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Themes

Only A Fool Is Thirst...

Brampton, Ontario, Canada
yemiadegbite@nigeriahorizon.com

Bob Marley once said that “….in the abundance of water, only a fool is thirst”, nothing could be truer in the case of Nigeria. It defies all reasonable explanations why we cannot feed ourselves with the abundance of fertile land such as the Sahel rolling grass land to the north and the rain forest in the south. We have incredible amount of natural and manpower resources, why is it we can not put these rare combinations together and translate them into abundant food production where modern civilization could thrive? Drop any seed on the ground; before you know it, it germinates! This does not happen everywhere in the world particularly where the majority of food stuffs we import come from. It is shocking that we import billions of naira worth of rice and other grains from countries where they have only about four months of growing season, isn’t that telling us about our cavalier attitudes towards championing our course and making our country independent? The trend should be the other way round. We have the whole year as a growing season, what else do we want the Mother Nature to indulge us with? Gone are those beautiful days of groundnut pyramids in the north and the cocoa production in the south. No thanks to government’s directionless agricultural policy and no thanks to the paradoxical oil doom! The oil boom has given us capricious leaders with acute sense of what is right for the country; it has made us to be indolent, insolent, plan-less, visionless, dependent and vulnerable through the evil of economic penetration.

The road net-works in Nigeria are in the worst shape ever, after so many billions of naira had gone down the drain. Actually, one of the worst in Africa! It is now a common knowledge that road accidents are the highest killer of Nigerians, probably killing more people than HIV/AIDS. Yet, Nigeria can boast of an extensive deposit of bitumen which is the major material for road pavement somewhere in Ondo state, one of the largest in the world. What an oxymoron! How many governments will it take to make things right in our country? My grand father died hoping for a better Nigeria, so my father, and now even my own generation is still hopeless and the next generation may also leave in despair.

The power sector is in ruins, yet we expect foreign investments in such a chaotic environment. The remaining surviving industries are operating below capacity, unemployment is running all time high, and nobody seems to be in-charge. Despite all the much celebrated war against corruptions by the EFCC, the war is still far from being won, it even appears that, we have not started! The acting EFCC chair Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde through his chief of staff Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi has this to Say “Nigerian leaders have embezzled about $400 billion between 1960 and now and most of them are still not being challenged.” This is a rude testimony to the irresponsible and irresponsive system we have in the country. How can we dream about development when our leaders are an “epitome and paragon of corruption?” here we are with our Attorney General and minister of Justice and the all ever listening president talking about Rule of Law, when there is no justice done to those who have brought us to this precarious situation. As loud as I could possible be, I say to HELL with the so called rule of law. Why should we pay too much attention to the wagon, when we pay little or no attention to the wagon occupants? There is a dire need for emergency rule to fix the system, period.

The educational sector is not spared of the agony. When I got to Canada, I went to University of Toronto to find out what I can do to finish up my Masters’ in International Relations, I was proud of being an OAU product. Ife is one of the Universities recognized by U of T, with a second class lower divisions, you can proceed to your masters’ right away, whereas, if you are from some countries you have to come with first class before you can be considered. Now with the in-today and out-tomorrow system in our educational sector, such VIPs treatment at Uof T is long gone! The system now produces half- baked graduates that are even more confused after graduations than when they got into the education system. People that are following our history closely should shudder at the future of our dear country, because half illiteracy is deadlier than a full blown one. No wonder none of our universities in Nigeria makes the first 500 universities in the world.

The fragile security situation scares the hell out of many affluent Nigerians; it is even scarier when you are coming from abroad. Security operatives appeared to be under-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with the culprits in the society and worse still, some of them collude with the men of underworld to perpetrate and unleash horrors in the country. It is totally not unexpected; soldiers and police are conniving and selling arms to the very gangsters that should be locked up far away from any civilization. The renewed bravados of the armed robbers in our nation underscore the insecurity in the country. There is enough blame to go round because, these days, there are no more victims, but only volunteers. If we all volunteer to be run over and trashed, so be it.
At every level of government, the rule is, “doing this job, you don’t have to sweat” everybody’s job is nobody’s job. The painful reality is we aren’t going anywhere with this in mind. Citizens of great nations, do their jobs as if their lives depend on it. Until we develop this type of mind set, we can only dream of greatness.

At this juncture, I should say without mincing words that, I fault the 6 or 7-point agenda of President Ya’dua. I am not surprised at the poll revelation that more than 75% of Nigerians do not know what the 7-ponit agenda entails. I wonder if the president himself is convinced about his own ability to implement the agenda. For any agenda to succeed, you need to mobilize people to support you in order to make such agenda a reality, as at now that is not happening. For any success in the life of this administration, and I must say that, time is of essence, we do not have to wait for more than half of the administration’s life before we can see signs of action. Nobody expects Ya’dua to fix everything, what we expect is a modest increa-mentalist approach. Anybody who will embark on fixing Nigeria’s problems should identify two or three critical areas and commit human and financial resources to accomplish a verifiable and measurable achievement in his choosing areas.

Our problems are numerous and hydra-headed, any attempt to face them all at the same time will likely produce no result, that is how bad it is. I expect Ya’dua to choose any two or three areas and face them squarely, with vigour and conviction.
If I were him, I will choose Agriculture because without food, there can be no national security, no meaningful development that any beggar nation can record, and no industrial development and lastly, to play politics, we need to be properly fed. As the word goes, a hungry man is an angry man
Secondly, I will face power generation with all the power I can muster. A lot of other things depend on adequate and uninterrupted power supply. We have all become so dependent on electricity, there is little we can achieve without adequate power supply. Power generation is a national emergency; it must be fixed with a great sense of urgency.

Lastly, I will face aggressive road constructions with zeal and candor. These three critical areas will for sure generate a domino-effect on all other sectors of the economy, of cause, security of life and properties are assumed to be solid.
All the cosmetic actions being taking by the government will not work because corruption is still deeply rooted among the people in government, and they are not going to give up without a fight. We need to come down heavily on them, we have to use a sufficient force of law to deter them, I don’t mean the wrist slapping that is going on right now, I mean the type of force that will deter even a lunatic.
Corruption has reached endemic level in Nigeria. Even the best efforts of both ICPC and EFCC aren’t enough to stop these monsters. The culprits are painting the picture of being victimized even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them. We need a more drastic action. It is human nature to seek fortune even at his or her peril, if that is the case; it has to get messier before it gets better.

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