The last one week or thereabouts has witnessed a rapid outburst of humungous looting expository going on in Nigeria under the watch of the man we all placed our hope on to take Nigeria out of the decades-long widespread corruption which we found ourselves before his emergence in 2015, believing that, in him, we had found a messiah. But what we found now is a man looking so helpless just as the rest of us.
The 16-year reign of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)! was brought to an end in the April 2015 general election that ushered in President Muhammadu Buhari and his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), with the selling point being change.
Nigerians wanted a change for the better because the ruling PDP had grossly under-performed and had disappointed the vast majority of the people. Hence, the change mantra was easy to sell. But alas, five years after, Nigeria and Nigerians have been short-changed.
The change the people expected was in complete opposite direction to the change offered. Basic ingredients of good governance like security of lives and property; good health, education and employment for the citizenry as well as bringing an end to the ravaging brigandage and reckless looting of our commonwealth, among others, were what we craved for under the new alliance with the Buhari-led administration.
But little did we know that none of these was in the list of his priority. None of us had an inkling about what would be offered until the government began to unfold its agenda which included mega looting of our commonwealth, more blood letting across the country, total collapse of the spirit of nationhood in terms of distribution of national offices, and total darkness over the hope of a better tomorrow.
Let me tag it a theatre of absurd. It started with the social media announcing the arrest and incarceration of the anti-graft czar, Ibrahim Magu, followed by revelation of mind-boggling figures of recovered and relooted money and other property, especially in real estate spreading all over the world.
In the epic drama by late Alagba Adebayo Faleti, Bashorun Gaa, he foresaw Nigeria of today in the prologue, “…Jaguda di baale oja, kolekole d’asode…(thief becomes the market leader, robber becomes head of vigilante…”.
We were wondering where this would lead to and then, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) saga started. First, it looked like an in’fighting among the Niger Delta leaders noted for their heartless plundering of their region with reckless abandon. Godswill Akpabio, Joi Nunieh and the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, were the initial actors.
Then, it moved to the seat of power, Abuja, with the issue assuming a more spread as members of the hallowed chamber were caught in the web of ‘you also stole more than I did’. Akpabio was about spilling the milk when the House Committee on the NDDC literarily stuffed his mouth with paper towel to stop talking, ‘put off the mic, off the camera, ah..Nigerians must hear no more…’ and it ended.
Earlier, the head of the NDDC Interim Management Committee (IMC), Pondei, had to vain fainting when he had no answer to questions about how members of his team had continued globe-throttling during the era of COVID-19 that had occasioned total lockdown around the world, the billions he spent on pandemic palliative for himself and his cronies and contracts running into several billions of naira awarded for a particular job in dozens of duplications. Wonder will never end here.
Well, these were just additions to the common knowledge of looting and thieving in my country which have now almost become the norm in our clime.
We were told the form of democracy we practice is copied from the United States where they also run an executive presidency, bi-camera legislature and the judiciary. But in reality, we are not practicing anything near the American Democracy.
America has 100 senators, two for each of the 50 states. The country has 435 House of Representatives members. Now, come to think of it…California, a little bigger than Nigeria has two senators!!! Her economy is said to be larger than those of all African countries put together. Yet, it has only two senators who are not paid a quarter of what a Nigerian senator earns and work 20 times more than their Nigeria counterparts.
The members of the Congress (Representatives) are chosen according to the population of each state. They also don’t earn near what my busy-body brothers and sisters earn, both legitimately and otherwise, as expoused under the oversight functions.
Let me stop the undue comparison and concentrate on my country and how we can get out of the mess we are neck deep into. No society plunders its economy the way Nigeria is doing today and get out of poverty.
Some people have been agitating for each nation within the Nigerian State to go their own way. Maybe that will solve the problem because I don’t see this Nigeria project flying. It can’t just taxi, not to talk about taking off.
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