Resolving the Nigerian Situation
Ituah Ighodalo

I had just returned from a trip outside Lagos and on getting home, as usual there was no light. On top of that my generator was being repaired and some parts that needed replacements had not yet been purchased. My houseboy had gone on his own frolic by the time I got back and had left with the key.

So here I was stuck outside my house tired and hungry and not very pleased with the situation that I had found myself in. When you are in a situation like that you tend to think a little and one of the things that I found myself thinking about was why in Nigeria people cannot have access to continuous electricity.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons was simply because the people that take decisions about the well being of the Nigerian people are too far removed from the realities of the Nigerian situation.

It is difficult for a man who has not been in a difficult circumstance to begin to offer solutions to problems that he is not even aware of, cannot feel the pain of or has long forgotten about. I am sure that those who are in government in Nigeria cannot be aware of the ineptitude of NEPA, they do not feel the pain nor suffer the inconvenience because they are on dedicated lines or as soon as power supply goes off, as many generators as they need to supply their electricity needs go on.

They are not aware that petrol or diesel is expensive because they do not pay for these things. (You know our president was rather alarmed when he discovered that kerosene was more expensive than petrol.)

Of course, how can they be aware that people are having challenges with public transportation when they are chauffeur driven and cannot remember the last time they stood at a bus stop? Of course, sirens and outriders will not allow our leaders to experience any kind of traffic jam. If a leader is far removed from his people, it is difficult for him to experience what they are experiencing, feel what they are feeling, and consequently know what they know.

            We are left at the mercy of sycophants who tell our leaders what they want to hear and what they think these leaders want for their own selfish motives. Therefore life in Nigeria is very challenging. We have to change the situation and change the status quo. Everybody has to have a level playing field.

One of the ideas that occurred to me is that it is either NEPA works or nobody is allowed the use of generators including and especially the President himself. Therefore when there is no light everybody will be going through the same ordeal of ‘interrupted’ power supply.

In the alternative, then NEPA should be completely scrapped and therefore everybody knows that for you to have light you have to purchase a generator and everybody then who can afford it purchases a generator of their choice and those who cannot buy a generator can purchase a lantern or candle of their choice.

So it then becomes a question of personal pretences, personal choices and financial muscle. While we are at that, we might as well make the same arrangement for water. Everybody makes their own arrangement for water by building their own boreholes or buying from tankers (which everybody is already virtually doing anyway.)

While we are at that, we might also make the same arrangement for sewage disposal, hospitals and medical care, roads and telecommunication.
           

Gradually as we start doing this, everybody becomes an island and a government unto themselves and there will then be no longer need for a central government and we can truly have a federation. Nobody needs to tell us that the problem with Nigeria is good governance and the problem with governance is government itself. There is nobody concerned with the problems of Nigeria.

How can we be concerned when most of our thinking and resources is geared towards changing party chairmen? At a lower level, most Nigerians are planning towards how they will become appointed to one party or government position or the other. When it is time to appoint the chairman and directors of one corporation or board or parastatal, people are jockeying all over the place.

People are scheming for one position or the other to come to their state, senatorial district, local government area or village. It has become so bad that almost every sector in Nigeria now has somebody from one part of the country or the other in a top position not because the person is qualified but because the people from that part feel that with their person in that position they can have access to some particular economic advantages.

Therefore everything has gone haywire and things have become really unbearable. Kings are walking while servants are riding on horses.  

            The other time I saw some people congratulating the President because they were very pleased because somebody from their area had been chosen to become a member of the new NDDC board. What they are trying to say and what that implies is that the man will use his position to divert economic opportunities to their area whether such opportunities are deserving of that area or not.

A while ago, I read somewhere about how power was shared in the old Bendel state. The writer of the piece was advocating that it was the turn of a certain part of Edo state to come into governance.

What the gentleman was saying was that since the creation of the old Midwestern state, only a certain part of the state had been producing the premiership or governorship and therefore it was now the turn of his own area to produce the governor whether the candidate from that area is competent or not. This is part of the crisis in Nigeria.

So our leaders have been spending a lot of their time plotting and scheming who is assigned to what position and who has to be removed from what position. They therefore have little time left to put into the affairs of governing the nation. In the last six years, we have had about four heads of Senate, three leaders of the House of Representatives, four party chairmen in the PDP.

Now that 2007 is around the corner, you can be sure that very little governance is going on. People are running up and down to see how they will get into positions of power, so much energy is being put into who succeeds who and who takes charge of what and who gets to what position and the reason why people are very anxious to get into a position of power is because power is a source of influence, power is a source of money, and power is a source of economic empowerment

 
            I cannot for my life imagine how much productive work our Vice-President for instance has done in the last one year. Firstly, he and his boss regardless of outside appearances seem to have this cold war going on between them. Everybody knows that they are not really in agreement.

The Bible says that can two work together when they do not agree? When there is no agreement, I wonder how they are going to operate for the benefits of the Nigerian people. Secondly, the man has been having countless headaches as to how he would become the next president come 2007. The man has been having a lot of resistance and fighting a lot of battles all over the place.

It is no secret that the removal of the erstwhile PDP chairman, Audu Ogbeh is part of that battle. Therefore, if a man is fighting for his survival, fighting for his future and fighting for his relevance in the scheme of things, how much time does he want to have for governance? How much of leadership is he going to provide for the average Nigerian? Take for instance Anambra state; I really do not see how Ngige wants to settle down to do any work when he is fighting for his safety and for his life.

The man is not even sure if he is the de-facto governor or not. One moment he has a security detail, the next minute someone is bombing the government house. One moment he is in his convoy the next minute the convoy is being bombed. The man is not sure on which side the President is and all sorts of people are challenging his position. Tell me, how can such a man settle down to be able to think and do any productive work.

For Chris Uba, government is business. He has invested and put Ngige in place. He wants the return of his investment. For Uba, it has become a matter of honour. There is a clique, a mafia and one of the members of the mafia has been betrayed and therefore the law of ‘Omerta’ must come into force. Uba is not going to rest until he takes out Ngige because if he does not do that it renders him powerless and ineffectual and it means that at any other time, somebody else can betray the brotherhood and get away with it.

So it is a matter of honour for Uba to get Ngige out. The most surprising thing about the Uba factor is who is giving him so much confidence, who is making available the apparatus of government to support him? How can an ordinary citizen of a state have so much courage and influence to dare a governor? There is something more to this gentleman than meets the eye. There is something or someone that gives him so much confidence on whom he is relying which the rest of us cannot see.  

     
            If these are the attitudes by which Nigeria is being governed, are we surprised that things are the way they are? Are we surprised that nothing is happening in Nigeria? Some people are feeding fat on the land and the rest of us are being held to ransom. Nigeria is a very interesting country where almost anything goes. If you are in the corridors of power then you can do almost anything you like and get away with it. We need to revisit the Nigerian situation.

There must be some form of fairness, some form of probity, some kind of level playing field and there must be good governance. There must be commitment to the Nigerian cause rather than to personal causes and self-serving situations. Otherwise we are going to keep going round in circles.

It is time for us to sit down at a table and discuss exactly what we want. How are we going to put the best people in the right positions in order to get the best results? Or are we just going to keep on ‘managing’ in Nigeria? It is time for us to rise up and speak the truth because so many people are still burying their heads in the sands.

I believe that Nigeria has so much potential and so much possibility of being great and wonderful that we cannot because of self-serving interests allow our entire nation to go to waste. The question I leave you with is how can we resolve the situation of Nigeria?