How crony capitalism sinks Nigeria

CAPITALISM is evil. It is exploitative and acquisitive in Nature. It was introduced by the West – as against the traditional African society’s socialist system where wealth was evenly distributed. Corruption and illicit acquisition of wealth was an offshoot of capitalism. It was capitalism that introduced into our system, parasitic relationships such as bourgeois and proletariat, serf and land lord, employer and employee, slave and slave master, etc. It was also the system that birthed feudal monarchy where someone would just come from nowhere and claim ownership of thousand acres of land. This wasn’t obtainable under socialism. A socialist society is distributive in character. Under socialism, everybody works for the collective growth and economic development of the society. Nobody exploits one another. No one relies on enterprise argument to exploit several unlucky ones. No one claims superiority over class and high status – to the detriment of those they enslave in the guise of ownership of enterprise. While socialism is the pathway to an egalitarian society, capitalism is the surest way to some minority’s superiority complex situation – birthed by unrestricted control and access to resources by some privileged few.

What exists currently in the economic structure of Nigeria – is crony capitalism. Only few enjoy wealth while many suffer the inadequacies.

The Nigerian society exists on a strata arrangement – a class categorization which presupposes a lofty imaginary wall between the haves and have-nots. While the haves-not pass through drudges of efforts motility, which most times, is meted with unassured gratifications; the haves, on the other end, ride on the back of power and principalities to acquire wealth and status for themselves. The examples are interminable. This extortionist policy doesn’t end in the industrial sector. It also has its tentacles extended to the bureaucratic firmament. A random Nigerian youth doesn’t get job in the civil service for his intellectual ability or academic pedigrees; he could only earn it through  some ‘backdoor’ insider’s connection. This is a system where its ivory towers are white washed sepulchre – with little or no research advancement. A political arrangement where wards of the privileged few school in some of the IVY league institutions found around the world.

This is a geographical expression where only few run mechanized agriculture and have their harvests recycled – in denial of several hard working rural dwellers who commit day and night into subsistence farming – just to feed their family. A country which parades a global rating as “one of the largest producers of petroleum in the world”, yet have its refineries live in comatose. What do you say of a system that banks so much on foreign aids and borrowing – without sound debt financing structure and crystal clear foreign policies? A nation that always runs to the West to borrow – for the future generations to pay back.  And the crescent and the ecclesiastics are not any way better. They are part of our problem. They are firmly behind the extortionist system. They fan it and pat the powers in the back. They shy away from the truth – just to savour the temporary advantages.

The burning truth is that: Nigeria’s many problems were not recently created. It was a foundational issue. The West was responsible for fuelling the incendiaries from the day they invaded the precolonial African society – with their imperialist economic agenda. They corrupted the preexisting traditional institution and installed an exploitative system that promoted crony capitalism and undue wealth acquisition. Hence, when they eventually vacated the territory, the ‘British orientation’ they have already inculcated in Nigerians failed to leave them. For you can’t completely take the village out a villager – who now lives in the city.

• Smart writes in from Ilorin, Kwara State.

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