Random reflections

In this week of World-Water-Day it is appropriate to empathise with the administrators of Queens College in Lagos over the recent incident of contaminated water, which has resulted in deaths. Very sad; our hearts go out to the affected parents. Hopefully, the administrators of the school will make public the results of their investigation of the unfortunate incident, to avert a reoccurrence of such needless loss of young lives in our academic institutions. Hopefully also, the Queens College incident will spur the three tiers of governments of the country to make potable water accessible to all Nigerians, no matter where domiciled. It’s unacceptable that Nigeria, literally submerged in water, has yet to take potable water as a given for her citizenry. This dovetails into the theme of this piece.

This segment of Random Reflections focuses on making the point that when social puzzles become seemingly intractable, it is because, as often as not, their answers are subsumed in the puzzles. Nigeria’s lingering national challenges provide an ample basis to prove this maxim. In discussing these challenges, we are going to proceed from the sublime to the not so sublime, winding up with the comical.

The fate of the national currency, the naira, and how to shore up its falling value has been in public discourse since the 1980s. Prior to that falling trajectory, Nigeria was a net exporter of agricultural produce with a national currency that had parity with convertible currencies. With a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) twice the size of China’s, Nigeria had, in 1960, assumed the status of a leading agrarian-economy. Approximately 70% of her over nine hundred thousand square kilometres of landmass had been certified arable; with the Atlantic Ocean feeding two of her major rivers (Niger and Benue), which run symmetrically through the country’s landscape, Nigeria was generally looked upon as a continental agrarian giant. Countries from far and near flocked Nigeria for tutelage on agriculture. Some of those beneficiaries have since become major global exporters of agricultural produce. But the benefactor failed to live up to the universal projections of her potential.

What went so terribly wrong? This is a question that should preoccupy Nigeria’s leadership class. Of course the answer is not far to seek: the advent of easy petro-dollar and Federal Government’s greed in centralising regional revenues caused the regions, and later the states to “take their eyes off the ball.” So it is acutely offensive to hear ranking government officials remark that “Nigeria has the potential to feed herself.” Has potential to feed herself? What insult! Nigeria feeds herself. (There is no community in Nigeria that cannot feed itself, even in these lean times). Nigeria has the potential to feed Africa; that should be the conversation. The foundation of the nation was built on agriculture; Nigeria’s greatness is therefore inextricably bound up with agriculture – look to her green-white-green flag. That was as likely the message the Heavens were trying to relay in the acronym, NIARA: Nigeria Is Africa’s Richest Agrarian-economy. But as with everything that comes into the Nigerian space, the original message was corrupted to NAIRA!!! Consequently, Nigeria lost the envisioned paradise.

The resounding nay votes rejecting Ibrahim Magu’s second nomination as substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), winked a hint why the upper arm of the National Assembly is referred to as the Red Chamber. Therein is where many a “watershed” aspiration is brutally put to the knife. The second nay votes on nominee Magu were reminiscent of protest screams of secondary school students stridently rejecting an overbearing school-master; perhaps the reason the distinguished voters yelled well above their breath was because they intended the reverberations of the nay votes to carry to the adamant nominee(s) in nearby Aso Rock.

Ordinarily, I do not care to watch Senate screening sessions, but Acting Chairman Magu’s circumstances were compelling. During the screening the nominee came across as a seasoned thief-catcher, more in the mould of the principal character in Peter Wright’s SPYCATCER. But that perceived singular attribute proved to the nominees’ Achilles heel in the end. Though Magu couldn’t pass as anyone’s idea of an eloquent advocate, that shortcoming however couldn’t have contributed to his rejection. For me, he clearly didn’t make the mark for the following reasons: the acting chief accounting officer couldn’t tell Nigerians how much the EFCC has recovered under his watch, yet he flaunted his accountancy degree during the screening session, of which he had had ample time to prepare. He had been completely at sea that some members of staff of his commission are in the police custody, undergoing criminal investigations. Also, the nominee couldn’t satisfactorily explain the circumstances surrendering the death of a suspect in the EFCC custody. When the question of EFCC notorious contempt for court orders was put to the acting chairman, he, most ill-advisedly, stated that he could tell from interrogations that some suspects need to be kept in custody in spite of court orders!!! Need I state that those who routinely flout the law are deemed to have automatically striped themselves of the moral authority to enforce it.

Notwithstanding the Department of Secret Services’ (DSS) unfavourable reports on Ibrahim Magu, I am persuaded that all objective Nigerians would agree the nominee’s evident lack of firm grasp of both administrative and accounting details disqualified him for such exalted national office as chairman of the EFCC. But interestingly, the resounding echoes from the Red Chamber had barely died out when a number of highly placed Nigerians spoke disapprovingly of Magu’s second rejection. The Senate had based its verdict on a questionable report by the DSS, said the dissenting voices. The president is, therefore, at liberty to re-nominate Ibrahim Magu as many times as he pleases. They insist the president could even have the acting chairman remain in the “acting mode” for the rest of his electoral mandate(!) This is the reason we suggested earlier that there might be more than one nominee in Aso Rock. Aisha, wife of the president; Senate President Saraki; and few other knowing persons had openly stated that Buhari’s presidency has been hijacked by some persons. This had become evident even as far back as when Buhari was president-elect. So, to those still wondering at Ibrahim Magu’s re-nomination, and possible re-nominations, we say the answer resides in the puzzle.

Now to the comical; the unfurling drama in self-same Red Chamber of the National Assembly respecting a directive to Hameed Ali, a retired middle-ranking army officer, and the present Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs and Excise. The CG has so far refused to appear before the Senate plenary in uniform as directed, and the drama persists even as I write these lines. The unfolding scenario is more instructive than it is comical. Why make heavy weather over donning a particular uniform, more so when such a one comes from a uniform tradition? “Ego” seems the readiest answer. There is a sense in which it could be said that the Nigerian “big man” believes laws are meant to be obeyed only by the ordinary people. Manifestations of this disdain are flung in our faces every where, every day. The Nigerian “big man” habitually runs traffic lights with his convoy; the Nigerian “big man” jumps queues with impudence; the Nigerian “big man” does not pay commensurate taxes to his earnings; the Nigerian “big man” shortchanges the ordinary citizens in business transactions; the Nigerian “big man” compromises law enforcement officials for selfish reasons; and the list goes on ad nauseam.

Hameed Ali’s apparent contempt for constituted authority reflects the mentality of a section of the Nigerian society. Recall that during the Justice Oputa-led Truth and Reconciliation Panel sittings, early in the Fourth Republic, the three former heads of state (Buhari, Babangida, and Abdulsalami) who were respectively invited to appear before it, disdainfully refused to honour those invitations. The retired lieutenant colonel is merely taking a queue from the generals. Always, the answers that elude us the most are within reach; all we need is the courage to directly confront our daunting challenges…

Nkemdiche is a consulting engineer based in Abuja