it should ordinarily produce; and even export.

Assuming that this so-called subsidy is removed, would it still qualify to be called removal? Isn’t it that it would be transferred to the final users as it is currently being witnessed? I listened to some people who were too simplistic in doing comparative analysis recently, comparing the cost of energy in Nigeria with the USA to justify the global nature of the problems. I raised some questions with them: hope you know that per capita income in America is almost 20 times that of Nigeria? Is America a monoculture-economy like Nigeria? Why can’t the Nigerian government provide the same standard of living for Nigerians like that of Americans to justify the comparison? The truth is that America doesn’t export its oil despite its large volume of reserves. She uses it for stabilisation during volatility and as a weapon against OPEC price monopoly. When they attempted shifting the argument, I reminded them how mismanagement of fiscal and monetary policies had reduced the naira to piece paper, even in the face of the Ghanaian Cedi. The Beninese CFA is today about six times stronger than the naira. The management of Nigeria’s economy as it is today is like that of a man who, at  age of 79,  borrowed N4.5 billion from a bank to build mansions and purchase exotic cars, leaving his children’s school fees unpaid. As years passed by, interest on the loan kept mounting, with no capacity to pay back. He resorted to using house-keeping allowance for debt servicing. His wife was on hospital bed, with no one to foot her medical bills, and his children became out-of-school beggars on the streets. They were on throes of death from hunger, malnutrition, diseases, sundry disasters and depression. That is the dire strait in which Nigeria has found itself.

This irresponsible management of outright monoculture-economy has left disposable income shrunk, cost of living high, and the cost of production unacceptably high. The propensity to consume is now high, leaving the propensity to save and to invest abysmally low. This has also exacerbated the propensity for crime and criminalities. Which theory of development can save such country from anarchy? An economy that stifles people in order to enrich government is not only anti-development, it is anti- people and anti- prosperity. It is the definition of counter-civilisation, a sure infernal driving force behind violent extremism. Some people are at Camp David now envisioning the model for a digital future. Some Nigerians, rather than demanding accountability from the government in place, are selecting the squadron vultures that will lead the next army of locusts. It is apparent that many so-called leaders do not give a hoot about Nigeria. In a severely damaged diverse country, it is sad that some of them want to surreptitiously usurp power in a way detrimental to even their own party’s diversity management formula. Their success will worsen Nigeria’s diversity management and hurt its unity.

We cannot grow a democracy where people want to get to positions without election. It’s antithetical to democratic values and ethos. Consensus could be a tool for taking or making decisions; it had no place in participatory electoral democracy even in ancient Greece. Election is more about the electorate than the contestants. The right to vote is absolute in a democracy. The right to be voted for is personal, partial and can neither abrogate nor derogate the more fundamental right to vote. No consensus can be reached on behalf of those who have absolute right by those enjoying personal liberty to be voted for. In all of this, the shame is on Nigerians who fail to defend Nigeria and democracy when it matters most.

Chris Rock was recently slapped by Will over a dirty joke. I innocently asked a question in that respect: If comedians can pull dirty jokes on women, humiliate physically challenged people, slander the innocent and bury the just in abusive laughter, why is it difficult to accept a well-earned responsorial slap as an integral part of that genre of comedy? The comedians in power in Nigeria deserve no better fate!

Olajuyigbe is Executive Director, Emergency & Risk Alert Initiative.