Monologue
This article is not new. It was first written and published in this column about one decade ago. Yet, the situation that warranted its writing and publication at that time has not waned a bit. Thus, a repeat of its publication here today is at the request of some readers who still consider it potent.
From all indications, Nigeria is a divinely blessed country that ironically functions like an accursed nation. After 59 years of independence from the British colonialism, this country’s stagnancy remains unprecedented in contemporary time. She is like a beheaded python in the only continent of the black race. And her citizens live like orphans without hope in the midst of hungry predators. In this circumstance, how to reconcile hope with despair in those orphans remains a fundamental question that requires a fundamental answer.
Preamble
This world is a dramatic entity mysteriously coded in parables. Every living thing therein sees it and relates to it according to its own nature of existence. It takes history to decode it only after the actors might have left the stage. Who are we? Where are we coming from? And where are we going from here? Those are some of the questions which all rational human beings should be asking themselves from time to time.
But such questions have been rendered irrelevant in Nigeria because the circumstances of life have changed the priorities of the citizens. The only question now in vogue, which everybody seems to be answering, is this: ‘what am I getting from this?’ It is a material world that paved the way for what now becomes an endemic corruption in the land.
A Dramatic Question
The question above is the real drama that permanently engages the attention of Nigerians of all strata. It is the question that crowns money as the king of the world. It is the question that fosters greed with the milk of callousness and fetters humanity to the stake of Satan. It is the question that presents mirage to Nigerian youths as the only substance worthy of pursuit. Incidentally, however, no genuine attempt to proffer a befitting answer to that all-time question has ever been made by any government in power. And in reality, if proffered, such an answer would have confirmed the ephemerality of this world against the common yearning for illicit prosperity which even most of today’s so-called clergy are preaching to the detriment of societal decency.
The Parable of a Country
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 Israelites of Moses’ time, Nigerians have become typical gypsies just wandering about 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?
What is Nigeria not blessed with? We have land in abundance, not in terms of size alone but also in terms of agrarian soil and rich vegetation. At least over 77 million hectares of land is said to be arable in Nigeria. Out of this, less than 34 million hectares is reportedly being cultivated for various agricultural activities including husbandry. This has even dwindled to about 23 million square hectares as insurgency and banditry keep forcing more and more rural youths to troop to cities and towns for survival and imaginary greener pastures.
Nigeria’s Endowments
As a country, we are blessed with rainfalls to water our plants from the sky and to graze our animals to satisfaction. We are endowed with variety of nourishing food crops that are enough to feed us from generation to generation without importing any edible from anywhere.
The Qur’an testifies to this in chapter 80 thus: “Let man reflect on the food he eats; how ‘We’ pour down the rain in torrents and cleave the earth asunder; how ‘We’ bring forth the corn, the grapes, the fresh vegetables, the olive, the palm products, the thickets, the fruit-trees and the green pasture for you and for your cattle to delight in…” Allah’s favour is regular and incessant. We cannot deny it for any reason.
The Country’s Workforce
In addition to the aforementioned, we have energetic and dedicated work force that is married to the farmlands, plants, fishery and animal husbandry in Nigeria. We also have intellectual brains that engage in researches days and nights to ensure agricultural enhancement of our country.
Nigeria is not lacking in forest and savannah. She is rich in rivers and mountains all of which are great resources for people who are seeking reasonable comfort and are not self-deceptive.
What we had consistently lacked as a nation is a responsible leadership that should care to preserve our foremost heritage which is agriculture. That shortage of foods is becoming a threat to Nigerians’ existence today is purely due to lack of responsible leadership especially since the commencement of the fourth republic in 1999.
First Baton of Misfortune
Nigeria’s misfortune started when the first baton of the Presidency in 1999 was handed over to a parochial ‘prisoner’ who had lost contact with reality of free world of the modern time. On his assumption of office in that year, some die hard Nigerian optimists saw him as a reincarnate of the Yusuf of yore would rescue Nigeria from an impending scourge of famine. But no sooner had he become President than Nigerians realized that the man who was thought to be a Yusuf coming from the prison to transform Nigeria’s dream into reality was actually a parochial Mathew.
As a farmer that he claimed to be, he had been expected to act like Chairman Mao of China who started the revolution of his country with agricultural self-sufficiency. But this Mathew eventually confirmed that a man cannot give what he lacks. He proved that that he was never tutored in any decency that could facilitate good governance. Those who imposed him on Nigeria have since openly confessed their calamitous error expressing a belated regret and liking their bleeding fingers with internal agony. Today, Nigeria is worse than she was two decades ago with successive display of mediocrity by those taking turns to be at the helm of affairs.
Evidence of Parochialism
Not only did the first relay leg of Nigeria’s fourth republic parochially promote cassava alone, of all crops, and pushed many farmers into cultivating it as a cash crop, he also ensured that most small scale farmers made no headway in their efforts. No rural roads were provided to enable those farmers transport their farm products to markets in cities and towns and no iota of incentive for those farmers from his government. And when the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), an active arm of the United Nations, attempted to bail out Nigeria from his devilish antics by granting small scale farmers a substantial financial aid in the name of ‘FADAMA’, the news only ended on radio as a mere announcement.
The money, (N50 billion naira), meant to boost agriculture through peasant farmers became a booty for the hawks among some government officials and their lackeys in the private sector.
Those poor farmers ran helter-skelter for some time seeking loans that were pegged at N250000 naira per head without getting one kobo. All sorts of huddles were erected on their ways until they became frustrated and rested their case with God.
The only farmer who was conspicuously known to have benefited directly from that money was the President himself who arrogantly announced on a television network, during a Presidential media chart in 2006, that he got a whopping N2 billion for his farm as loan from the money meant for the peasants. Can you imagine that callous greed?
The State Governments
Most of the State Governors of that time did not help the matter. Rather than focusing on agriculture which was the natural occupational endowment of their respective States, those gold diggers preferred to depend on oil largesse coming to them from the federal government through the so-called allocation revenue sharing. To them, such a quicker way of making money for themselves rather than for their States was more beneficial than investing in agriculture which could only yield results perhaps years after they might have left office.
The Cost of Democracy
In Nigeria, the cost of a democratic dispensation alone is enough to run the country aground. As a third world developing country, what are we doing with over 40 federal ministers and scores of Presidential Senior Special Advisers as well a retinue of personal Assistants when even America with her huge economic resource, large population and financial wherewithal has only about ten ministers? Why must we have different ministers for agriculture and water resources? Where is the federal government’s farm to justify that?
Besides, what informs the idea of the so-called constituency allowances for Senators and other legislators, at the federal and state levels costing the country billions of naira, especially at a time when innocent women and children are crying for food which is a foremost necessity of life?
No one would have thought that artificial hunger could be added to the abysmal level of poverty in Nigeria despite the unprecedented rise in price of oil in the international market during the wasted years of 2003 to 2014.
Artful Trick
Governance in Nigeria has become an artful trick adopted to bamboozle the populace into blind submission. The propaganda in the 1980s spearheaded by Professor Gerry Gana, the then Chairman of Mass Mobilization for Structural Adjustment (MAMSA) was almost hypnotizing: ‘food and shelter for all in the year 2000!’ That slogan was changed in the 1990s to: ‘Vision 2010!’ And when year 2010 was fast approaching, the slogan changed again to: ‘Vision 2020!
Now, in 2019 without roads, without electricity, without rail transportation system, without jobs for majority of the able-bodied citizens, without security and even without food on our tables, how can we hope to become one of the 20 biggest economies in the world in year 2020 as the propagandists had deceptively projected? Isn’t that a day dream? It takes two to tango. If the deceivers can pretend not to know that a game of deception is in place, the deceived populace surely know even if they also pretend to play along. No country in history is ever known to have achieved economic vibrancy by magic wand. Nigeria cannot be an exception.
FAO Report
In an FAO report some years ago, about 300 Nigerians were said to be dying of hunger daily. Only God knows what that figure has risen to become now. Yet, rather than reacting to that sad news positively to the rescue of the people, our callously deceptive government continued to assure us of becoming one of the biggest economies in the world in year 2020 even as the easy money accruing from our petroleum resources was being audaciously stolen with unbridled impunity to the detriment of the masses.
However, by some actions he took during his tenure, the late President Musa Yar’Adua of the blessed memory remains commendable for showing the example of governance with human face and human heart. At least as a first measure, he earmarked N80 billion for food importation and announced a suspension of all tariffs on imported food items to the immediate relief of all and sundry at that time. He also released grains from the national silos to check inflation and pumped N400 billion into the economy for the purpose of creating about 10 million jobs then. Though, such measures were far from being adequate for a country which was aspiring to become one of the biggest economies in 2020, the move was generally seen as a good beginning of a hopeful future.
However, as soon as Yar’Adua died, all progressive steps were suspended and the national treasury was thrown open for audacious thieves to scoop upon with impunity. Thereafter, open day official theft became a means of winning medals and earning national honour than the shameful act it used to be in the time of Yar’Adua.
Now, the government needs to be told that no miracle can yield any success based on a ramshackle foundation laid down for Nigerian economy by a Mathew (from the prison) who, as President, could hardly reason beyond the siege mentality of the prison yard from where he had emerged.
Memory Lane
Yusuf (Joseph), the son of Ya’qub (Jacob), did not know that he could have any solution to a fundamental problem of a country other than his own. Neither did his brothers who sold him into slavery know that he could be a solution to a major problem in another land. But the accident of history never ceases to play itself out. Without Yusuf, only Allah knows what the history of Egypt would have been today. And without a Pharaoh’s dream of drought, the story of Yusuf would have been totally different from what we now know of it.
If Egypt had any major plight when Yusuf was in prison in that country, it was Pharaoh’s dream. It turned out that Yusuf’s imprisonment in Egypt was a blessing, not only for Egypt but also for Yusuf and his family. What could have been a repeat of that episode here in Nigeria, turned out to be a regrettable bizarre as most national assets were sold and bought by the so-called rulers in the name of privatization. The rest is now left to history.
I was a student in Egypt in the 1970s when the hostility between that country and Israel was fierce. Egypt was then an ally of the (now defunct) Soviet Union while Israel was virtually a satellite of the United States. Not only did Egypt suffer isolation from NATO member countries of Europe and America but the Soviet Union which was supposed to be the main ally of Egypt was not forthcoming with any meaningful assistance beyond the supply of light and medium range weapons. Thus, the Egyptian government had to buckle in firmly in other to fend for its people at that critical time.
Egyptian Template
Realizing the importance of food supply especially in a war situation, Egypt mobilized all her agricultural resources around the River Nile and forgot about any food importation. The result was tremendous. Till today, food supply is not a major problem in that country.
Uganda for Instance
About two decades ago, Uganda, a sub-Sahara African country, found herself in the position of Egypt of yore. A colossal drought broke out in that country killing thousands of people and virtually wiping out the entire cattle in the country. No Pharaoh had any dreamed premonition and no Yusuf was in a prison to translate any dream into a solution.
What the Ugandans did to find a solution was to reset the country’s agricultural focus. Rather than concentrating on tilling the land and rearing the cattle, which drought had eroded, a new focus was brought to bear. Uganda took to commercial ‘bee farming’ as a relieving alternative. The seriousness which the government of that country paid to the new focus was such that Uganda today is a country to reckon with in the production and supply of honey and other bee products. A substantial amount of honey consumed in Europe and America is currently got from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. And those products have become the second biggest foreign exchange earner for Uganda after coffee.
Today, besides the flooding in some States, Nigeria is not afflicted by drought or famine. Neither is she engaged in a major war besides fighting insurgency and banditry. Yet, the general fear in vogue now, is hunger compounded by insecurity. How the country arrived at such a deadly scourge is irrelevant for now. What is relevant is how to get out of it. Like Egypt of yore, Nigeria will need a Yusuf to unravel the mystery surrounding the dream that brought this scourge about.
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. President Yar’Adua’s short time leadership was a lesson for those who want to learn. Given all the resources with which we are endowed as a country, Nigerians should have no business with poverty let alone food crisis.
Cause of Insecurity
In one of the reactions to this column which I received and published recently, a reader raised alarm over the persisting poverty in Nigeria pointing out that “about 97% of Nigerian wealth is in the hands of 3% of Nigerians who are mainly in government”. This has consistently been the hub of Nigeria’s version of democracy which led to the collapse of the country’s first, second and third republics. The implication of that reader’s observation is that 97% of the populace is being forced to scramble for the remaining 3% of the national wealth. Why won’t there be insecurity in the land? Wherever injustice replaces law, restiveness must serve as a consequence.
Capitalism, which was once an economic ideology propelling mercantilism, has moved a step ahead, especially in Nigeria where official theft has become a profession.
Effect of Capitalism
Capitalism is now a religion through which its adherents worship money. To such adherents, accountability is a mere riddle which only the poor may want to unravel.
It is only in the interest of those in government, especially the legislators who are most active in sharing public funds, to let the national wealth spread across board legitimately if only to avoid the current situation of Nigerian estates 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 an encounter with insecurity in all its ramifications.
Where people are well educated and conscious of their rights; where they perceive wealth as a matter of opportunity and not the exclusive right of any group; where they see themselves as qualified but denied their legitimate entitlements; nobody can consign them to ignominy indefinitely. They will react in no uncertain terms. That has started in Nigeria but it must not be allowed to linger. Let Nigeria grow from a country into a nation that we may all be proud to be her citizens.
