Tag: rain

When I left Nigeria in 1973, my employer and sponsor then called the University of Ife was a Western State institution. That the university is now called the Obafemi Awolowo University is one of the unfortunate fall outs of the university being taken over by the Federal government. Through this impulsive takeover,  the university became a pawn in the hands of the clowns in Lagos and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

The university was founded in 1962, after more than five years of careful deliberation by the government of the Western Region. After four years during which the university was plagued by teething problems caused mostly by the political disturbances which rocked the Western Region, Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi was appointed Vice Chancellor. Everything considered, it was he who set the university on the path of greatness from which we got the altogether too few of those golden years which set the university apart and for which she is still remembered. My own personal harvest from the Oluwasanmi years was the sponsorship which took me to Manchester as part of the staff development scheme, which over the years took two hundred or maybe even more of us to various world famous universities to cut our infant teeth in the world of academia. Those were heady days of glorious expectation which in turn registered the University of Ife as a world class institution. Unfortunately that season of euphoria was, by necessity, very short lived as the rain began beating us long before we expected it or prepared ourselves for its coming.

In 1975, the Federal government,  drunk on its own dollar induced euphoria quite unadvisedly as it is now clear, decided to take over the running of all universities in the land at that time and the descent into mediocrity and chaos, especially at Ife was set in motion.

Between 1966 and 1975 when he was rail roaded out of the university, the university was built up stone by stone by Oluwasanmi who had embarked on an ambitious programme of infrastructural building which has produced what has been described as the most beautiful university campus in Africa and one which could stand side by side and indeed toe to toe with any other university in the world. All throughout that period, state of the art structures were going up one after the other continuously, rather like it probably was in ancient Rome at the height of its pomp and glory. Even now, fifty years later,  as much as 85% or more of the structures you see around the university campus were built within that glorious period of Oluwasanmi’s stewardship. Such was the quality of work done on those rather weather beaten buildings that all they need now is an honest coat of paint to restore them to their pristine glory. You are never likely to see work approaching such quality in any public university now being built in the new Nigeria of our time. Furthermore, there is virtually nothing to show for the Federal presence on that university campus. The most significant contribution of a Federal government to the university came a little over a decade after the takeover when the name of the university was wilfully and cynically changed in the immediate aftermath of the demise of Chief Awolowo who for several years was the university’s Chancellor. One other consideration was that the university had been conceived and incubated at the time when the Chief was in full charge of everything going on in the Western Region. The university could have been named after him at the time as indeed the university in Zaria had been named after the premier of Northern Nigeria at the time. But the temptation to do so was resisted successfully. Years later, a craven Federal government casting around desperately for political dividends transparently bribed the people of the South west by changing the name of the university to that of a much beloved political leader. I don’t know if that government harvested any dividend from that transparent sleight of hand but only a few years down the line, the greatest opposition to that confused government came from the South west. Since then, virtually all our public universities have been named after politicians most of whom had  expired in many senses long before their demise. That is an issue worth thinking about.

Going back to 1975, we return to the period of settlement in Nigeria. The government, trying to win the support of the people for the elongation of its devalued tenure, devised a formula for putting money directly into private pockets through the payment of the Udoji bonanza to everyone qualified to receive it. Not satisfied with this, the government, a continuation of the Gowon junta devised all sorts of populist measures and in doing so, quite destroyed the future of Nigeria as surely as the guillotine thousands of lives at the height of the French revolution.

The university I returned to in 1976 was radically different from the one I left behind only three years before and unfortunately, most of the changes I met on ground were undesirable as far as I could judge. The wind of affluence which was sweeping through the campus approached the status of gale force winds and was sweeping away all forms of orthodoxy. By far the most conspicuous victim of change on the campus was the ousting of the very architect of all the positive changes which had occurred on the campus over a period of nine years. Professor Oluwasanmi, together with a few sturdy lieutenants had built a modern university virtually from scratch and had spared no quarter in doing so. What more, there was a great deal to show for their labour. In spite of this, the great man was unceremoniously booted out of office by men who were half his age and could not boast of a quarter of his experience of selfless public service. Part of one of the many structures going up on campus had collapsed inexplicably in the process of it’s construction killing one of the workers. A committee of enquiry was set up and Oluwasanmi was identified as the fall guy. He had to go, a sacrifice to faux sanctimonious posturing by people who would not have recognised selfless service even if it hit them across the face. By that time, the weather had already changed and we should have been reaching out for a conveniently placed umbrella as the rain fell on us with increasing fury.

Read Also: Nigeria has what it takes to end insecurity – Kwankwaso

By 1975 the dollars were rolling in unchecked and the problem of how to spend them wisely became pressing. I know very little about economics but even in my ignorance, I am aware of the butter and guns relationship. Butter is that edible stuff which makes a great contribution to the enjoyment of food whilst guns are well, guns. The money spent on butter is no longer available to be spent on guns and verse versa. The rulers of Nigeria at this time had the choice of spending money on social amenities which could contribute to development but instead decided to divert money into private pockets including, or perhaps especially their own. In 1969, just before the rains began, I spent nine months as a clerk in the Ministry of Finance at that time the most powerful Ministry in the land. The Minister was none other than Chief Obafemi Awolowo, second in command to the military head of state. The permanent secretary was Mr. Abdul Atta and on a few occasions, I had the privilege and thrill of seeing those venerable gentlemen waiting to take the lift in the lobby of Mosaic House, seat of the ministry in Tinubu square. In those days before the coming of the deluge we are still trying to cope with, neither of these gentlemen had an official car! A car, not the same car everyday, was sent to bring the minister to Mosaic House and take him back home again. As for Mr. Atta, he came to work under his own steam in a bottle green Mercedes 190D, a modest vehicle to match the standard of those days. Those were the days of the nation’s genteel poverty when resources had to be stretched to cover vast distances. That the country went through the Civil War without borrowing a penny suggests that the nation was under tolerably good management. With the coming of those dollars, all restraints were removed and there was enough to be thrown at everything rather in the manner of a drunken sailor let loose on an unsuspecting port city. To continue with the butter and guns analogy, the money could have been spent on building developmental infrastructure such as well equipped schools, railway system expansion, durable roads, building industrial capacity including the generation and distribution of electricity and modern  telecommunication systems, building up impressive academic muscle and security, to mention the most pressing. Instead, money was made available to pamper various sections of the great Nigerian public. University education was made free, ostensibly to cater for the children of the poor but the vast majority of those who profited from it were the children of the elites who with their freshly enhanced salaries could very well pay for the education of their children beyond the undergraduate level. Ironically, many of these people seeing the local university stumbling  from one crisis to the other elected to send their pampered children to universities abroad. Thereafter, the country was flooded with official cars so that government had to take over the responsibility of solving the transportation of a large number of civil servants. In the days of the odd and even number system in Lagos, some of these fat cats were provided with two official cars so that they could be brought to work everyday at government expense. This abuse of privilege has only expanded over the years until now when billions of Naira are incinerated from time to time as government functionaries are deemed unable to perform their functions in the absence of bullet proof SUVs. In 1969,the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance came to work in his personal car because he had purchased it with a government loan to facilitate his contribution to government business. Such common sense has long been banished from government thinking which is why we are now hard out to keep our ship from floundering in the sea of misgovernment which the rains lashing us have created.

The middle years of the seventies of the last century were pivotal, for good or to be honest, mostly for ill, in deciding the present situation in Nigeria. And this hinges on the so called oil boom which drastically changed all societal features within the country. From the genteel poverty of the sixties to the frenzy of the seventies, our default settings were changed so profoundly that we began to operate on a much shorter and destructive wavelength than we imagined we could ever be at the time the civil war broke out in 1967.

There is no doubt that the war caused a great deal of  change to Nigeria but even after that monumental upheaval, the country was, by and large still recognisable from what it was before the sounds of artillery began to disturb our peace. In the immediate aftermath of that war, the country can be said to have been busy trying to manage the peace which had brought that bloody but weary episode to a close or at least that is what we thought at that time. All signs pointed to the fact that sooner than later, we were going to try and bring life back to what it was before the war. The situation changed and changed profoundly as soon as we were called upon to manage the influx of petrodollars which started after the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. Within a period of only one year, our trajectory had changed forever and a new country had emerged.

As long as there was a war on there was no opposition to the military government of the day so that all attention could be paid to winning the war and complete its self-appointed task of keeping Nigeria one and setting up the programme for winning the peace.

The situation changed shortly after the war as all politicians, old and young began to manoeuvre themselves into positions to take over from the soldiers. The most visible civilian member of the military government and indeed the de facto deputy head of government Chief Obafemi Awolowo who had looked after the financial affairs of the country all throughout the period of the war was the first to step out of the military orbit as soon as the immediate post-war period had been successfully negotiated. According to him, it would be doing great violence to his democratic credentials if he continued to be part of an unelected government once the emergency conditions associated with the war had been removed. This was the signal for all the politicians, most of them without a single democratic bone in their body  to start to agitate for a return to civilian rule or, to put it another way, a return of the military to their barracks.

After more than five years in the seat of power, the military were (understandably?) reluctant to even entertain any thought of reducing themselves to playing war games or whatever they usually amused themselves with in their barracks. Instead, they began to make noises which suggested that they were in no hurry to vacate the political stage. Indeed, the head of state stated quite categorically in his independence day broadcast in 1974 that it was no longer realistic for the military to hand over to a civilian government by 1976. This was in spite of promises that had been made in 1970, all of four years before that military rule was going to be brought to an end by that time. This meant the military government had given itself six years to wrap up whatever was necessary to be done to prepare a viable transition programme. With only two years to go however, the military admitted brazenly that their transition programme was faulty, was no longer viable and therefore needed to be scrapped. Not only that, no new date was submitted for consideration so that it appeared that the country had to prepare itself for an indefinite period of military rule. Looking back to that period, it is perhaps not a coincidence that the promised return to civilian rule was unilaterally taken off the table at a time when American dollars were flowing into the country at an unprecedented rate. With the benefit of hind sight we can say that as soon as the promise to hand over power to an elected government was retracted whatever bonds that existed between the military rulers and the ruled had been severed and looked irreparably broken from whichever way you looked at the situation. There was therefore an obvious need for some sort of reconciliation and looking back, there is a suggestion of a pro quid quo from a government which was coincidentally sitting on a mountain of dollars and the civilian population which wanted them gone. The government needed support for its determination to hang on to power  and reasoned that it could get this support by putting money, a whole lot of money into as many pockets as possible. What followed was the Udoji Award which put a lot of money into individual pockets and went a long way into winning some sympathy if not love for the government.

The Udoji Award was the result of the work of the Udoji Commission which was set up  primarily to review the conditions of service of the civil service with a view to creating a public service institution which was both efficient and effective. It was thought that it was only by doing this that a public service capable of administering a modern and progressive economy could be created. It was soon realised that a major, if not the major requirement for any reorganisation of the public service was the monetary compensation which public servants needed to induce them to make the required contribution to societal development. This is why the result of the work of that commission is now remembered mostly for the Udoji Award or bonanza which followed it. Anything else that may have been achieved by Chief Udoji and his team paled into piddling insignificance when placed side by side with the irresistible financial package which came with it. And of course, the award was not and could not be restricted to the public service as everyone in  salaried employment benefitted from the rain of cash which was unleashed by the Udoji Award. Actually, people in the private sector went home with something substantially heavier than their counterparts in the public service. After all, salaries in the private sector were even at that time  significantly larger than what civil servants were being paid. The gulf in salaries between the two sectors has now widened into an unbridgeable chasm but that is not within the scope of this discussion.

Read Also: Army raids IPOB camp, exhumes three corpses in Imo

The Udoji Commission recommended a salary increase across board with new salaries being just about double the old one but it has to be said, the arrears of one year’s salary which were also paid together with the grossly enhanced salaries was the brainchild of a government in bribing mode. The people were too busy spending the loot which had in the manner of manna from heaven just fallen by gravity into their lap to worry about the tenure of the government which had just more or less buried them under the weight of unearned income. The richest thing about this process was that the government could pay out all that money because according to the elated or perhaps, befuddled head of that generous or perhaps more appropriately, profligate government, the problem facing the government was no longer about the availability of money but how to spend it. There was an abundance of cash and there was no point with being stingy especially since the public was amenable to being encouraged like a headless mob to do considerable violence to their own interest. The heirs of the assassinated Julius Caesar had used a similar tactic to sway the fickle Roman plebeians to their side when it was revealed that every Roman had been mentioned in Caesar’s will and stood to receive some money from the great man’s estate. It was sweeter still that the money which changed hands on this occasion came from the now elastic government treasury.

The point that has to be made about the Nigerian economy then and now is that the vast majority of the actors which operated it, did so outside the formal economy which fell under the jurisdiction of Chief Udoji and other members of his commission. Like an iceberg, most parts of the Nigerian economy is actually lying but not quiescent under water.  Indeed there is a whole lot going on within the more or less invisible informal economy. The market women and men selling all kinds of exotic items in all the markets in the various nooks and corners of this country operate all the mechanisms which govern the massive informal economy were of course not captured by the Udoji report but there was no way that they could be excluded from the government largess. These people waited patiently for their own award, arrears and all by manipulating the prices of every item they sold. Prices of everything immediately went through the roof as it were but this did not deter Nigerians from blowing their winnings in an orgy of spending. They now had money enough for buying whatever caught their fancy; cars, motorcycles, clothes, building materials and of course, frozen chickens from anywhere. The major consideration in making a purchase was no longer if something was needed. It only needed to catch a fancy and it was immediately purchased and flaunted.

The genteel poverty which we had contrived to navigate for several decades was cast aside like old clothing and we put on expensive new robes which did not cover our nakedness any better than our old clothes but which caressed our pampered bodies as we moved around to our satisfaction.

Our society was suddenly transformed into one which was characterised by a high level of consumption, one which was however not balanced by any increase in our productive capacity which actually fell drastically. Whatever money was brought into the country in the wake of the oil boom was immediately cancelled out by the cost of imports which were flung in our direction from all parts of the world. There was great rejoicing in the coming of the oil boom which came upon us like a clap of thunder but soon left us shivering in the rain which followed immediately after it. Our rainy season had arrived out of blue cloudless skies.

Rain when used as a metaphor is instantly recognised by any sensate human being, even the very young. A baby may not quite understand what is going on when it rains but in spite of that it responds naturally to the steady beat of rain on the roof top. A few years down the line, the baby, now in childhood may respond to rain by rushing outdoors as soon as it starts and cavorts  under the showers  with  joyous abandon enjoying the feel of raindrops on their young skin. It is not clear at what point rain is seen as something of a nuisance, one which can ruin  freshly coiffured hair or a new suit of clothes. For others, it may be the absence of rain that causes anxiety as a prolonged absence of rain may lead to a drought which in turn leads to widespread and profound catastrophe. More often however being beaten by the rain becomes a metaphor for unmitigated disaster as it engenders a strong feeling of helplessness. The only help for it is to get out of the rain as quickly as possible. When you are caught in the rain far from any shelter you are likely to feel utterly abandoned at which point any shelter however inconvenient would be gratefully exploited. If you really want to look for a victim of the rain however, you need look no further than a chicken. A chicken which has been caught in the rain looks absolutely miserable, with feathers blatantly ruffled and dishevelled. It is never a pretty sight.

There are some who liken our present predicament in Nigeria to being caught in the rain, a merciless howling gale that leaves no room for any mitigating circumstances. What more, we are in such a miserable state that we have nothing on a chicken in a rain storm. The question on many lips, is, when did we get caught in the rain which is now depriving us of any crumb of comfort? There are some others who are convinced that there can be no end to our extreme and largely collective discomfiture unless and until we go back to identify at what point in time the rain started beating us and begin the process of recovery.

One thing about rain is that, it hardly ever starts without warning even if the cloud that grows to cover the sky and blot out the sun completely is no bigger than a man’s hand when first sighted on the far horizon. The deluge, the effects of which we have been suffering from, started with that proverbial cloud, smaller than a tiny hand but of course the warning which that tiny, wispy cloud constituted was ignored out of hand and so, we have only ourselves to blame for the wet condition we are stuck in. After all, it is only a wise cripple that hot foots it out of an area that is threatening to become a theatre of war. By the time the mentally challenged cripple sets out on his journey to salvation, it is too late and he gets caught up in the rush to escape from toil, trouble and turmoil, ending up as a casualty of what at the appropriate time was no more than an avoidable  situation.

When we talk about the patently uncomfortable situation we are in today, there is no shortage of ideas as to how to reach dry ground as quickly as possible. For some, all we have to do is strengthen the Naira without any delay and everything will be well. Even for this simple solution nobody is sure about how it can be engineered. Some others think that what is necessary is to slay the fire snorting dragon of corruption and all dividends of normality and well being will fall into our laps. When we are not talking about corruption, we turn to the issue of leadership, followership, public finance, patriotism and other intangible elements on the backs of which we are to ride to salvation. In the meantime, there is no sign that there is any identifiable path leading us to the promised land in which case, we have many years of wandering through the wilderness in front if us. More than any of these we are still blissfully unaware of when the clouds began to gather in the sky above our befuddled heads.

It is clear there is a case for identifying the gathering of the clouds as when our soldiers, betraying their oath to protect the country from harm instead decided to rape the country by engaging themselves in activities which plunged the country into what can only be described as a ruinous civil war. There was every chance that the country was going to be torn asunder, the whole structure collapsing under the weight of multiple contradictions. However, that did not happen and the country, like a person who has been brought face to face with a decidedly fatal situation seemed to have  recovered her senses in the nick of time especially since the national economy survived the internecine conflict relatively unscathed.

I was out of the country between the years 1973 and 1976. In those years without the internet and instant news, I could only look at Nigeria from all that distance through a telescope. The coup which overthrew Gowon floated to my ears through distant airwaves and letters from home. When Murtala Mohammed was slaughtered like a sacrificial lamb on a street in Lagos the news reached across the ocean carrying with it the outrage unleashed by that murderous deed. Were the clouds already gathering menacingly at that point in time or, is it that the first rain drops were already dropping as scattered and inconsequential splashes?

Whatever are the answers to the above questions, I can say that the country I arrived in in 1976 was clearly another country from the one I left three years earlier even if those I left behind only three years before did not seem to be aware of any changes to the metrological situation of Nigeria, if we are to persist with the metaphor of rain that we started this article with.

I felt the winds generated by the coming rain at the back of my neck within a couple of hours after I touched down in Ikeja. Earlier in the day, we had a stopover in Kano. On getting into the terminal, I saw a telephone and toyed with the idea of phoning ahead to Lagos to confirm my arrival. The telephone did not have a dialling tone, a capacity it had obviously lost a long time before. I had not encountered that level of impotence associated with a utility service in the three years I had been  away. Welcome to Nigeria!

Read Also: 22 soldiers confirmed killed in Delta community

Almost as soon as I got home my mother wanted to know what she could cook as a treat for her son returned to the nest after a long absence. To tell the truth I  had not missed any home cooking as I ate the same things in Manchester as I ate before I left home. I saw the disappointment in her eyes as soon as I refused her offer of a home cooked meal. It was then that I remembered that all the time I was away, no chicken worthy of the name had passed my lips. Anyone who lived in Britain would remember probably with a shudder that what passed for chicken there was worse than what was worthy of being written about with any enthusiasm. My teeth longed for the opportunity of being challenged with chicken bones which did not melt in the soup or fell apart as soon as it encountered any pressure exerted by any reasonably healthy teeth. I immediately brought back the smile to my mother’s face as soon as I  ordered some soup made of a chicken with bones worth cracking with my teeth. I waited a few hours for the chicken to be brought from the market, to hear it’s cackling noise as it was killed in the backyard before being made into soup. I waited in vain for any sign of a chicken being being prepared for the pot. In the end I had to ask about the chicken being prepared to welcome me back home. Not only that, I wondered aloud if the chicken had been bought as I had not seen any chicken being brought into the house.  I was then given the assurance that my chicken soup would soon be ready.

‘But you haven’t even bought a chicken’ I replied.   I was then reassured that an uncle’s wife had been immediately despatched to the market to get a chicken as soon as I expressed the wish to be treated to chicken stew.

‘But I saw her arrive and she did not have a chicken in her hand’ I insisted.

‘Oh, the chicken was in her bag’ I was told. I was confused. Since when did live chickens come in a bag? I was then informed that frozen chickens, imported all the way from New Zealand were now available in Nigerian markets. The Nigerian economy was blooming and doing so with uncommon vigour which was why we were now importing chickens from a place more than half a day’s distance from Nigeria. The explanation was made with more than a touch of pride because as far as those around me on that day were concerned,  Nigeria had arrived in style on the the world stage and could now order chickens all the way from New Zealand and beyond. Since then, we have all but wrecked our economy by importing a whole lot of things which were once provided by the local economy. A lot of the people who were once involved in producing all those things we now import are now unemployed and desperately poor. They are drowning in the deluge of cold rain which has destroyed our collective welfare. The harm done to that economy was immense and after fifty years of that criminal frivolity, the economy has been forced to its knees and the rain hammering on our bowed head with a ferocity which has brought us to our knees.

I looked around me that day trying to make the point that it was because it was that kind of chicken I had been coping with and that I was sick and tired of eating such garbage but it was clear to me that my point was not well taken. Nigeria then had the capacity to buy frozen, tasteless chickens, beef and mutton from New Zealand and as far as they were concerned that was a clear sign of progress. The point that was made at the time was that the availability of frozen meat on the Nigerian market had forced down the price of that commodity making it possible for more people than before to afford to buy meat. Unconvinced, I was shaking my head as I forced that tasteless chicken stew down my constricted throat. Looking back it is clear that even if the rain had not started at that point in time, the clouds had begun to gather above us. That was some fifty years ago.