Nigeria on Fire - Ituah Ighodalo

On Monday morning, the 19th of April, the year of our Lord 2004, I had woken up around 2.30 a.m. to pray and to meditate, as I was doing this, all of a sudden around 3.45 a.m. a phone call came through. It was one of my ministers in church, and he told me that the compound behind our church was on fire and that there was an urgent need for intervention.

Immediately I called another one of my ministers and asked him if he knew of any fire services around. He told me that there was one at Ikeja and another one on Western Avenue. I asked him to go to the one at Ikeja while I went to the one at Western Avenue and see how we can get their help. It had been raining heavily and I wondered how fire would be burning in that rain and how I would make my way through what would be flooded Lagos roads.

I got into my car at around 4.00 a.m. and proceeded to Ojuelegba praying as I went. “Oh Lord, we need your help at this hour”. I knew that it would a terrible fire indeed, because the compound behind our church had a lot of rubber and other synthetic material that were used for waste to wealth activities. I knew that it was only the timely intervention of God that could stop the fire from spreading to our church and probably spreading across the entire industrial estate.

When I got to the fire station, the first thing I noticed was that the whole place was in total darkness. I knocked on the gate and somebody came out to meet me. I explained the situation to the firemen I met there that there was fire somewhere in Gbagada behind my church. The next thing they said to me was that they were not coming especially if it was a private residence. I asked them why that was so and they explained that if they came people would mob them.

They informed me that they were mobbed in private residences and if they were to come with me, I had to guarantee their protection. So I told them that there would be no problem. They were very nice. One of them got into my car and I led them to where the fire was. As we were driving along the road, the fireman in my car looked at the time and told me that I was a very brave man to be driving around the streets of Lagos at 4.25 a.m.

His comments did not go unnoticed. He did not know that that was my usual time of movement going and coming from vigils, having the angels of God protecting me. But what he said was a true reflection of the realities of what is going on in our nation.
Our nation Nigeria is under fire. What kind of fire? We are under physical fire like the one we experienced at Gbagada and under fire from different areas.

Nigeria is under the fire of corruption and greed, under the fire of economic and financial mess, under the fire of armed robbery and assassination and under the fire of failed infrastructure such as power supply, roads and waterworks. Everyday, we hear stories of armed robbery attacks and hired assassinations. In the last few years and months, a few prominent Nigerians have not been left unaffected by these strange fires from different kinds of hoodlums.

The most painful thing about these assassinations (or suspected armed robbery attacks) is that the people are never found. Up till today, we have not reached a conclusion on the people who killed Chief Bola Ige. Even as I write, the people who killed Marshall Harry and Dokibo are still at large.

Nigeria is under fire. What kind of fire? Nigeria is under the fire of financial and economic mismanagement. Nigeria is one of the most blessed nations in the world. There is nothing that we do not have. We have coal, we have gold, we have petroleum, we have cocoa, we have groundnut, we have palm kernel, we have cassava, we have vegetables, and we have minerals of different kinds.

There is no industry that cannot be formed and sustained in Nigeria. But yet we lack almost everything. We import a lot of stuff from China, Japan, Russia, UAR, America, U.K. and even from Singapore that does not have any kind of resources whatsoever. We import all sorts of things that we don’t need to import. There is no need for instance to import cornflakes, biscuits, rice, and sugar.

It is strange that we export cocoa to Europe only for them to make chocolates and export these to us. We even import petroleum which is our biggest export earner. We import fish and yet we have some of the best waterways in the world. So Nigeria is under serious economic fire because the necessary infrastructure has not been put in place by the people who have had the privilege and the opportunity to lead this nation.

Nigeria is under fire. What kind of fire? Nigeria is under the fire of corruption and greed. We have had all kinds of reports labeling Nigeria one of the most corrupt nations in the world and this is true. A lot of Nigerians live on government contracts. They collect the money and simply share it. We have known some past Heads of State who looked at the nation’s money as though it was their personal resource. They carried our money, took it, gave it to their friends, their children and their immediate family and yet Nigeria is suffering.

There is an element of corruption in every government contract in Nigeria. Nigerians take all this stolen money to fuel the economy of other nations. If you go to England, in almost every street and area there is a house that is owned by a Nigerian. If you go to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington you will see the influence of Nigerians all over there empowering and protecting the economies of these countries. If you go to Switzerland, you will find our money in their various accounts and yet Nigeria here is lacking.

Nobody is investing in this nation. We are a nation of importers and traders and therefore our currency falls everyday and our economy continues to fail. There are very few people in Nigeria today who can claim that they have genuinely made their money from industry and even among those, you will find those who cheated government at one point or the other either through under-invoicing or through under-payment of duties or through importation of contra-band goods.

I can remember the days of the import license and the amount of money people made just selling licenses that were given to government stooges, ministers and their girlfriends. Meanwhile reputable industries could not get these licenses. Several industries went under, simply because they could not get to buy import licenses.  
Nigeria is under fire. What kind of fire? Nigeria is under the fire of a very badly managed healthcare system.

I know of a lady friend of mine who relocated abroad because she could no longer bear to see women die simply because of inadequate facilities to do Caesarian Section. She said that while she had the capacity to do nine CS in a day, she only managed to do one because there would be no light, no gas to power the generator, and no water and most of the time there had to be a toss up between which of these nine women would get operated on.

Sometimes the decision was based on the one who had had children before or the youngest of these women, or perhaps the prettiest and the left were left to their fate. She said she could no longer bear to see people who could be saved die because of lack of infrastructure. I remember once when we had a young girl in one of the teaching hospitals and throughout the whole of that hospital, we could not find sufficient blood for her.

We had to be combing the streets looking for blood and blood bags at strange hours of the morning. Somehow through appeals and through begging, people started producing blood bags from various parts of their homes and others started offering their blood.

What about Nigerian agriculture? I have touched a bit on the above. There is nothing that cannot be grown in Nigeria but nobody is doing any serious thing in this sector. We are still using simple mechanical tools and rural methods for the agriculture of over 120 million people. There is no protection or inputs for those investing in Agriculture in this country. Nigeria can grow apples in the hilly areas of Jos but we are still importing apples from all over the world.

What about infrastructure? That is virtually non-existent. We have dams, waterways, gas (that we are flaring everyday) and yet we do not have sufficient power supply. It is incredible to see people living by the streams using spittle to wash their own hands. Our roads are death traps. Every journey in Nigeria is a miracle. Over the last few years, the number of people whose lives have been wasted because of bad roads is incredible.

Most of these people have died a wasted and meaningless death just because of the condition of our roads, the condition of our vehicles and the condition of our drivers. Everyday that you travel, you pray that you come back in time, alive and in one piece.
Back to my fire man, he told me that things are so terrible in the fire service. His uniform was very torn and very unbecoming of a fire man. He was putting on rubber slippers. He told that they were not being supplied boots anymore. He said formerly that every month and quite often, they were given boots, gloves and uniforms.

He said their truck was dilapidated and was not the kind of truck they should be using as it was outdated and no longer efficient. He said the only reason they could go with me was because at the last place where they fought a fire, they compelled them to fill their truck with fuel so they can move out the next time. He said we would have to give them fuel too. He told me they were poorly paid, there was no motivation and they don’t have water or foam to fight the fire.

I asked the fireman what happened to the money allocated to them; he said the money was given to one of their ‘ogas’ who simply ‘chopped’ the money. Yet buildings are being burnt, properties are being wasted, and people are being destroyed.
What are we going to do about all these fires that are raging in Nigeria? I was speaking with a friend of mine recently and he was very disappointed with the way and manner things are going.

He criticised some of our traders who all they do is import goods into the country and are not bothered about setting up industries. He criticised also all the ill-gotten wealth that was being stashed abroad in various banks fueling the economy of those countries. He also had a lot to say about government policies that are very inconsistent and difficult to follow and that have favoured some areas against other areas.

He complained bitterly about the non-chalant attitude of the government to various things. We all know that if there is nothing in it for the government official, good government projects will go un-implemented. How are we going to ensure that all these fires burning in this nation is put out? How can we ensure that this country comes out to be the great nation it was designed to be? There is an adage that says the fish rots from the top.

Our biggest failing in Nigeria has been leadership. We just simply have not had the right kind of leadership. We can use the example of a country as small as Singapore who because of the kind of leader they had simply transformed their nation. The man that took over there said when he got into the saddle, he didn’t know what to do with the economy and therefore decided that he would make the Singapore Airline the best in the world so as to attract people and build up tourism and make Singapore a trading hub where everybody had to pass through.

He worked on the airline and on the environment and within a few years, he had transformed that nation. What we lack in Nigeria is the ability of leadership focus, leadership thought and leadership direction. We need to change our leadership thinking. We need a collection of people who are determined, focused and willing to work and to let Nigeria work to build this nation. We need people who are not going there for business as usual and to ‘grab’ whatever they can lay their hands on.

Our senators recently were fighting each other. They were not fighting over issues, or over fundamental basic situations that affect the people’s lives, they were fighting over the sharing and allocation of money. Where is the focus, where is the principle? Where is the direction? Nigeria needs sanitised, cleansed and reformed leadership. Nigeria needs leadership of high moral standards and integrity. We need people who want to serve and not necessarily want to rule, people who want to be beneficial to the nation, people who are honest with a new orientation.

But the problem is that the present political system in Nigeria may end up continually throwing up only the bad ones, the ones who are ready to get power at any cost, who are ready to make sacrifices to a ‘juju’ priest at night go to pray in the church or mosque in the morning, who are ready to play dirty and kill people in order to get power. The kind of politics we have in Nigeria today is only for the dark minds. That is why the system keeps on throwing up all these strange and funny people that we have in leadership positions in Nigeria.

Nigeria must begin to reward high moral values, honesty, and integrity. These values must begin to be celebrated and not laughed at. Such values must begin to be respected and not desecrated. People that have these values must begin to be admired and not ignored; otherwise Nigeria as a nation will continually be going down the wrong path. We also need a followership based on the rule of law, based on justice, and equality for all. We need a followership that is determined to work hard and is determined to contribute their own quota and do their best.

We need a followership that has changed views and orientation. One of the strength of the Japanese nation is the character of the average Japanese man. A man who is willing to work, willing to contribute, willing to follow instructions and who is not overly ambitious. My friend that I was talking about above said to me that the reason why the British succeeded in ruling over the world was because the average British man is very focused. He has two shirts, three pairs of shoes, three suits and he uses them frugally over a long period of time.

The average Nigerian makes some money and decides to go and build a house in his village which he rarely (if ever) uses. Gigantic houses are built in rural villages all over Nigeria wasting money and resources, houses that are not earning any income, houses with big generators and one houseboy which are visited by the owners only once a year. If the money spent on building such houses had been spent on starting a small industry, people from the rural areas would have been gainfully employed thereby stemming the rural-urban migration in the country. Such industries would grow and add value to their areas of location.

We are more of a nation of wasting resources whose economy is based on the ego of people. My friend said to me that if all the jewellery belonging to our women in Nigeria, which are used for showing off and wearing to parties, are collected together, it would be sufficient to start several industries that would employ people and put food on the table. These jewelleries meanwhile are sitting in bank vaults and wardrobes earning no money.

My friend gave me another analogy; he said some people go out and buy big fancy cars that cannot carry more than a set of five passengers. He said such money can be spent to buy ten regular cars that can be used to carry ten sets of five passengers each making fifty. He cracked a joke that if a man wants to marry a wife and gives the bride’s father two out of his ten cars and another man comes in with just his one fancy car, who do I think the bride’s father would give the daughter to? And this is generally how we see things in Nigeria.

The man probably prefers to be seen ‘doing’ big man all over town in a big fancy car rather than have two or three ‘tokunbo’ cars that he can even use to generate income. But this is generally what we have in Nigeria. A nation of wasting resources. We must change our thinking as a people for this nation to move forward. We must change our attitude for this nation to move forward. We must change the way we do things. Why should money be allocated to fire services, the police, the military and even our diplomatic missions abroad and one man somewhere will be sitting on it in a bank account.

Why should there be so much greed and corruption? The irony of it all is that all the money is wasted on high living. Bags of money are sprayed on musicians at high society parties in blocks of thousands of naira for well over two hours just because the musician calls a man’s name and gives him a ‘swollen’ head. Money that can be used to educate people, build hospitals, save lives and benefit other people is thrown away. Such is the power of greed, ego and pride that has led to a total waste of resources in this great nation and has put the nation on fire.

We need to change a lot of the things that we are doing because we are going down the wrong way. Our attitude in Nigeria must change so that all these fires that are burning in this nation can be put off.