Nigerian Officials and Overrated Sense of Self By Abimbola Lagunju

Give any Nigerian living in Nigeria a small post and it goes into his head. He immediately invents paraphernalia of office to boost his self-image. The formerly unknown transforms himself into a star, wielding his new post as a weapon of domination and oppression of those who knew him yesterday as just one of them. He lives and breathes his new status. He changes his wardrobe and swagger. He becomes haughty and arrogant. He inserts layers of advisors, aides, security operatives between him and his environment. His phone becomes too heavy for him to carry. His eyes become glazed; he cannot see his immediate surroundings again.

This overrated sense of self is a national disease. It cuts across the whole sphere of our national life and the most afflicted of the disease are political and religious leaders. A General Overseer (GO), hero-worshipped by his congregation that has been cowed into submission by their physical, economic, social and political environments, adds a small “d” to his acronym. He becomes and plays GOd. He celebritizes himself. He is impossible to see or to speak with. Between him and the people are many aides, junior and senior pastors and security staff. They glow in their subservient roles to the GOd of Man. This is not about heaven; it is about gleaning from the celebrity status of the Big Man of the Church. Since there is no script to their roles as servants, they act as their spirit commands them.  When the GOd travels, his convoy of police escort, vintage vehicles and pastors acting as thugs is a menace to other road users. These thugs threaten violence on other road users who do not hearken to their sirens and convoy. The road must be cleared for the GOd or hell will be let loose on the transgressor in form of punches, whipping and verbal violence. My son-in-law suffered this in the hands of some servants of a local GOd a couple of years ago, on a Sunday afternoon and on a wide road, free of traffic. His offence was that he did not clear off the road in good time for their high-speed convoy to pass.

I have seen convoys of some Vice Chancellors and Chief Medical Directors of University Teaching Hospitals too. They all have the same aggressive attitude to other road users. They blow their sirens even in the night when the roads are free. This overrated sense of self has nothing to do with level of education. It is simply a primitive ego drive to impress an imaginary audience.

The most afflicted of the disease are our elected politicians and government officials. This group of human beings is probably one of the worst set of elected and public officials in the world in terms of raw display of oppressive public relations. Local government chairmen, governors, Ministers, parliamentarians at the state and federal levels, permanent secretaries, and heads of parastatals become a strange breed of slothful individuals once they get elected or appointed. Their temporary position is like curare. It weakens all their muscles. They cannot talk; they can only speak through an aide. They cannot carry their phones; another aide has to carry the phones for them. They cannot write; their pens suddenly become very heavy; aides write and tweet for them. Their bags are carried by policemen. Their shoes are cleaned in public by employees of taxpayers. They cannot carry their own umbrellas when it rains. They can no longer hold their brooms to sweep away the filth around them.

And it is sheer horror when these elected officials move from one part of the city to another or in-between cities. They disrupt the traffic. They push off other road users into gutters. They maim and kill the taxpayers with whose money they acquired those vehicles and pay themselves salaries. The scenario they play each time is reminiscent of that of a warlord with his bunch of cutthroats driving through a hostile environment.

I have often asked myself the following questions: Where is the big man rushing to? Who decides the size of the convoy? Why does an elected official have such a phobia of the people that employed him that he has to scare them off the road? Is the elected official sleeping while he is being driven at this senseless speed? Who is he trying to impress? Under which rules does this madness operate? I have no answers to these questions. There is no logical reasoning to justify this strange behavior of our officials.

Official visits of these elected and their unelected spouses to some other parts of the country are nightmares to the hosts. The official visit paralyses the city. It stops all economic activities and taxpayers who depend on their daily earnings for feeding their families go to bed hungry for the duration of the visit. A bad reminder of a raw display of an overrated sense of self was the visit of Patience Jonathan to Lagos a couple of years ago. Patience paralyzed a city of over eighteen million people to fuel her ego. People complained, but our elected officers have not changed their ways.

Just yesterday, 15^th December, Punch Newspaper under the headline,”How Buhari shut down N’Assembly for 2017 budget” reported that “Administrative and commercial activities were paralysed at the National Assembly Complex Abuja on Wednesday when President Muhammadu Buhari visited the complex to present the 2017 Appropriation Bill…” Why should the visit of the President paralyze other peoples’ legitimate routines? Is the President aware of what is going on around him? Does he realize that his aides are alienating him from everyone? In which constitution is it written that economic activities of taxpayers must stop when the President is visiting a neighborhood? Who is behind these ruthless rules? What are they trying to prove?

I do remember that President Buhari, on coming to power, said he would not be worshipping at the Abuja Central Mosque because he did not want to disturb Friday traffic and bring hardship to road users. That was the President people knew and elected. A considerate person. What has changed?

Nigeria has this uncanny ability to transform the simplest or most insignificant activity or intention into its most horrific, nightmarish and unimaginable form. The idea of ferocious security and multiple aides apparently originated from the military era. The military structure probably demands this. Nigerian elected civilians and government officials, have not only kept this military tradition, but have also transformed it into its most hideous version. And in order not to be left behind, church leaders, heads of government and private corporations, bankers and many other self-imagined VIPs have followed suit.

Whatever reasons they may have, this behavior is far from civilized. It gives the wrong impression of desirable public conduct to young Nigerians’ impressionable minds.

It is not only school children that need lessons in Civic Education…

Nigeria – Land of Wastage By Abimbola Lagunju

Nigeria wastes everything it touches. Wastage is an ideological, political, governance and existential philosophy in our country.

Nigeria wastes lives. See the statistics of infant and underfive mortality rates, pregnancy related deaths, youth and adult death figures. Ill-equipped health facilities, armed bandits, insurgents, bad roads, bad water and security forces take their turns to waste lives. Reading about violent and untimely deaths in the newspapers is a daily menu – building collapses on people, some gun others down, someone throws or detonates a bomb, a tanker spills it fuels and roasts other road users, a mad bus driver somersaults on the road, hospital mismanages a patient  and many other woes that bring life to an end. Lives are wasted at enormous rates in Nigeria. Life almost has zero value. No one cares.

Nigeria wastes its natural resources. No one seems to know exactly how much oil comes out of Nigeria on a daily basis. Whatever revenue is earned is wasted. Gas is flared. Oil is spilled when not stolen. Sea-life, which many countries depend upon, not only for food, but also for income is wasted. Low-grade and formalin-loaded fish is then imported for public consumption. We have no idea of the number of trees felled a day in this country. Our rivers are polluted. Soil erosion is considered normal.

This country wastes even God-given oxygen. No one controls dangerous emissions by factories. Those who live in the neighborhood of cement factories across Nigeria breathe any other thing but oxygen. No one cares. Dust from untarred roads, plied by smoking vehicles of forgotten dates of manufacture, convoyed by numberless motorcycles has relegated oxygen in the cities to history books. No one seems to know what it means to breathe unpolluted air.

Nigeria wastes its own infrastructure. All major infrastructure either built by the States or the Federal Government invariably get stuck before they reach service level. Then they lay waste. Steel companies get built half-way and then get sold off to cannibals, who strip them to the bones. Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world, where telephony has been reduced to a nuisance of dangling wires and broken poles. Nitel was wasted. I was dismayed during a recent visit to Warri to learn that the multi-million dollar infrastructure that Shell Company built in Warri has been abandoned to all types of reptiles after the company pulled out. A monumental waste.

Justice is wasted in Nigeria. Justice is bartered and sold. It has been let out of court rooms and it wanders in the market place, where criminals and the guardians of justice hag over its price. It is handcuffed to the tree of perpetual injunctions and interminable adjournments where it wastes away. Justice is as much a victim as other victims of injustice. In addition to genocide crimes, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the ICC should consider introducing Crime Against Justice in its books.

Nigeria wastes hope. Hope that things will be better in the future is no longer a dream. No one has such dreams any longer. And that is why some hold on tightly to the past. They romanticize the days when it appeared there was hope. Very few people, if any at all believe in the future of Nigeria or the competence of governance. Elections have been reduced to a change of batons between the devil and the Red Sea. Either way, one loses. And that is why many sell their votes for anything tangible during elections. They prefer cash to nebulous campaign promises. Hope is bartered and then slaughtered. The buyers of votes are the murderers of hope. The sellers of hope are their unwary accomplices. Done away with earthly hope of a functional society, the sellers of hope flock to religious houses, hoping for a miraculous way to keep their heads above water in a hopeless society. Their religious leaders, who are in cohorts with the murderers of hope, oblige them. They hook them on heavenly hope and empty their pockets. They take back the sellers’ earnings from the sale of their earthly hope.

Nigeria wastes brains. Parents train their children in universities, polytechnics and technical schools and put them at the disposal of the country. Nigeria ignores the huge potential in these graduates. These smart graduates then export themselves legally or illegally to Europe, the United States and other parts of the world to practice their trade. There in these countries, some of these bright people rise to great heights and we read of them in the newspapers.  However, for every successful one, there are many other Nigerian professionals wasting away doing menial jobs. Nigeria is not bothered. The country is satisfied with the waste. Does the Nigerian government know how many doctors, engineers and other professional we have in other countries?

A Premium Times report of 12^th December, 2016 says, “President Muhammadu Buhari has frowned at the high rate of illegal migration of Nigerian youths to European countries through the Mediterranean Sea. The president, who was represented by Audu Ogbeh, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, called for an immediate stop to the action by Nigerians, saying it was unfair to European countries”. Unfair to European countries!?! No Sir! It is unfair to Nigeria, Mr. President. That is brain and muscle waste at its worst! The report further states that “an average of 83 Nigerians crossed illegally from Nigeria to Europe, daily, via the Mediterranean in the first nine months of 2016” and this number does not include those who lost their lives in the crossing. Colossal waste, Mr. President.

Locally here, we read of young people who can refine crude oil in their backyards; we read of people who can make guns; we read of people who can manufacture all sorts of useful implements. What does Nigeria do? They arrest them. They put them in jail till their creativity dies off under bad prison conditions. They waste them in detention. No one bothers to see how these smart and creative people can be put to use for common good. Nigeria prefers to buy guns from Pakistan and other countries that are not in any way better than us. Nigeria prefers to import refined fuel and other finished products.

The leaders of Nigeria wastes goodwill of the citizens. This is our lot. The tale of wastage of goodwill is a long one. Obasanjo came and frittered away all the goodwill he had with an illegal third-term ambition. Goodluck Jonathan, who claimed he didn’t have shoes when he was going to school, emotionalized everyone, including those who did not have shoes as adults to win the election. He was given a goodwill capital which he squandered in no time. He surrounded himself with people who were in brain-rest mode and who didn’t care about wastage. History has made its statement.

Mr. President, I did not sell my hope during the elections that brought you into power. I still have hope and still believe in you. Stop the wastage, Mr. President.

I am probably wasting ink writing all this too….

Mr. Muhammadu Buhari as the Hero of Aisha’s BBC Interview By Abimbola Lagunju

Aisha Buhari’s BBC Hausa Service interview is generating a lot of excitement in the polity. For some, her responses represent political opportunities to either self-glorify as prophets or to condemn the president for his political choices. For others the interview looks like a betrayal of a husband by his wife. And for the misogynists of all shades, the interview represents an abomination. However, irrespective of the judgment made of the interview, the freedom and frankness with which Mrs. Buhari fielded the questions surprised everyone as they do not match our mental representation of the President.

Our president cuts the image of a no-nonsense head of a household. His carriage and demeanor portend an aristocratic Fulani rooted in the firm tradition of patriarchy. His stern mien conveys the impression that his words carry more weight than his tall lanky frame. His background as a General in the army gives the impression that his is to give orders and for the others to execute without questions within and outside his family compound. Put together, all these characteristics show a person to whom dialogue within the household is an anathema. This is probably the impression that our president gives to many people inside and outside Nigeria.

But Aisha Buhari, his wife of almost three decades has, through her bare-all interview with the BBC, shown that we all have a wrong impression of our president as a family man and probably as a politician. Her responses demonstrated that Mr. Buhari is a liberal man who sees himself as an equal partner in a family relationship. Who would know him better?

The open-mindedness and the frankness of Aisha’s responses to BBC’s questions could not have been on the spur of the moment. Clearly, if Mr. Buhari had been a fierce household dictator, Aisha would have learnt over the years to rein in her independent thoughts. Women that live with dictatorial husbands will not dare bare their minds about the politics or the behaviour of their husbands in public. At least not in Nigeria. This interview gives an insight into Buhari’s household where, it appears, independent opinions and the freedom to express them are allowed. Mrs. Buhari has shown the world the humane and women’s rights-oriented face of her husband.

And the President’s responses confirm this suspicion. If he was surprised that his wife gave the interview, he did not show it and did not excoriate her. There are many ill-omened responses that the President could have given. A typical Nigerian man could have ominously said, “This is a family matter. I will deal with the situation when I get back home..”  But the President simply said, “my wife belongs to the kitchen, living room and the other room..”  A smart answer by all standards to massage the misogynistic ego of obsessed testosterone-driven Nigerians who would have taken him to the washers. He did not promise to clobber his wife as many would have done. How many Nigerian men hit their wives everyday for insignificant things? And he is being criticized for his response to Aisha’s interview by women’s rights groups!

Mallam Garba Shehu, his spokesperson, when first confronted by those that apparently took offence at the President’s response to his wife’s interview said, on twitter, “Mr. President respects the place of women in our society. He believes in the abilities of women.” This is logically true, given the freedom and honesty with which Aisha answered the interview questions posed. Under further pressure, Mallam Garba Shehu sought to further explain the President’s response by saying, “He was obviously throwing a banter….. My friends, can't a leader get a sense humour anymore? Mr. President laughed before that statement was made…” This shows that the President did not get worked up because his wife expressed her independent opinion on the situation of things in Nigeria.

It is my opinion that the President on his return back to Nigeria from his trip will not make a big deal out of his wife’s interview. He is not cut out for that. He will, probably over tea with his wife discuss the merits and the demerits of the interview and move on. Hopefully he will act on some of her concerns, and if he does not, it will not break up his family.

The true hero of this interview is not Aisha Buhari. She did not tell us many things that we did not know. And harping on what she said during the interview is immaterial and puerile politics. The true hero is the President who, in aberration of his social and religious environment as well as his military career proclivities has shown that the issue of the Rights of women is not just a political discourse but a way of life to be practiced both in private and the public. This is an opportunity for campaigners for Women’s Rights to leap in the other direction. It is the moment to celebrate the anti-thesis of their thoughts and representation of the President.

The import of this event should be seen vis-à-vis the gender equality bill in the parliament. There have been reports of some religious leaders warning against the passage of the bill for religious reasons. Mr. Buhari has, by the freedom of expression of independent opinion demonstrated by his wife shown on which side of the debate he stands.

I give Mr. Buhari all my respects as a head of a household ….I have been wondering what would be my reaction if my wife were to grant an interview to a news outlet in a way that expresses her independent thoughts and which directly or indirectly puts me on the spot…..Ask yourself this question.

Nigeria: When Facts Don’t Prove the Hypothesis, Change the Hypothesis, not the Facts By Abimbola Lagunju

There are many things profoundly wrong with our country. The hypothetical political, economic and existential frameworks on which the country is built do not fit the facts of our life as a nation. We have borrowed theories that are inherently faulty from source and have imposed them on ourselves as our desired metrics of governance and self-management. Borrowed theories cannot be twisted to produce a national vision. A vision of a nation can only be rooted in grassroots aspirations of the people and cannot be built on poorly-understood imported theories and frameworks. It’s not a surprise that successive leaderships of Nigeria have not been able to define the Nigeria-project and if there is a national vision, then I have not heard of it. What we have had and we have from different regimes and administrations that have ruled this country are ill-defined and unsustainable short-term objectives that get truncated either by coups or by elections. Nigeria is not only home to countless abandoned projects, but it is also the haven of abandoned dreams.

The theoretical framework of Nigerian politics is based on democracy and the rule of law. Democracy, a system inherently divisive, is the political choice in a country where the national substructure sits on an unstable tectonic plate. In an environment where abject poverty is not sufficient to seal the many faultlines that define our existence and instigate a common and popular demand from Katsina to Calabar, any talk of ideological alignments required by democracy is futile and the political parties in Nigeria have abandoned any pretensions at any ideology. On what leg then can democracy stand on the several faultlines of this nation if poverty, a common social enemy is not a decider of electoral outcomes?

The Nigerian democracy is premised on the fact that franchise can be bartered and purchased, and when the holder is unwilling, he must be discounted and ultimately discountenanced. The financial power to purchase people’s franchise is the new ideology.  It is a commercial transaction where the buyer completely dispossesses the seller of not only his electoral right, but also, of all his rights as a citizen and as a human being. It is a political ideology founded on a permanent disconnect between rights-holders and the political duty bearers as soon as the transaction is consummated. Thus, politicians need to amass wealth irrespective of the legality of the process and from any source in order to be taken as a serious contender for any political post.  The bottom-line is that the legitimate aspirations of the people do not count and indeed must be discounted in order for the Nigerian version of democracy to function. In the Nigerian system, the two arms of governments inhabited by politicians – the presidency and the legislature are products of any other system but democracy.

National institutions which are supposed to promote and protect democracy vis-à-vis the aberrant political system have been reduced to a case of ownership issue. Who owns the institutions? In the mindset of the Nigerian politician, all the institutions of the state belong to the political class. The people neither know nor understand who the legitimate owner is. The managers of these institutions, unsure of themselves, have yielded the control and ownership of the state institutions to the political class. Under this setting, the police heed the biddings of politicians, the central bank opens its vaults to prying fingers, the judiciary sells judgments, the civil service warps its mission, etc. Nothing works…. Nothing, because the superstructure of democracy does not fit and cannot stand on the defective substructure of this nation.

Can the rule of law bring some sanity into the warped political system? The rule of law has become a weapon in the hands of the political class to fight each other. When the existent rules are insufficient for their purposes, they rewrite or invent new ones to fit their immediate desires. In many cases the rules are completely forgotten.  The wigs and gowns, all guided and inspired by the large amounts of money to be legitimately or otherwise made, go into a frenzy of interpretations and misinterpretations. The recent arrests of senior judges in Nigeria and the disclosure of their illicit cash accumulations are an indication that the guardians and the final arbiters of the rule of law are unreliable.

The multiple criticisms visited upon the different aspects of our political and economic life presume the workability of the hypothetical frameworks on which the Nigerian political system is built. However, this is not the case. Attacking symptoms does not cure a disease. The criticisms may highlight the rot, but do not put the disease under spotlight. The blatant indifference of the Nigeria political class to scandals that would have sent even the most hardened criminal politician under cover in western countries is a sign that questions have to be asked about the adoption of this political framework.

How low will Nigeria descend before our intellectuals stop mutilating facts to fit the imported political and economic hypothetical frameworks? We must understand that when facts don’t fit a hypothesis, it is time to change the hypothesis. When will we honestly sit down to work out autochthonous systems that will serve our aspirations and build superstructures on this defective substructure? It will be a failure of imagination and intellectual laziness to resign ourselves to this system that has created monsters of politicians. It is not everything that glitters in other climes that can be gold on our shores.

When eventually the process of working out the appropriate political system with inbuilt accountability measures is engaged, it will be a great mistake to involve this present political class, the progenitors and beneficiaries of chaos in the process.