I don’t know what good these mushroom commissions can do other than set up emergency millionaires and empower the cronies of the officials in charge
My, so many events have been breaking out so angrily these days my ‘pen’ has been roaring on its hind legs, if you will pardon the metaphor. Seriously, our political actors have been really moving the pace it’s getting harder for us ‘commoners’ to keep up. Let’s begin with the drama that broke in Lagos State. Imagine, I hear politicians and their families are now summarily uprooting clergy from their church posts, as happened in Lagos State.
Well, when I heard that, I felt things must have come to a sorry pass indeed, and boundaries have become so fuzzy that a serving people’s elected official would meddle in clerical matters. Unfortunately, I cannot be a judge in this or any matter for that matter since I am not a certified mediator or judge. I forgot to enroll for those courses.
I do believe though that it is a sad day indeed when religious officials are subjected to state high-handedness in nebulous matters that have nothing to do with the breach of the law. In this case, the hierarchy of the church, headed by God, enforces any needed discipline on any of its erring shepherds; that office does not lie with state officials unless it can be proved that state laws have been broken. So, I would advise our state officials to hands off religious bodies. If anyone wants recognition, there is plenty of space outside the church or mosque to demand and get worldly recognition.
Then there is the fact that our president, Muhammadu Buhari, has not only persistently remained incommunicado to me and many other Nigerians, he has ignored the offer for him to try my holiday home along with some of our home-brewed Nigerian doctors. I tell you, I am peeved. I am peeved that no Nigerian hospital is going to benefit from this general indisposition of our president. It represents for me a lost opportunity to upgrade our human or material resources in at least one lucky hospital.
I certainly don’t buy the Minister of Information’s explanation that the president is in UK because he ‘deserves the best in medical treatment.’ While I agree that everyone, including the president, deserves the best, it does not follow that that best necessarily resides outside the country. True, we may lack material resources, but hello, I am putting it to the minister that this kind of reasoning is responsible for this deplorable lack. All our politicians have been going outside the country because they feel they ‘deserve the best’ while neglecting the country’s hospitals, schools, roads, transport systems, foods… Let the president come home and see what Nigerian doctors can do for him.
The one event that has peeved me the most is the fact that the House of Representatives is said to have thrown out the bill for a South East Development Commission (SEDC) designed after the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and North East Development Commission (NEDC). How dare they! Here I was, already dreaming of submitting my own bill for the Oyinkan Medubi Development Commission (OMDC) if the SEDC one went through. Excuse me, I need more dresses, not to mention shoes.
True, my OMDC does sound a little like OMPADEC but never mind, the goals are the same – spread the money. Now, what am I going to do? If an entire SEDC fails to make the shot, and NDDC is being attacked by tankers, what can little ol’ OMDC do? I tell you, it is a bit aggravating. And, while we are at it, where is the demand for the North West Development Commission (NWDC) or the South West Development Commission (SWDC)? What about the NCDC, SSDC, TDC, BDC, and KDC? You work out what parts of the country those initial letters stand for. Perhaps those areas don’t need development? After all, as the Majority Leader himself said, ‘every zone deserves a commission’.
Seriously, I ask myself, what do we need all these NDDC, NEDC, NWDC, SWDC, SEDC, OMDC and any number of DCs for when we don’t even have a NDC – Nigeria Development Commission?! Seriously, where is the blue print for the Nigeria Development Commission? See, no one can produce it. I do believe this is the reason why there is this proliferation or demand for commissions. People want to head them and drive around in convoys.
Just a few days ago, I read that the NDDC MD’s convoy was involved in an accident and I went, the NDDC MD also has a convoy? Where will this thing stop? Why must we always put so much drama in every position we occupy? Why do we take ourselves so seriously in this country considering we are not even capable of making a spoon? It’s not in our culture to eat with spoons? Forgive me.
Anyway, I ask myself, what do commissions do exactly that everyone seems to want one? Let me try and answer that question. I think commissions take one look at a region, throw up and their arms and declare that there is an emergency in that place. They then proceed to stretch out their full torsos, roll out the money and begin to spend. In truth, I think commissions are supposed to be those bodies charged with the development of a designated region (or, in my case, person). Honestly, the word connotes for me that the entity has suffered some kind of neglectful trauma and deserves a special reparative commission.
When the Niger-Delta commission (NDDC) was created, everyone went ‘Agh! Ugh! The region will now give us peace and electricity. Each time there was a power outage, we were told that gas supply had been interrupted in the region. With the creation of NDDC, we were sure all manner of things would be well in that region.
Sadly, it was not to be. Not only did the commission not solve the problem, indeed, power outages continued and even deepened. Worse, reports of funds misuse scandals soon began to erupt from the roofs of that commission. The waters in that region were still being polluted. People were still largely not able to return to their traditional occupations. Poverty was still roaming freely around the place. Industries were not springing up in the region with the same alacrity that the oil was sprouting. Now, it has become clear that we need something more drastic than a commission there. It is very likely a federal presence but I think we’re still thinking that one out.
And then, the north eastern part of the country upped and set their part of the country on fire and promptly demanded a commission for themselves too. That one is still young so the stories of scandalous misuse of funds erupting from its roofs have not yet fouled the air too much, only a little. And now, the south east has demanded its own.
So, if you ask me (and I bet you will) I don’t know what good these mushroom commissions can do other than set up emergency millionaires and empower the cronies of the officials in charge and give us more convoys for tankers to target on the roads. What we need instead is a commission that will oversee the development of the country as a whole.
The Nigeria Development Commission will, like Buhari, belong to everybody and belong to nobody. Its focus will be the overall development of the country rather than target some pockets of air in unknown parts. That commission would be sensitive to the defining character and needs of each part of the country and coordinate such development programmes as these parts require. Let’s face it, everyone deserves their own commission; so a general development commission would eliminate all these minor demands from everywhere and minimize spending rivalry.
