As a child growing up in the early exhilarating days of
post-independent Nigeria when the grass
was greener on the other side, I remember with nostalgia the serene atmosphere
and tranquil cadence that permeated the nation. This is a bitter-sweet random musing of a nation that once
floated on the wings of tranquility,
sometimes a humdrum and routine tranquility that was intermittently punctuated
by the military’s unconstitutional incursion into Dodan Barracks politics. They
did it with a certain defiant bravado and shameless masculinity that was out of
sync with the refined nobility of
the profession . In spite of their dance
of shame on the national scene, we could still hold our flag high and stand
with pride in The United Nations with a sense of intoxicating patriotism
and increasing popularity on the global
stage as the giant of Africa, an identity we wore with continental
respectability and responsibility. It was an awesome socio-political and
diplomatic identity that reflected our emerging international clout which
hitherto was beyond the far reaches of Africa.
Patriots who were at
the forefront of the fight for self
sovereignty mounted the platform of national service and worked to the bone
with zealous patriotism to move the country forward in every facet of national development. The civil service
functioned almost with clock wise precision in terms of observance of due
process, work ethics, integrity and discipline which were showcased in and
outside of the work environment. Civil servants understood the meaning of the
word contentment, not as a nomenclature, but as a code of moral conduct.
Corruption was an unpopular means to wealth acquisition, a dreaded cobra that
civil servants and other patriots who
had the fear of God and a sense of integrity were reluctant to fraternize with
or embrace, even when it was within touching distance and proximity. We had a
transparent public process that functioned, sometimes with moribund intensity.
Accountability was a cloak that Nigerians wore with pride in public and in the
privacy of their homes. Walking down memory lane, the Nigeria of my youthful
days was a near- ideal, utopian
situation. Today, it is a different ball game, a medley of woes, a frustrating anguish tinged with bleak
expectations.
Back in those days, infrastructures were put in place by the
government with feverish passion, in a
hurried pace to transform the country into the Mecca of Africa and trail along
with the developed western nations of the world. Today, many years afterward,
these decayed public utilities are in complete state of negligence because of the
dearth of proper maintenance culture.
Education, free at
the basic levels, was a common place occurrence in many states, especially
in the southern states. Scores of Nigerians of the 70’s and 80’s generation
were sent to Russia, Great Britain and America
as beneficiaries of government scholarship programmes. They left in
drove to pursue productive education
that would help to strengthen and fortify key sectors of our national
development in oil and gas, education and technology, and the revitalization of
the agro-allied industry. Today, incessant industrial actions between the
government and stake holders in the sector over working conditions and
emolument concerns have become the order of the day. Annual and
massive failure recorded in the score sheets of WAEC and NECO exams are
painful reminders of the declining standard of education in our country today.
Only the private universities have semblance of academic excellence. Isn’t it a
colossal national shame that no Nigerian university made it to the list of the
top one hundred universities in the world according to a global educational
statistics released this year? Education is an empowering resource because a
man who knows how to read but does not read is also an illiterate like the man
who cannot read.
Operation feed the
nation was a popular catchphrase when agriculture was the power house of our
economy. I remember the groundnut
pyramids that featured conspicuously in the city of Kano and in my integrated science textbooks. The coal
industry in the east and the cocoa farms in the western states were also given
prominence in the school curriculum as part of our natural heritage. Way back
then, the Naira was as strong as the US
dollar. For instance, a wealthy man in
the Nigerian currency and scheme of things was equally wealthy on the same financial pedestal as his
American or British counterpart. Food items and other essential necessities
that greased the wheel of life were not in short supply, probably because of
the ubiquitous and strict price and quality control mechanism enforced by the
military government. This policy ensured
that the law of demand and supply were properly regulated to impede market
wolves and shylock providers of goods and services from taking undue advantage
of the consuming populace. It was a time
when the made in china terminology was
unheard of, a marked departure from
contemporary times when our streets are saturated with inferior foreign goods and services from
the oriental world. The patriotic gospel of integrity and contentment was also
been preached in the market place with remarkable success.
Except for the occasional “fellow Nigerians” military anthem
on the dawn of every new Dodan Barracks
change of guard and occupants, the country enjoyed relative peace, if
you discount the occasional Aninies and hard-boiled criminal elements who
provided moonlight entertainment to Nigerians with the Bar beach show. The
Nigeria of my youth was a time when a three- bedroom apartment could be
obtained from a landlord for as low as seven thousand Naira on a yearly
tenement rent fee. You could sleep in such apartments with your eyes wide
opened or closed without the fear
of a
Boko Haram onslaught.
Today, the bubble has burst. Our national economy is
crumbling and hemorrhaging to a halt
because of the incessant power outage
that has spread blankets of darkness and
gloom on our economic climate. What are the stakeholders in the power sector
doing to turn the tide while the country suffers huge losses in unquantifiable
terms? I have read many reassuring messages of hope on the wall of the
president’s face book about improved
power supply. These were was statements
full of facts, figures and statics, yet
the way I see it, they amount to nothing short of rabble-rousing rhetorisc. Proactive action is
what is desperately needed at this point in time to address the many-sided
challenges confronting the country. What we need is an egalitarian society
running on the wheels of proactive governance imbued with transparency, accountability,
commitment and discipline. The dismal
energy situation is what led to the mass exodus of numerous manufacturing
companies that provided the solid foundation for our petro-dollar driven
economy to neighbouring countries . It is high time the government gave the
idea of privatizing the power sector a serious thought. If this works out, the
government can work within the parameter of providing the ancillary role of an
umpire as the sole monitoring and
regulating agency of the pricing mechanism, while keeping an eye on the
equitable generation, distribution and availability of the product to all
end-users.
The sorry security situation in many parts of the country has cast a shadow
of blight on GEJ’s performance ratio
and service-delivery potentials. The Boko Haram menace is a case in point. In
some quarters across the political spectrum, the idea is being floated that
GEJ’s detractors are furiously at work to throw the spanner into the works in
their bid to make Nigeria ungovernable for him. This baseless postulation is
far from the truth. It is sad to observe that GEJ is yet to show the right
political will that can engender the dividends of democracy. His government,
from all intent and purposes, looks like the flip side of the late Yaradua administration,
a government marked by a go-slow approach and
locomotive pace to crucial national issues that won’t go way from the
front burner. Nigerians were bone-shocked when the Independence Day, a hallowed
day by all account because of it’s cultural and political significance, was
held like a picnic in Aso Rock because of the fear of Boko Haram! This is
evidently a red flag for our prospective
foreign investors! The message, as subliminal as it was, is that even the
president cannot guarantee the lives of Nigerians except it is within the
confines of Aso Rock! This is the right time for professional on-the-job
orientation and retraining for our national security forces in the art
of public security maintenance in order to curb the flames of terrorism ignited
by the Boko Haram and other dissident groups in the country.
This is also the time to make a clarion call and push for a
sovereign national conference to discuss and explore the possibility of the entrenchment of true federalism which will lead to the devolution of power
from the central government in Abuja. True federalism would strengthen the
economic growth of each federating unit while creating an enabling climate for
constructive self-expression, stable security, even social security and the principle
of social welfarism.
These are shallow
expectations because of the political realities on the ground! The corridor of
power is filled with the dearth of integrity, discipline and selfless service.
The seat of power is driven by men and women infused with tendencies and
proclivities for sporadic kleptomania.
Some of them are men and women governed by the creed of greed and
eccentric egocentrism. This is still the prevailing scenario in
contemporary Nigeria, a country struggling with a cornucopia of identity crisis
and institutionalized corruption.
I observe with a sense of dismay that our political elites seem to treat the
country as their prized possession and personal colonies for the expression of
their variegated penchant for avaricious covetousness, a huge stumbling block
for a country stifled on the journey towards
nationhood. At 51, it is not yet uhuru!
Edwin Ondor lives in
Lagos and can be reached on 08088884727 or edwinwins2002@yahoo.com
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