Tag: festival

Preamble

This article was meant for publication in this column last Friday. It was meant to prepare the minds of Nigerian Muslims for last Monday’s Eid-il-Adha. But due to problem of contact especially since yours sincerely was not in Nigeria, it could not be published as scheduled. However, because of its relevance, I decided to publish today for the benefit of readers. Here it goes:

Monday, September 12, Muslims all over the world celebrated ‘IdulAdha subsequent to Arafah day which will come up on Sunday, September 11. But unlike their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, overwhelming majority of Nigerian Muslims will celebrate that festival without any festivity. At the instance of injustice based on avarice and unbridled aggrandisement on the past the past rulers, the ingredients of festivityhad been banished in this country. Thus, many worshippers will spend the festival season in hunger and nostalgia for the good old days.

This iron period in which the present government is forced to repeatedly promise emancipation of the masses from the scourge of hunger is an indicator of a tough time ahead that must train the citizenry to become tough in their determination to survive in order to be able to keep going while the going gets tougher.

Egypt for Instance

Egypt has never been a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). She was not an oil producing country until recently. The main stay of her economy was agriculture which was well facilitated by her River Nile endowment.

This North African Arab country was in economic mess in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her war with Israel had reduced her to a virtual beggar nation. Not only did her macro economy plummet, her micro economy also dwindled to the lowest ebb. No job for the rising army of highly skillful people and no income for the majority of the citizenry. Thus, the country looked like a famine-stricken one as most vehicles on Cairo and Alexandra roads were terribly rickety.

It took an ingenuous management by President Gamal Abdul Nasir and that of his successor, President Anwar Sadat, to device a means of bailing out the country from what could have amounted to self-genocide. With the meagre amount of money accruing to that country from agriculture and manpower export at that time, the government was able to set up a food distribution centre in each ward where every family in the ward was registered.

All varieties of foods, including meat, milk and eggs, were supplied to each family every week. And no family got less than what could suffice for one full week. The cost of those highly subsidised food were deducted from the salaries of those working while others were supplied free foods for survival. And to ensure that only the citizens benefited from the wonderful largess, the use of national identity card to qualify for supply was made compulsory.

Security and patriotism

This welfare business strategy did not only create a high sense of security in the citizenry, it also spurred them to become die-hard patriots. With that strategy, Egypt was able to weather the economic storm of that time even as the war with Israel continued.

What could have been a major problem for the ordinary Egyptians at that time was the education of their children. But President’s Nasir’s government had taken proper care of that since inception. A fundamental policy of the Egyptian government introduced by President Nasir was free education at all levels. That policy which Chief Obafemi Awolowo copied for primary education in western Nigeria had put Egypt far ahead of all African and Arab countries. The policy became profitable for Egyptian government when the going became tough.

The country began to supply all other Arab countries their needed man power such as teachers, doctors, accountants, pharmacists, engineers, nurses, and administrators, agriculturists, journalists, name it. Those experts were officially deployed to those other Arab countries on three years renewable contracts. And each deployed expert was made to remit about 35 per cent of his/her income to the government of Egypt monthly. Such remittances were not difficult to make since those expert were well paid. The remittances were made directly by the employers who deducted the agreed amount from the salaries of their employees based on official agreements. Thus, in those days, manpower generated from planned education was more profitable than today’s oil wells as diaspora became Egypt’s major source of income. Yet, countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Libya and others that benefited from the programme found the arrangements convenient because they did not need to employ interpreters separately as would have been the case if they had employed Americans or Europeans for the same purpose. As their language and culture were almost the same.

Social welfare

With the provision of social welfare for the people, Egyptian government of the 1970s, led by President Anwar Sadat, was able to solve the problem of the three necessities of life: food, shelter and clothing. Not only that, the government was also very much aware that an idle hand was the devil’s workshop. It therefore provided soft loans for many university graduates to embark on small scale businesses that could boost the nation’s economy at the micro level.

With this, it became possible for most of those fresh graduates to be self-employed while aiming high to mount the economic ladder of life to the very top. Today, some of those businesses have grown into gigantic industries exporting their products to many countries, including Nigeria.

If Egypt is not one of Africa’s poor countries today, it is because her government managed that nation’s economy to the benefit of her ordinary citizens, despite several decades of war with Israel. Compared to the industrialised nations, Egypt may not be called a rich country now, but her preparation for the future seems to be assuring her of a frontline economic position soon. Her unsurpassable investment in manpower through education is a confirmation of that.

Industrialisation

What obtains in Egypt equally obtains in most other Arab countries, especially those of the gulf region. For instance, Saudi Arabia has always known that oil would not flow forever in her wells. Thus as far back as the late 4970s, that country had diversified her economy by establishing two industrial cities of Yambu’ and Jubail, a project which the United states described as the most ambitious ever in the industrial history of mankind.

Much more have since been put in place for the benefit of the future generations. And, travellers who have visited countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Libya, Yunisia, Morroco, and Algeria will confirm that the future of global wealth will definitely be in the Middle East courtesy of the above mentioned countries. But the greatest assets of those countries are manpower which their free education programme is providing from primary schools through the Universities with impeccable foresight.

The example of Japan

Despite her limited natural resources, Japan has shown that no material wealth can equal education. And, the Arabs had learnt that lesson after centuries of derivation from what used to be the greatest Islamic heritage bequeathed to mankind.

With the recent bulk-passing between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on remittance of the crude oil money and the ceaseless rampancy of oil theft at the highest government level can Nigeria ever learn any lesson from the above narration? Economic growth is neither by dreaming nor by empty promises as did by the immediate past bovernment.

Nostalgia

Generally, there is nostalgia in Nigeria today, not only for the days of oil boom when life was relatively comfortable for all and sundry but also for the era of abundant farm crops when the thought of feeding was taken for granted by most citizens. Nigerian Muslims and non-Muslims alike are today yearning for the return of those days when wives could confidently ask their husbands for festival gifts and children could demand for new dresses, shoes and wrist watches from their parents. Those were the days when festival seasons were really festive and the graph of marriage carried some indices of value. Those were the days of friendliness among neighbours, good wishes among colleagues, mutual confidence among spouses as well as general peace and tranquility in the society.

Now, those days seem to have gone forever. Today, we have found ourselves in a situation against which we had long been warned in a couplet rendered by an Arab poet quoting two disciples of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) i. e. Ubayyi bn Ka’b and Abdullah bn Mas’ud. The couplet goes thus:

“This is the period against which we had been warned in the admonitions of Ubayyi bn Ka’b and Abdullah bn Mas’ud; A period in which truth would be rejected in its totality while falsehood, corruption and betrayal of trust would be held aloft; should this period further linger with its woes and tribulations, the world, might soon assume a situation where no one will rejoice over the birth of a new baby or grieve over the demise of a dear relative”.

Observation

What can we say of a man who fixes his eyes on the sun but does not see it? Instead, he sees a chorus of flaming seraphim announcing a paroxysm of despair. That is the parable of the country called Nigeria. Like the Israelis of Moses’ time, Nigerians have become gypsies wandering aimlessly and wallowing in abject poverty in the midst of abundance. What else do we expect from Allah beyond the invaluable bounties with which He has blessed us?

Nigeria is not lacking in forest and arable savannah. She is rich in seasons, vegetations, rivers and mountains all of which are great resources for people who are seeking reasonable comfort and are not self-deceptive. What she had consistently lacked was a responsible and patriotic government that could sincerely highlight its priorities according to the yearnings of the ordinary people. That food is becoming a threat to Nigerians today is an irony emanating from selfishness, naivety and massive corruption of our past governments enspecially from 1999 when the current democracy commenced to 2015 when a change of gear became compelling.

Cost of governance

In Nigeria today, the cost of running the government alone is enough to render the country bankrupt. The retinue of ministers and a galaxy of Presidential Advisers are major causes of poverty in the country. Even America with her huge economic resources, large population and financial muscle does not have more than ten ministers? Why must we retain an obnoxious immunity clause in our constitution which facilitates monumental corruption for the serving Governors who are hypocritically chased around but never caught for trial on the allegation of embezzlement after they might have left office?

Besides, what informs the idea of the so-called constituency allowances for legislators, which run into billions of naira without anything to show for it at a time when innocent women and children are crying for food? No one would have thought in 1999 that artificial hunger could be added to the abysmal level of poverty in Nigeria despite the increasing rise in price of oil in the international market. The ubiquity of beggars and lunatics in our cities and towns is a confirmation of this assertion.

Until now, governance in Nigeria had ‘become an artful trick adopted by a cabal to bamboozle the populace into blind submission. The propaganda in the 1980s was almost hypnotizing: ‘food and shelter for all in year 2000!’ That slogan was changed in the 1990s to: ‘Vision 2010!’ And when year 2010 was approaching, the slogan again changed to: ‘Vision 2020!’

Self-deception

Even as recently as 2014, without roads, without electricity, without functional rail transportation system for the masses, without jobs for majority of the able-bodied citizens and even without food on our tables, we were still being cajoled into believing in the illusion that Nigeria, a country without coins, would become one of the 20 biggest economies in the world in year 2020. Isn’t that a deliberate and callous deception? No country in history has ever been known to have achieved economic vibrancy by magic wand. Nigeria cannot be an exception.

An FAO report in 2008 revealed that about 300 Nigerians were dying of hunger daily in their own country. Only God knows what that figure might have become now. Given its seeming seriousness and sincerity of purpose, the current total cooperation of the people to enable it rebuild this country once and for all. A fire brigade approach to food crisis in a country like Nigeria is a shameful reaction to an avoidable melancholy.

Irony of life

It is ironic that people who live by the river bank can’t get water to drink when those living in the desert can find a reliable oasis to combat any drought. Given all the resources with which we are endowed, Nigerians should have no business with material poverty let alone food crisis.

Capitalism, which was once an economic ideology propelling mercantilism, has moved a step ahead, especially in Nigeria where official theft has become a profession. Capitalism is now a religion through which its adherents worship money. To such adherents, accountability is a mere riddle which only the poor may wish to unravel.

It is only in the interest of those in government, especially those in the executive and legislative arms who are most active in sharing public funds, to let the national wealth spread across board legitimately if only to avoid the current Nigerian elite situation where every house has become a prison in which the occupants are voluntarily jailed. To ignore the rule of law and shun justice in a land blessed with milk and honey is to cultivate trouble with insecurity in all its ramifications.

Conclusion

Nigeria needs to learn a lesson from the Egyptian example and find a solution to her overwhelming problem as did the Egyptians at their time of difficulty. Problems are meant to be solved. And there is no problem without solution. But people who always want to eat their cakes and still have them can never overcome their problem. Defending corruption in the guise of ethnicity or religion cannot see Nigeria through the Cape of Good Hope. Let the thieves of this country return the loot and face the consequences of their evil acts. The alternative if for Nigeria to remain as it is forever.