WHAT MANNER OF A COUNTRY IS NIGERIA?
KOGI STATE AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
By Dr. M. M. Wokili
I can never blame God for dropping me in a country called Nigeria because His wisdom surpasses the limited vision and perception that mortal bodies like me are permitted to have or acquire. But what manner of a country is Nigeria? Nigeria is rich but Nigerians are paupers. A country where truth is murdered and deception celebrated by the institutions of governance. Brilliance is silenced while mediocrity is glorified by the very people that are supposed to lay good examples for the rest to follow. A nation where the law is harsh on petty thieves on the streets but protects the pen-robbers in government. A country where life has become the cheapest commodity that can be purchased in the market of violence with bullets as the currency. A place where dynamically outspoken and progressive people are marked for assassination by the filthily rich, corrupt and powerful bourgeoisies who feel threatened by their advocacy for equity, fairness, universal application of rule of law and egalitarian society. A country where decent and incorruptible retired civil servants are rewarded with starvation of their meager pension dues, thereby sentencing them and their dependants to untimely death while their retired corrupt counterparts seek for political posts with their stupendous wealth for more filthy lucre!!! A place where the qualities for leadership are the very ones that qualify people for prisons and psychiatric homes or asylums in decent countries. A country where leaders are selected by the few and imposed on the hapless and dehumanized populace using the instrumentality of a judiciary in a supposedly democratic setting. A place where those people who serve the nation faithfully are made to regret of their faithfulness throughout their retirement period. What a pity!
The craze for wealth using corruption as the sole vehicle is unlimited and has become a model as exemplified by our leaders and institutionalized as the acceptable and national culture for the younger ones to follow. No wonder that Nigeria is noted world-wide for internet scamming by our youth in their inordinate quest to make quick money in an evil manner in their determination to live the same extravagant and obscene life style that our leaders exhibit. No wonder that our learning institutions have become havens of corruption, cultism and moral decadence where certificates are churned out and grades awarded according to student bids. No wonder that most of our modern university graduates know next to nothing in their academics but are experts in dubious ways of making money. The preponderance of armed robbery on the highways cannot be divorced from this mammonic affliction. What a calamity!!
All facets of life in Nigeria are affected and polluted by the culture of corruption and immorality instituted by the successive leaderships of this country, except the regimes of Murtala and Buhari that could have launched us on the path of greatness and decency which were abridged by the evil geniuses of our time. Truly elected leaders at various levels are denied ascension to power; people with talents and vision are denied national leadership for unpatriotic reasons ---one of such victims was described at death as “the best President that never be”. This evil cycle has been holding Nigeria hostage till date. I wonder if this country has a divine curse upon it because evil thrives while uprightness is brutally thrown down the steep slope of despondency.
There is no doubt that Nigeria is sick to the bone marrow. It is really sad that the self acclaimed giant of Africa is still groping in darkness, devoid of democratic and developmental compass while the ‘ants’ of Africa like Ghana and even Niger Republic are already on their high ways to the Promised Land via adherence to the rule of law by all segments of the society in and outside the government as exemplified by their recent democratic and socio-economic giant strides. To me, these are the real giants of Africa. It takes real rule of law for an opposition party to displace a seating presidential government. The situation is presently unthinkable in Nigeria. The Nigerian formula is simple: silence the opposition by all means before the election via intimidation, arrest or even assassination and it fails, then rig the election, set up election tribunal and then tell the cheated opposition to go to the tribunal for a pre-determined outcome!!
Most of the present crop of executives came to power without the will of the people. Kogi State is a very perfect example. I was opportuned to witness the last re-run in the state that could be anything but election. There was absolutely no election in most parts of Ebirraland except in Adavi L.G.A. where the opposition dared not penetrate. Boxes were snatched and stuffed with the help of law enforcement agents in the rest 4 L.G.As. Ebirraland has 5 L.G.As and the false results in these 4 L.G.As alone are significant to thwart the aggregate result of any election. It is enough to nullify the so-called election of the incumbent governor. I was told the same anomaly happened in most other parts of the state. This report is what I saw with my own eyes in Ebirraland because I deliberately drove round the land out of curiosity. Some government apologists at this point may brand me as a rabid blind supporter of Prince Abubakar Audu. It may interest such people to know that I did NOT vote for any of the contestants on that day. Of course I do support anybody that is for development. Iam pro-development and NOT pro-anybody. Coincidentally, the Prince has undeniable track records of outstanding development of the state when he was the governor of the state with the meager monthly revenue that accrued to the state then, unlike the present governor that has practically done nothing to alleviate the conditions of the people. The most outstanding projects that the governor and his cohorts can boast of are the yet-to-be-completed and over-priced International Market situated within a confined area along a major highway and the less than 100mtrs Meme Bridge awarded at a very high ridiculous price. The cluster of few buildings nick-named an International Market, with no reasonable parking lot, has been under epileptic construction for the past 5 yrs!!
I have never met the governor in my life and therefore, have no cause to hate him on a personal basis. My religion forbids me from hating anyone in this world. I am a contractor and the ‘nigerian’ instinct is to praise the present governor to the high heavens to secure contracts!! It is indeed, ‘stupid’ of me to be on the side of a Prince (purely because of my pro-development stance) that was never known to me when he was the governor and who presently, has no contracts or benefits to be given to me by him. I have never collected a dime from the Prince neither will I ever. In short, it is the bad governance of the present governor that forced me to know the Prince barely 10 months ago because I consider the Prince to be the only viable and available alternative to bad governance at this point in time and under the present political situation in the state. It is just a matter of coincidence that the Prince happened to occupy this unique vacuum ---any other Mr. “A” or Alhaji “B” from any section of the state with developmental inclination could have received the same measure of support from me. Therefore, whatever I say here is the truth and nothing more. My criticism is NOT against the person of the governor that I never met in person but against his governance of the State that I so much loath with passion because of lack of development despite the jumbo monthly allocations that accrue to the state. I pity the governor indeed. He does not know that critics like me are his real well-wishers. The sycophants and chameleons surrounding him, licking his boots on daily basis, do back-bite and condemn him much more for the same reason of non-development!! As soon as you leave the government house, the very first set of people that will attack you are your present conscience-sneared-choristers that are best described as vultures. This article may elicit venoms from these merchants of death via rejoinders sponsored by the government.
My saddest day on my 50 th year on this planet was when the tribunal upheld the ‘election’ of the present governor. It was as if the poor in Kogi State were sentenced to instant death by a judiciary. Let me open the eyes of supporters of bad governance to see the consequences of their actions: Bad governance breeds pot holes on roads due to lack of maintenance leading to avoidable deaths from accidents. Blood is spilled in the process and the number of orphans and widows/widowers increase. Promising lives get terminated from the accident while some are wasted on wheel-chairs. Some of these victims are most times, bread winners of their respective families. Education of some kids therefore, gets terminated while some kids become street urchins. Another example. Bad governance increases mortality rate. Many are dying in hospitals of simple and easily curable diseases because of poor medicare. Drugs are unavailable, the medical staffs are demoralized and the hospital environment is unhygienic, all due to misgovernance and maladministration. In short, the hospitals become breeding places for diseases instead of being healing centers. Supporters of bad governance are guilty of these deaths, spilled blood and calamities. Assuming you escape the judgment of God arising therefrom, what of your children? Let us know that one day, we shall all answer the call of the Almighty.
To me, bad governance is a silent but the most potent and violent‘weapon of mass destruction’. A typical example is the locust government of Idris that has not only fleeced the resources of the state but has really unleashed six solid years of holocaust on Kogi state via a combination of denial of basic amenities of life that has led to untimely death of many people and sponsored violence on the people of Ebirraland that the government is supposed to protect!! At the end of the day, it is the poor people scattered all over the state, cutting across various political party affiliations, tribes and locations that bear the brunt of bad governance. It is the sorry state of this segment of people in the society (in various political parties, locations & tribes) that has elicited this write-up. This write-up is not to protect or promote or malign any political party or individual or sectional interests; rather, it is meant to highlight the salient but obvious sufferings that the poor have been bearing due to the mindless and visionless government of Idris for the past 6 yrs. To me, all parties are the same because they have similar manifestoes ---promising all manner of goodies and none promising unrest or bad governance. Therefore, it is the operators of the parties that can be faulted. That is why PDP is a total failure in Kogi State because of Idris leadership/governorship and PDP being classified by the people as the modern day incarnate of Lucifer manifesting in Kogi state. The same PDP is relatively doing fine and serving the people in Kaduna and Katsina States (just to mention a few). Even the party did excellently well when the present President was the governor of Katsina State. AC is doing marvelously well in Lagos State. ANPP is fantastic in Zamfara State. Conversely, there are some governors in all the various parties who can be grouped together with Idris in terms of under-development and mismanagement of resources. Development is NOT an abstract thing ---- it can be seen by everyone. That is why there is no amount of defense that the expected government sponsored rejoinder on this article will convince any right thinking person in the society. What the governor may not know is that even travelers that pass through the state to the eastern part of Nigeria, realizing that their lives are put at risk, do curse him for lack of maintenance of the state road linking Lokoja to his hometown that was constructed during the time of Prince Abubakar Audu.
The poor in Kogi State are groaning daily; they are voiceless, powerless and even fainting under the crushing loads of their total neglect. Most parts of Igala land including major towns where the governor hails from have no portable drinking water! They line their drums along the road and fill them with water bought from water tankers that come at intervals. Smart business for the governor’s cronies. Right? The hospitals patronized by the poor, are mere consulting centers while the rich go to private clinics for medical care. While the rich people take their wards to private schools; the government schools meant for the poor lack basic amenities for learning, with some having sheds as classrooms; the pupils are consequently lacking in academic contents and character as the teachers are too demoralized to instill discipline. Most roads are bad within the state and impassable during raining season thereby making it extremely difficult for farmers (that constitute majority of the poor) to get their goods to the market for sale. All Local Government Chairmen within Ebirraland are absentee administrators, residing at Lokoja with sparing visits to their domains to the knowledge of the governor and yet he is contented with it. How can the Local Government Areas be developed with such absentee administrators? The wasteful expenditure of the governor knows no bounds. He has advisers of varying descriptions in the hundreds.
“Under whose authority do you speak for the poor”? I can hear the government harbingers asking. The answer is simple: the conscience!! The same conscience has made me to veer into charity works via granting of fully fledged scholarships (tuition, feeding, accommodation & upkeep allowance) for the less privileged youth in the society with my hard earned money without any monetary contribution from anybody within or outside the country. The beneficiaries cut across tribes and religions throughout the country, with one coming from a place as far as Nembe in Bayelsa State. With my limited resources, three people have already graduated from the universities while six more are still in a private university reading various courses. Only two of these people are my far distant relations while others are not related to me in anyway. One of the fortunate youth graduated last year with a first class degree while another will be graduating this year with the same grade. The doubting Thomas may cross check this fact from Lead City University at Ibadan. Iam constrained to mention this to justify my selflessness on this article i.e. to show that this article is purely written because of my passion for the poor in Kogi State that have been battered by a government designed from the pit of hell to unleash punishment on the already improvised people. I will like the government attack dogs to first of all tell the whole world what they have ever done on their individual capacities to help the poor before they bear their fangs on me via rejoinder. I sank a borehole for the poor in my village and more will be sunk this year throughout Ebirraland, God willing. Yet I have no political interests or ambition of whatever description. I am not a politician.
At this stage, I wish to appeal to all people in position of power, authority and influence to stop supporting or propping up bad governance in whichever state it may be found. Let all fraudulently elected States Governors with pending tribunal cases be flushed out by the judiciary to bring sanity to the society and to save our wobbling democracy which is the best form of governance. There should be no alternative to democracy and the only way to sustain it is through justice.
I wish to pay tribute to some of the dogged fighters in our generation for sane society via constitutional means, in the likes of living legends like Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Rtd Col. Abubakar Umar, Mall. Shehu Sanni, Barister Festus Keyamo, Rtd. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Balarabe Musa, Professor Wole Soyinka, Dr.(Mrs) Joyce Ogbe-Odumakin, Chief Okpadokun, Chief Olu-falaye, Barrister Olisa Agbakoba and others too numerous to mention here. May the Good Lord bless & keep you all.
Dr. M. M. Wokili writes from Kaduna. E-mail: mmwokili@yahoo.com 070-41011963
