Date Published: 07/15/09
Need for a P-20 Summit in Nigeria
By Idang Alibi
I do not know how other Nigerians felt but I felt really very sorry for President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who some months ago loudly lamented Nigeria’s absence at the G-20 summit which held in London. Ordinarily, our President wears an inscrutable face. You can not read his feelings on his face. You can never know whether he is happy or sad, excited or depressed about any issue. Whether at campaign podiums where some politicians whip the gathering into a frenzy, or whether it is a national broadcast, the President will speak in the same dour manner you have always heard him speak: in an unhurried conversational tone a father figure uses to rebuke or admonish or counsel an errant child.
But that day that the President said he was sad that a meeting of the 20 most successful economies in the world was holding and Nigeria was not there, I could see a real expression of sadness in his face. That day, the President who can not be accused of the gift of oratory, even waxed rhetorical. He asked some pertinent questions with rhetorical flourish which may pass as the quotable quotes of his two-year old presidency.
Since those who convened the G-20 meeting have done their worst by snubbing us and by so doing passing a vote of no confidence on our national development efforts, I think the best we can do in the circumstance is to console ourselves and proceed from that to do something positive to restore our national feeling of self-importance. And my suggestion is as simple in its conception as it will be in its implementation. A man must belong to some group or lead somebody or organisation. So if we can not belong to the club of the rich where we ought to rightly belong, let Nigeria form a club of something and strive to lead it. Nigeria should therefore behave like Satan who rebelled against God by reasoning that it is better to lead in hell than to serve in heaven!
Nigeria should spearhead the formation of a club of 20 potentially great economies of the world which have sadly refused to become rich. This club should be called the P-20. You can call them the 20 rich-poor nations of the world. You can also call them the 20 big-for-nothing countries of the modern world. Or better still; call them the 20-most embarrassing nations of the modern era.
Naturally, the bulk of the membership of these failed or failing states of the world should be drawn from Black Africa: Nigeria, Congo DR, Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Tanzania, Senegal, Guinea Conakry and Kenya. From Arab Africa, I recognise Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From Asia will come Pakistan and Bangladesh. From the Western Hemisphere will come Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
As can be seen, these nations either have huge populations, huge land mass, huge natural resources endowment or all of the above and many other factors conducive for national greatness yet are inexplicably not developed. The proposed P-20 are countries which are held down by poor leadership, corruption, diseases, debts and deaths from completely avoidable causes. For many of them poor leadership is the number one reason they remain huge potential. It is as if they are cursed.
When the organisation is formed, it should naturally be led by our dear country Nigeria, for obvious reasons. It seems to me a useless or unattainable dream to join the G-20 club in the next 11years. We are a better candidate for the P-20 club.
I am so certain that no one will conspire with any one else to deny Nigeria leadership of this prestigious club because Nigeria’s qualifications are indisputable.
Even if members are allowed to vote in a free, fair and credible election, Nigeria will be elected unopposed. And if we are smart enough to get the body to recruit our own Professor Maurice Iwu to preside over the election, we will not need to sweat at all trying to convince members to vote for us; it will be a walk-over for our great country Nigeria.
As Pentecostal Christians are fond of saying Nigeria is a nation that is highly favoured of God. Yet she keeps behaving like the Prodigal Son. She has wasted every opportunity she has had to become one of the most important nations of the world.
Today, Nigeria usually comes first or second in all the indices of failure and underdevelopment. She is one of the countries with the highest numbers of citizens seeking asylum in other countries perceived by its hungry and angry citizens as having greener pastures. The 2008 asylum data released by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNCHR) puts Nigeria in the same asylum seeking bracket as war-ravaged Iraq with 40,000 citizens. We barely managed to beat Somalia which has not had a functioning government since 1991! Somalia had 21,000 of its citizens seeking to escape the horror of life in that country in 2008 compared to Nigeria’s 40,000!
Today also, Nigeria is one of the three leading nations on earth whose citizens are still suffering from polio. I think it is Bill Gates who recently raised an alarm that Nigeria is exporting polio to some countries of the world where the disease had been eradicated several years ago. Nigeria also has the distinction of being the country with the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, second only to India. A few days ago, a Nigerian medical doctor added a dimension to another of the dubious distinctions Nigeria has attained. He said that Nigeria is the fourth country on earth with the worst Medicare system. When will the statistics of our miserable existence ever end?
My country is also among the first five most corrupt nations on earth. We have slightly ‘degenerated’ on this score. For some years, we were number one. Our country is among the first five countries with the highest road accidents in the world. The Yoruba god of ogun who relishes human blood has grown so obese that it has told his devotees that he does not need any more human sacrifices on Nigeria’s notorious pot holes-ridden roads.
I want to humbly suggest that the inaugural meeting or the first summit be held in Nigeria and at the cavernous hall of the International Conference Centre, Abuja. The walls of the hall should be decorated with self-pitying, self-consoling, quasi-religious slogans such as, WE ARE NOT BIG-FOR-NOTHING; THE GIANTS SHALL RISE ONE DAY, LET THE POOR OF THE WORLD UNITE! ALL FINGERS ARE NOT EQUAL, THE POOR SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH, LET THE POOR OF THE WORLD SAY THEY ARE RICH, POVERTY IS NOT A DISEASE; IT IS A TEMPORARY CONDITION, WE SHALL MAKE IT TO THE G-20 SOON, LET THE RICH MEET AND LET THE POOR MEET TOO, LET THOSE WHO MOCK US NOW WAIT AND SEE WHAT WE WILL BECOME SOON and many more of such escapist philosophysing and sloganeering.
When the P-20 meets, there will be lamentation galore. Many questions such as the ones the President asked in lamentation about our absence in London will be asked aplenty. The theme of the conference will be WHY ARE WE SO BLEST YET SO POOR? President Umaru Musa Yar’adua will present a paper entitled “Self Indictment as a Path-Way to National Development: the Example of Nigeria”. President Joseph Kabila of Congo DR will present another paper to be headed “Think Nothing Imaginative and Do Nothing Bold: a Solution to the Congo Crisis”. President Asif Zadari of Pakistan will present another paper entitled “Self-Immolation as a Solution to the Pakistani Problem: Suicide Bombing and Us”. Next to Iraq and the perennially troubled Palestine, Pakistan is today a killing field. It has become the suicide bombing capital of the world. Some of us can no longer tell who is bombing whom and for what reason in that country.
The only real achievement this country has attained since independence is the procurement of what is called the Muslim Bomb, which is just as well because what this country seems to love, is war and bloodshed. Every day what you hear about Pakistan is death from suicide bombers and threats of war against its big neighbour India. Pakistan has some of the most intelligent human beings on earth but the news that comes from that country everyday is depressing stories of bloodshed and wanton killings.
During tea break and informal gatherings of the summit, Yar’adua may ask Joseph Kabila of Congo DR, “My dear President Kabila, why are our two countries which ought to be the two wealthiest countries in the world so poor?” When Laurent Kabila was assassinated by some of his body guards and his son Joseph was installed in his stead, The Guardian wrote a very famous and thoughtful editorial lamenting the misfortune of that vast and potentially rich country. In it, the paper lamented that the young Kabila wore a blank stare during his swearing-in. And since his inauguration as president, that young man still appears to be in a daze. He has continued to wear that blank stare, unsure of what he needs to do to rid his country of foreign invaders and domestic ravagers of his country’s peace and wealth. He has done nothing imaginative or bold to solve the problems of his country.
Congo DR ought to be the richest country in the world. This country is bigger that the whole of Western Europe combined and is perhaps the most endowed country in the world. God has taken meticulous care to put every kind of potential wealth in this country but its leaders do not know what to do to harness this endowment and become really wealthy. The country is perennially at war against itself or against others. Music and dance are the national pastime of this unfortunate nation. The nation itself plays and dances to folk music from morning till night. Remember the Makossa king Awillo Logomba? This man and other Makossa singers and seductive dancers are from Congo DR. Since God knows when, an idea has been mooted to build a dam, the Inga Dam, on the enormous body of water called River Congo to supply the whole of Africa with electricity. If the Congo constructs the Inga Dam, and it supplies Africa its electricity needs, from that alone Congo can become one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. Even the former OAU thought of this dam. But this Inga Dam project has been on the cards since, yet nothing concrete has been done to realise the dream of electricity not even for the whole of Africa as originally conceived but just to serve the national economy of Cong DR.
A friend who chanced upon this piece in draft form said to me that I seem to be against everybody this time around and wondered what has got me so upset. Well, I am filled with enormous pain in my heart for the crass incompetence that is going on in Africa and in much of the so-called developing world. I wish the leaders of these countries can hear my cry and change and start providing the kind of leadership that will bring about rapid development.
Mr. Idang Alibi is a member of the Daily Trust Editorial Board.
