Nigeria will be 62 years old as an independent country on October 1, 2022. How would you assess the journey so far?
The journey has been very bad and traumatic for the masses. It has been extremely tormenting and excruciating due to bad governance and anti-people policies of the Nigerian leadership class since independence.
The country is not working for the masses who are groaning under the most brutal political, economic and cultural conditions imposed on them by a predatory leadership class. More than 70 per cent of the population is facing a high level of poverty while about 20 million kids are out of school roaming the streets. Nigeria has consistently remained the poverty capital of the world despite its humongous resources. The inequality gap between the few oligarchs in power and the generality of the people who live in squalor and remains wretched economically and politically is a pointer to the fact that Nigeria has not been fair to its large army of despondent masses.
Strange enough, Nigeria is only working for the privileged political class and its cronies, the so-called rent-seeking private sector that is utterly unproductive and acts as leeches on the economy.
If, therefore, we are talking about the journey so far, it is the leadership class that will be in the mood for celebrating the capture of Nigeria. They have been successful in impoverishing the people and grossly violating their economic and political rights. The people have no say in their democracy. The sovereignty that ought to be with the people is a hoax. Public education as a catalyst for human capital development has been destroyed and this means that only the rich can access the “alternative” which is private education that has become a commodity to be purchased only by those with capital. The commodification of education means excluding the poor from education and the moment this happens, the poor will forever remain in captivity because their power to think and analyse has been decimated and destroyed by the right-wing conservative and reactionary leadership class.
Since Nigeria is working for the leadership class, they will soon roll out the drums and start dancing, reeling out amorphous statistics of development when all they have done is continually prey on the resources of the nation through cronies clans, family and friends. They will celebrate the state capture of Nigeria because unlike the downtrodden, they have the exclusive privilege of using state resources and apparatus of power to educate their children abroad, and seek medical tourism while the poor die due to medical neglect and their children become permanent street beggars.
To develop the human capacity of the poor means that the poor will challenge them and demand accountability. So, it is better to allow the masses to live under this regime of disarticulation and disempowerment so that they will not know their left from right and they would even be configured to worship their oppressors. That is the state of the nation today. The leadership class enjoys the commonwealth while those that they superintend over live in misery and are in a state of despondency which fuels hopelessness and helplessness.
The issue of power rotation has been so pronounced between the northern and southern regions. Do you think this has contributed positively to the development of the nation?
Definitely no. As a matter of fact, it has impeded growth and development due to the unending contestation of power by the ruling class. It is rather unfortunate that the Nigerian ruling class does not care about the citizens, if it does, power rotation based on ethno-religious demographics wouldn’t have become a national question.
Rather than focus on how to bring about industrialisation that will make Nigeria a productive nation where wealth and prosperity for all will become a cardinal principle of state policy, the leadership class gets embroiled mostly in inanities. This is the hallmark of the kind of politics being played by the leadership class. They are not united when it comes to power-sharing because they are not bothered about delivering democratic dividends to the people, rather they are mostly preoccupied about how to grab power and use it for their own benefits.
They are not patriotic to Nigeria and are indifferent to its growth provided the resources of the state will continue to support their ostentatious and voraciously flamboyant lifestyles. If only they understand that nation-building is predicated upon meritorious and selfless leaders who are innovative and transformational, then they will understand that this thing called power rotation is nothing but an ingenious way of turn-by-turn leadership to appease themselves and ultimately grab power for selfish reasons.
The question may be asked: what benefits did the Obasanjo government confer on Yoruba peasants? What benefits did the Jonathan administration confer on the South-South and how has the Buhari administration benefitted the downtrodden in the North? Apart from the few indolent capitalist elites that have made money through patronage and privileged economic arrangement, the poor continue to become poorer under any form of leadership based on ethno-religious identities in Nigeria.
Therefore, the power rotation principle is nothing but a creation of the leadership class to appease and reward themselves with spoils of office as far as leadership is concerned. This is nothing short of political mediocrity as opposed to meritocracy. It is, therefore, high time Nigerians got themselves out of these political gimmicks and demanded performance and accountability from their leaders, irrespective of where they come from. The focus should be on nationalists not provincial leaders who don’t see beyond their clans.
Nigeria is regressing, its infrastructure has wobbled and collapsed, and so-called new ones are substandard and, therefore, feeble. Its economy is in the doldrums, there is widespread insecurity and kidnapping and abduction have become the order of the day.
Nigeria which used to be an industrial hub and destination is now a dumping ground for used and second-hand materials. Its health sector is comatose. Its youth are jobless and its intellectuals are derided and criminalised by a leadership class that does not understand the value of qualitative education in nation-building. These are serious challenges that the leadership class has refused to confront and resolve but their problem is how to share power despite having virtually emptied the national treasury.
The only industry left is the nature of backward politics in Nigeria where about 20 aspirants use N100 million each to buy nomination forms, not out of any productive venture but from an economy that is import-dependent and unduly consumeristic. All industries have been killed and politics is now the only money-spinning enterprise. The leadership class made it so so that the followers, having been deprived of education, would be too idiotic and stupid to challenge them and the masses and their children would end up with tokens from their own commonwealth. While the poor sink deeper into poverty, the leadership class is focused on how to share the national cake. Nigeria is one huge fat cow to be milked. This is their own idea of power sharing.
The north has led the nation, by providing leadership for the better part of the 62 years of independence, yet the north and other parts of Nigeria are retrogressing. What do you think is really the problem?
I think the crises of leadership in Nigeria transcend either north or south. It is about a group of people united in the business of exploitation, suppressing and oppressing the general population. Admittedly, the northern leadership class is less humane than its southern counterpart, evidence and consequences of bad leadership can be seen all over the country.
Where are the industries? Where are the jobs? How robust is the economy and how inclusive is the politics of the day? Then we ask further: where are the present-day political progressives like the Balarabe Musas, Lateef Jakandes, Adekunle Ajasins, Abubakar Rimis and Sam Mbakwes. You will realise that all over, you have a dearth of this kind of progressive and mass-inclined leadership. What we have all over the place today are merchants in governance. So, its not about northern or southern leaders, its about a leadership class that is united in shortchanging the people and have triggered massive underdevelopment in the entire country. When you see the misrule in the east or west, is it by the northern leaders? So, it is important to clear this anomalous position that the most guilty is the northern leader and the most benevolent is the southern leadership. They are all the same, the only difference is that the southern oppressed have a semblance of dissent but, by and large, the entire country is held under the jugular by these prebendal leaders.
If you want to know how united these leaders are, just look at how exploitative businesses are run in Nigeria and you will see that they are represented jointly on the boards of those multinational corporations that are used in the expropriation of our resources to foreign lands. When the story of how leaders of this country have raped Nigeria is told, it will become obvious that it was a united or joint operation.
The over $500billion taken out of Nigeria since independence by rapacious ruling elites and its successor points to the fact that there is no tribalism in the business of pilfering. The problem of the Hausa peasants is the same as that of the Igbo peasants and vice versa. But the poor have been made to believe that the poor across the Niger is his enemy, not knowing that the enemy of the Yoruba peasant is not the Hausa peasant but the Yoruba leadership class. Trying to profile bad leaders is out of it. The leadership class involving all tribes is complicit in the destruction that defines the geographical expression called Nigeria.
Nigeria’s educational system and the economy have nose-dived and there are security challenges in almost all parts of the country. How can the nation overcome these woes?
Education has never been given the needed priority in Nigeria despite the avalanche of so many beautiful educational policies. The leadership class understands that education is a civilising and liberating force and rather than make it available for all, they have contributed to its collapse, especially public education. The collapse of public primary and secondary education and its attendant privatisation is in itself a gross violation of the social contract. The constitution and other international and regional treaties that made education free and compulsory have always been ignored or poorly implemented. In the 2018 budget, only a paltry seven per cent was appropriated for education, which is far below the 26 per cent recommended by the United Nations. That has always been the trajectory. Nigeria is the only country where 80 per cent of its budget is used for consumption while the rest is for capital projects.
With inefficient government funding, little wonder that the entire system has collapsed and, like I said, private primary and secondary education with poor quality has mushroomed all over the place and only those with the means can afford to educate their children. The implication of this is that most Nigerians will not be able to educate their children and in the end, these uneducated children will be recruited as human resources by criminal gangs or at best end up as street urchins. A large number of out-of-school children in Nigeria today is an attestation.
This is the rot that the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) is trying to prevent from happening at the tertiary level, but is being labelled as enemies by the gluttonous leadership cabals.
The leadership class must understand that its culture of sending its children abroad to acquire education while the nation’s educational institutions decay is not only an unpatriotic act but bothers on a subversion of the integrity of our nation. They are simply passing a vote of no confidence on a system that they were elected to fix. This is the highest form of betrayal of the people and no such people have the moral authority to rule. You educate your own children and leave those of the masses ill-educated and hungry. It is an age-long political strategy used by tyrants in keeping people enslaved. The moment you are poorly educated you to lose your analytical mind and the moment you are poor, you do not understand any language other than food. The poor under this bondage is billed to remain as an underdog forever unless fortune smiles on them.
The economy is in the doldrums. This is expected of a subsistent, mono-cultural and consumptive economy. It does not have the potential to instil growth and development because it is not backed by any productive activities rather it is import-dependent. An import-dependent economy means that we grow the economy of others and create jobs for them since all we know is to consume what others produce. It is scandalous when you hear how much Nigerians spend to import food that they can grow.
That the Nigerian leadership class has refused to ignite an industrial revolution, which has the potential of massive employment of people across the educational divide, is somewhat strange. With a massive and blistering population of over 200 million people, Nigeria itself is a huge domestic market. Coupled with the population of our sub-region, the potential of our people being able to generate prosperity is huge, especially in agriculture and animal husbandry. Also, Nigeria is a foreign investment delight but insecurity, weak legal regime, harsh tax regime, irresponsible corporate governance and corruption have eroded that prospect of wealth creation and the people are the loser.
With dwindling oil revenues, an epileptic energy regime, massive corruption and theft of our commonwealth, a disgruntled and disoriented bureaucracy, an agile but underutilised workforce, a non-performing fiscal and economic institutions, a debilitating external debt portfolio coupled with a rentier brief case-clutching middle class being supervised by a clueless and ideologically fragmented political class, with wastage and a profligate lifestyle, it is a miracle if any economy can thrive for the people under such patronage system. Such is the state of our economy.
To get out of these doldrums, Nigeria needs her intellectuals more than ever so that knowledge-driven economics alongside natural resources would be ignited. This should be followed up by massive industrialisation and manufacturing.
Local entrepreneurs should be encouraged with loans from development banks rather than focusing on the so-called foreign investors who come with nothing and cause capital flights from our nation to metropolitan countries of the west. Therefore, it will take a strong political will and a sense of nationalism from the leadership corps and unflinching patriotism and loyalty by the followership to turn things around. The informal economy must also be supported by loans so that in the interim, the economy can stimulate little growth before the manifestation of the gain of the rejig formal economy.
As regards insecurity, it is axiomatic that there has always been a correlation between mass poverty and crime. The state of squalor in Nigeria is unacceptable. Idle people will soon out-populace the working class. The lack of social-economic inclusion, alienation of the vast majority from benefitting from the resources of their state and a compromised, partisan judiciary that hardly protects the poor but pampers the rich must be sincerely addressed. The absence of equity and egalitarianism is all that is needed to destroy any society and Nigeria is a great study of this decadence and backwardness.
To combat this scourge, state and community-based police should be an option and the government must also look into the possibility of allowing certain categories of civilians to carry arms so as to balance the terror of the criminals and bandits.
Ethnicity and religion have been the major factors militating against development in the country. How can Nigeria overcome the problem, considering the opportunity that would be provided in 2023 to put in place new leadership for Nigeria?
The issue of ethno-religious division in Nigeria has some linkage with the structural imbalance in the polity. This structural imbalance is the cause of mutual suspicion amongst the ruling class over power arrangements. The collapse of the First Republic was largely due to these tensions and contestation for political space then.
The military came in with the idea of unification but it didn’t work partly because they were dishonest not to accept that ethnoreligious politics had crept into the military and also because they had continued to re-orient Nigerians along this dangerous trend.
Over time, the masses have been made to believe by politicians that it is the other tribe that is frustrating their development. This became permanently etched in the consciousness of the masses. Today, the mutual suspicion of the masses among themselves has become real and no attempt is made to enhance integration. As a matter of fact, whenever there is any discourse on the “National Question”, no one talks about integration, unification or building consensus amongst the various cultures, what usually dictates the tune of such talk shop is how Igbo have been marginalised, how the Yoruba have been marginalised and how Muslims are dominating the public service and vice versa. These dangerous narratives, unknown to the poor, are a deliberate weapon to keep them in permanent alliances with their own tribes and treat others as their enemies, not knowing that the philanders of their commonwealth are their common enemies.
Unfortunately, these divisions dictate our politics and it invariably supports the emergence of mediocrities within the political space, which has occasioned bad and narrow-minded leaders. This is expected when you elect leaders based on the narrow prism of ethno-religious conditions, you will definitely have leaders that are pedestrian and provincial in their thinking.
The coming 2023 should afford Nigerians another opportunity to elect a pan-Nigeria leadership at least for the centre. In this respect, I think Atiku Abubakar is the most cosmopolitan and broad-minded of all the leading figures. Amongst the pack, he has the experience and pedigree. Whether Nigerians will eschew their stereotype by swimming against the tide so as to deconstruct ethnicity is a huge expectation for lovers of democracy and good governance.
Do you think the judiciary has played the needed role as a stabilising force for the country’s democracy, especially as Nigeria prepares for the conduct of the 2023 general elections?
Nigerian judiciary has a long history of judicial activism based on bold, courageous and far-reaching decisions. We saw this during the military rule. The judiciary is the last hope of the common man and where it promotes the end of justice, it brings law and order and if it compromises, it destroys human society since the independent judiciary is a sine qua non in protecting the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed. They are to act as checks on the excesses of the other arms of government and the society at large.
Nigeria’s judiciary, especially at the appellate level, has been consistent in checking the excesses of the political class, especially their penchant for disregarding the party constitution and their internal rules.
Politicians in Nigeria are very desperate and unruly. They impose preferred candidates as opposed to popular ones and the courts have been very proactive in nullifying such infractions.
