By Sunny Awhefeada
Some observers of the Nigerian condition will perfunctorily mention corruption, insecurity, economic problems and their more than multiple consequences as constituting the nation’s burden. The problems confronting our country are so spontaneous, immediate harsh and compelling that one doesn’t need to task one’s thinking faculty before identifying them. And the problems are legion. Is it the problem of corruption which has robbed the nation of the phenomenal development for which it was destined? Is it the problem of insecurity that has turned Nigeria into a dance macabre of a vast killing field and one of the most unsafe places in the world? Is it the economic plague that has mercilessly impoverished us and earned our country the unsavoury sobriquet of the poverty capital of the world? Name them!
Nigeria has been offhandedly dismissed as a failed state. Although we still have a semblance of governance, it is really not government that now pilots the affairs of Nigeria. Our nation succumbed to auto-piloting since 2015. Whatever pretences there were to governance ceased in the first quarter of 2015. The events leading to the change of government through the presidential election of 2015 were facilitated by the apparently gross incompetence of the government of the day. Those who flew the kite of change promised the nation purposeful leadership with which they will eradicate the ills of that era. Somehow they lost the magic wand on assumption of office and the ills they promised to eradicate grew cancerous and overwhelmed them. They left Nigeria worse than they met it. Under their watch corruption became the poison that was deployed to undermine our national aspiration, insecurity was on all fours with bandits attacking the president’s convoy, his village, the nation’s defence academy and even the precincts of the presidential villa. They mismanaged the economy into gross deficit leaving the people in abject poverty.
Another breed of wolves in sheep’s clothing took over the reins of government less than a year ago. Nigerians are yet to fully come to terms with the circumstances that enthroned the new helmsmen. They rode to power mouthing “renewed hope” although not many believed them. Right now they are dishing out “entrenched agony” instead of “renewed hope”. Nigeria has never been so despondent since 1960 when she got her independence. Nothing is adding up for the country and it appears as if our future is fleeing with the number of young people exiting and making for other places where life is more meaningful. The factors at play at the moment, in fact since January 1984, revolve around acute lack of capacity, lack of conviction and lack of vision all emanating from a conflict between self and national interest. Yes, our immediate problems could be corruption, insecurity and economic mismanagement, but at the core of these intractable malaises is that inveterate conflict between self and national interest. The basic question asked by those who have managed Nigeria since 1984 has been personal; what is in it for me? Nigeria’s or the national interest recedes in their consciousness as they see the country as a buffet that should be greedily eaten up without replenishing the stock and considering those who prepared it.
Nations don’t develop when their dynamics are hinged on personal interest. Such a case will only serve the narrow interest of the oligarchs at the expense of the people and by implication the country. The First Republic, despite its collapse just six years into independence, made phenomenal strides that put Nigeria on the fast lane of human progress. It so happened because the founding fathers, despite their failings, put the interest of the three and later four regions over their narrow and personal interest. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and later Dennis Osadebay put in so much to make their respective regions compete for accelerated development and Nigeria became a showpiece of what a truly independent nation should be. It wasn’t that there was no corruption, but it wasn’t as anemic as it is today. The young coup plotters who overthrew the government of the First Republic would be ruing their action in their graves today. The founding fathers invested in human capital development, agriculture, transportation, industrialization, housing and more. They were in tune with trends in global development and they stood as tall as their counterparts from elsewhere. Nevertheless, that period suffered some hiccups which were unavoidable in a nation’s sojourn. Corruption, not of today’s magnitude, electoral malpractice and other incipient ills afflicted the new republic and some young and ambitious soldiers who didn’t understand the intricacies of national evolution blew up the republic.
Major General J. T. U. Ironsi who took over after the first coup was a barely educated desk officer whose only claim to high military office was his services in the Congo. He never had the privilege of attending Sandhurst where officers were trained about real soldiering and the nitty-gritty of nation building. Ironsi subverted the nation’s federal destiny and imposed a unitary system encouraged by a few selfish tribesmen. Other sections of the country, especially the North, revolted and that led, not just, to the death of Ironsi, but a chain of unforeseen events that threw the nation into a civil war. General Yakubu Gowon who succeeded Ironsi and under whose watch the war was fought was a nationalist who put the national interest over his personal whims. Although many officials who served in his regime were corrupt, Gowon remains a model in statesmanship. Nevertheless, he ought to the blamed for the incidents of corruption and his tenacious hold on power. His successor, General Murtala Mohammed, having undergone apotheosis after his war crimes, turned out to be a nation builder of a kind who decisively gave Nigeria a sense of direction.
Beyond General Mohammed, others who have had the opportunity of running the affairs of Nigeria were hostages to personal or cabalistic interest to the abysmally low point of the ridiculous. For instance, General Buhari’s emergence as head of state in 1984 was instigated by a dream had by a junior officer in which he saw the general riding a white horse. The young officer related the dream to his cohorts who interpreted it that Buhari would be head of state. They wasted no time in overthrowing the Shehu Shagari regime, a regime that was itself hostage to a self-serving and rabidly greedy cabal. Others who succeeded Buhari, firstly, Ibrahim Babangida and later Sani Abacha, were driven by crude personal ambitions without the least consideration for national interest. Any wonder that their regimes spelt disaster for Nigeria? Circumstances threw up Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo. While the former led a transition government, the latter saw his second coming as an opportunity for self-inscription and erasure of the national ideal. Nigeria missed great opportunities under Obasanjo. Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua who took over from him inspired a measure of hope by his honesty and frank disposition, but death undid him. Then came in the clueless one, Goodluck Jonathan, whose naivety remains unrivalled.
The unchecked erosion of national interest in governance peaked in 2015 and it has led the nation into a blind alley. The band of politicians who led the campaign that ousted Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 were not in the least driven by national interest. They configured Nigeria as a loose space that can be taken by the strong with little or no nationalistic conviction. They read the populace as that which can easily be manipulated without remonstration. So, they ganged up, muzzled the people with naira and seized power in 2015. What happened in 2015 was a mere dress rehearsal for the battle royale that played out in 2023. They did it and succeeded in 2015 and they were damned confident they would succeed in 2023 and they succeeded. They succeeded because the people allowed them and what has been consolidated is personal cum cabalistic interest at the expense of national interest. This is why we are where we are today.
