Everyday we hear of the setting up of a new committee to deal with issues in government. These range from House committees claiming oversight functions, to ministerial committees allegedly investigation various wrongdoings.
We have investigated everything from Oil to Pensions, Niger Delta Militancy, Boko Haram, Power, Telecoms, Aviation; the list is endless.
We have ministries and parastatals in abundance covering everything imaginable. We have so-called experts and specialised agencies at Federal, State and Local Government levels all taking turns to comment and attack one another. We never see any joined up thinking. One arm of government briefing against the other; blaming one another for whatever mess is the order of the day.
The on going subsidy issue is a case in point. We have conflicting information coming from every single agency involved in the whole mess. We have the Ministry of Finance joining the party recently claiming another set of figures and threatening to name yet more alleged corrupt marketers. One is tempted to ask what the ministry was doing at the height of the probe into the subsidy issue. I recall watching the proceedings on live TV and their representatives being all muddled up with a disconnect between what the officials were claiming and CBN, a subsidiary of the ministry was stating.
The ministry for want of a better description is the body that pays the actual bills. How then can they have taken so log to carry out an audit and present the actual figures Nigerians have been waiting to see. Are the systems and processes so cumbersome in this age of technology that they are unable to produce a set of accounts till now?? Are we to now believe a ministry that until recently was alleged to have paid out billions in just one day contrary to accepted practices and the basic rules of transparency?
We would like a joined up approach with all the relevant agencies sitting together to agree a position on what was paid to whom and when. What is the actual forecast for payments, subsidy and consumption going forward? What is the current state of revenue accrued from the partial removal of subsidy in January this year? Surely these basic questions are within the capability of our high-powered economic management team and the Co- coordinating Minister of the Economy.
We are tired of different arms of the same government briefing against one another and carrying out a phony war on the pages of our newspapers through paid advertorials etc.
The issues confronting Nigerians are too big to be used as a pawn to curry favours, attack colleagues and create confusion in the polity.
It is time to draw a line in the sand to agree collectively to work for a better Nigeria. The corruption in our society did not begin in a single day and has passed from government since the 1st of October 1964. No one has a magic broom that can sweep it away, however we all have a duty to make a start. We are all to blame for the ills in our society, it has been said, “that a people are governed by those they deserve.” The stark truth is that we have developed a culture of corruption that permeates the very fabric of who we are as a nation. We all sit back and wait for our proverbial turn. We hold no one to account, not even ourselves. Yesterday’s harshest critics are today’s worse purveyors of the same stupidity. How many so called ex firebrands and critics have gone on to become the master’s voice? How many of us criticise in one breath then hail the Chief, Excellency, Mr President, when finally coming into contact with these same people. We live in a country where titles are bandied about like cheap confetti, where “chairman” is a standard greeting to all and sundry and “we are loyal” substitutes for hard work and honest endeavour.
In a country where how much you have, is not prefaced by how did you acquire it. Where today’s nobody is tomorrow’s somebody. Where merit and capability take a back seat to mediocrity and so called Federal Character. Where in order to have any progress in a particular area it is not based on strategic imperative but tribalism and selfish sectional interests.
There is nothing wrong with affirmative action or protecting the less advantaged in society, however Nigeria is over 50 now and we have sent people from all states and regions in the country to far-flung places to acquire knowledge. We should be able to find competent people to run our institutions and government. We need to move away from the crooks and political jobbers currently running things and get technocrats with a mindset that is geared towards the greater good. We need selfless people running our government concerned only with the welfare of the majority not a mindless minority. We need affordable power, water, health and education. We need security and the rest Nigerians can take care of themselves.
All we ask if for government to do its easy part and give Nigerians the tools and collectively we will turn this great nation around.
Written by Emma Disu.