CONTINUED FROM FRIDAY 29/01/2016

Apart from oil, Nigeria is blessed with major crops like cocoa, groundnuts, maize, millet, beans, palm oil, rubber, yams, kolanut, cassava, rice etc. This is also apart from solid minerals (gold, tin, coal, iron ore, limestone, zinc, bitumen etc.)

Even though we have a rapidly expanding population, if we have disciplined ourselves and utilize our God-given human, material and natural resources very properly and reasonably, we should not be where we are today.

I believe that possibly our biggest problem is, contrary to widespread belief, not corruption but corruption is just a symptom of that syndrome which is that of the perversion of values and the prodigal son syndrome. Corruption is just a symptom of that syndrome.

My late friend and brother, Ambassador Isaac Aluko Olokun had always argued about what he called the “Black Chromosomes phenomenon,” that is, there was something, maybe a strategic misconstruction in the black man’s chromosomes that naturally predisposes him to always manage to snatch defeat from victory. While I had always reasoned that the fault was in us and not in our stars, the economist and diplomat had always disagreed, even illustrating with the disappointment of the black man in America or the aborigines of Australia or the Hottentots of South Africa. I personally believe that man is the architect of his own destiny – the master of his own fortune. Depending on your perspective in life, a jar is either half full or half empty.

Having said all the above, it is my irrevocable position that Nigeria and through us, the black man, has no reason to be where we are today. Absolutely none.

The new sheriff in Abuja

Unfortunately, it does seem to me that the present administration with all its great promises and public support needs to be more properly seized of the challenges of propelling Nigeria out of our present social, political, economic, moral and geo-political dilemma and embarrassment. This is not just a pity – but indeed a great danger. It is a danger in that Nigeria has one of the largest youth populations in the world and a population that is growing exponentially because there is no socio-economically articulate population policy. Also, although I do not have the statistics, Nigeria must have one of the highest per capita of unemployed graduates in the world today. Someone said that there are 22 million unemployed graduates in all – in Nigeria from our 65 universities. It is projected that by 2050, that is, in 34 years, Nigeria’s population would be around 600 million, making us one of the three most populous countries in the world. Are we planning ahead of this? If so, how?

Some 10-15 years ago, the British calculated that between 2012-2020, China could emerge the biggest economic power, if not both the biggest economic and military power in the world. Therefore, having sent teachers to China to learn the Chinese language, they began to teach Mandarin Chinese language in their secondary schools. Britain is today one of the biggest traders with China and with enormous economic and financial benefits to Britain.

Now, truly China is the largest economy in the world and is furiously racing to become the largest military power. What are we doing? We are busy still buck passing, beating about the bush without a clearly defined socio-political and economic goal to which the whole country would be mobilised. We are still busy like Don Quizote tugging at windmills and celebrating inanities.

If Nigeria’s population explodes with the country producing tens of millions of disillusioned and frustrated young men and women, there is a danger that Nigeria and Nigerians could become an international source of concern if not a liability as to warrant the current debate that I understand is going on in the secrecy of Euro-American intelligence circles that in order to ensure international social peace and stability, the question of a forcible “re-colonisation” or a UN forcible take-over of the management of Nigeria far-fetched as it would seem now, could not be ruled out. Does Donald Trump know what we do not know? Can we imagine what 100 million disillusioned Nigerians scattered all over the world in 20 years’ time can constitute as a global problem? If we are to prevent that, we have to start now.

Right now, in many countries of the world, the body language of their governments is that Nigerians are not particularly welcome – not in even in good old Britain, Nigerians’ second home and which a lot of people in Nigeria blame for our present woes. The British would not even allow convicted Nigerians to serve prison terms on that island because the Nigerian convicts were training British white convicts, secrets and technologies they did not know. I hear a lot of Nigerians now go to Ghana, Sierra Leone or Gambia to obtain the passports of those countries in order to be able to get into Britain, U.S or Canada and settle there.

Isn’t it a national disgrace and embarrassment and doesn’t it speak volumes about the disillusionment that a lot of our youths especially in the 18-25 age group have about their country that many would rather take a chance to take the boat-of-death trip from Syria to Italy rather than remain in Nigeria living a life without hope? Nobody is taking them to slavery. They are volunteer slaves.

The reality of our national socio-political situation is that whoever is in charge of Nigeria must understand that he is riding the back of a drunken horse. It requires consummate dexterity to be able to ride it without broken bones or any personal injury.

For a start, we have, as a nation, to stop living in denial. How many of our states are viable? I understand that almost all the states that took “bailout” loans to pay outstanding salaries and consequently 419ed Buhari are back in Abuja again looking for another “bail out” without paying the earlier one. You don’t need to be a graduate of the London or Lagos Business School to know that you don’t borrow money to pay for Recurrent Expenditure.

If most of our 36 Nigerian states had been private companies, they would have long been in receivership with possibly an executive director of FirstBank or Zenith or Access Bank as their “Executive Governor.”

How many of our 36 states are economically viable or were just creations to massage the egos of prominent citizens. Only recently, I read a newspaper report of Ex-Minister, Dan Etete’s lamentations of how much he lobbied and mobilised before Bayelsa State was created. One can say this for several of the states. Thank God the chicken is now coming home to roost. There is no running away from the fact that Nigeria’s 36-state structure is economically irrational and unsustainable. You can drive as much as you like northwards from Abuja, no matter how perfect your vehicle is, you will never get to Badagry. That is what every president has been doing because they do not want to either offend some of Nigeria’s political barracudas or because they just fancy that there is nothing more beautiful on your business card than the title – Former president of Nigeria. Indeed, one or two of them have turned it into a full-time profession. What do you do for a living? Oh! I am a former President of Nigeria.”

In any case, in the spirit of New Year prophecies, may I prophesy that just like hunger will force a lazy man to find a job, dire economic realities will force Nigeria to rationalise its 36 states to an economically manageable six.

Since condemning Ebele Jonathan has been turned into an industry, President Buhari could implement those critical resolutions of the Jonathan Constituent Assembly on redrawing the political map of Nigeria, which is a good thing and when the Nigerian barracudas come after him, he should point them the way to Yenagoa.

The 36 states structure is just not politically viable – but who will bell the cat? We would rather continue to live the lie and expect a miracle. How many of our political rapists currently violating fatherless and motherless Nigeria have either heard of the book – Why nations fail, Let alone read it. How many of them have read The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire? I know that many of them have done a lot of photo-ops with the book -From Third World to First World by Lee Kwan Yew, but they have desperately avoided opening the book or looking at the contents’ page. But they like taking pictures pretending to read the book. They should read what he had to say about Nigeria in that book.

Anyway, since many of them are good students of the bible, they have taken seriously the Lord’s counsel that “broad is the way to perdition and narrow is the gate to heaven and there be few that find it.” So they have chosen many times to enter their chambers through the narrow road by climbing through the windows – and that is not just when they wanted to vote against MulikatuAkande or Femi Gbajabiamila.

There is no way we are going to make progress without facing up to the workability and the sustainability of our present 36 states structure – with its attendant consequences for whoever would dare question it. Who will bell the cat? That is why there is a role looking for an actor. Really there is a role waiting for an actor. Nigeria is spending 80 per cent of the revenues belonging to 170m people on less than 10 million employees of 36 states!

Why did Rear Admiral Aikhomu die in India? Why did Okhai Akhigbe die in India? Why did Chief Wole Adeosun die in India? Why did Maryam Babangida die in America? Why did ex-Guiness MD Dr. Abel Ubeku die in Dubai? Why did Ex-Gov. Godswill Akpabio abandon his multi-billion naira “state of the art” hospital in Uyo to rush to London when he had a mere auto accident in Abuja? Why was Nigeria’s national pride so horribly compromised when Umaru Yar’Adua was been ferried from one German hospital to a Saudi hospice? Where is our pride as the “Giant of Africa?” Why did IBB had to take to Germany for his radiculopathy?

Has anybody caught Baba Iyabo during his medicals at any Nigerian hospital? Mama Yenagoa – Patience Ebele gave a testimony of how she “died” in a German hospital but it was the spirit of Lazarus that was in her that brought her back to life. What is Diezani currently doing in a London hospital? Someone said that the N12 billion that she allegedly spent on aircraft charter would have built 10 of the present hospital where she is currently located. There is a role looking for an actor.