May ‘Nigeria’ Not Happen to Us Again

By Mike Kebonkwu Esq

For far too long, the country has struggled with burden of incompetent and inept political leadership, too greedy presiding over the affairs of the country.  We have inebriated political elite that cannot make distinction between the wealth of the nation and their personal estate, helping themselves to public till with reckless abandon.  The last three months have been most excruciating and agonizing as citizens have been stripped of their honour and dignity and barely able to make ends meet.  The president did not turn out to be what he was packaged to us as he became his true self an inflexible feudal lord and a dictator; incurably ethnicist, dithering and tardy.

CBN Governor, Emefiele is back in the news with the queues!

One is now persuaded more than ever before to believe that Muhammadu Buhari led APC government is not in charge of virtually anything after spending over three hours on fuel queue and yet could not procure gasoline for my car and domestic use.  For sure, I believe that one is not alone in this predicament anyway.   This was quality time one could have spent with family, hang-out with friends or probably quiet time with God.  In the last two years, this government has never been able to maintain steady domestic supply of petrol without disruption for one full month, not even in the federal capital territory.  The loss occasioned by the man hours at filing station is huge and unquantifiable in economic terms.  The fuel queue in Abuja can only be likened to the leviathan anaconda: frightening!

The economy is not only comatose but lying prostrate; no thanks to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) monetary policy fiasco of redesigning of some denominations of the national currency, the Naira.  People who have money in the bank cannot make withdrawals due to dearth of the new Naira notes. Meanwhile, they have deposited their old currencies for swap.  The situation is made worse as internet banking and mobile transfers are bogged down by network disruption and decline transactions.  To survive, people have to buy local currency at shylock interests, including the old notes.   The automated teller machines (ATM) have become scenes of advertisement of the poverty and helplessness of the ordinary citizen as the machines could hardly dispense money to customers.  There is anarchy everywhere and everything is in topsy-turvy.  The cashless economy policy is visiting hardship on every business and individuals because the infrastructural enablement is decrepit and unreliable with poor internet connectivity.

Today, people are no longer talking about insecurity because something worse than insecurity is staring everyone in the face; possible death from lack, want and hunger is making insecurity to pale into insignificance.  It may be convenient for us to argue that Nigeria is not a failed State because, among other things, you have a government in place.  But I challenge anyone to give us the indices of a failed state and tell us where Nigeria is not eminently qualified for such not so noble a status of classification.  Yes, take security of lives and property; take the economy, education, healthcare deliver, infrastructure etc and tell us where the government is in charge.

Why not, we may even extend the argument that the country just successfully concluded a Presidential election on the 25^th day of February, 2023 and therefore any insinuation of Nigeria being a failed state is uncharitable.  Good talk but even with the violence, ballot snatching and attacks on electoral facilities, staff and voters in full view of security men deployed to provide security pleading with hoodlums?  Yes, indeed there was successful presidential election which did not pass integrity test and we are now looking for judicial solution to a self-made political problem, no thanks to a weak institution that could not hold officials accountable for their acts of failures, omissions and commissions.

Perhaps, ‘Nigeria’ will not happen to us under him

The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) had four years notice to prepare for the general election and so all the excuses for abysmal performance and failures are inexcusable. The violence and mayhem associated with the election and inability of the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies to protect INEC facilities and provide peaceful environment for the exercise of the franchise of the people is a vote of no confidence on the security agencies and the huge investment on security was therefore a colossal waste.  The government may still go ahead to score itself high and continue to believe in its own propaganda like the Geobbelsian Third Reich; tell a lie a thousand times, and it becomes the truth!

One’s head aches every day on the road in bad traffic, at the ATM, at the filing station, at home and in the market where the price of staple food is going out of the reach of the ordinary citizens.  The trader will tell you that he pays for transport, high exchange rate of the Dollar;  I don’t know if the tomatoes seller is buying his vegetable with dollar; these are our dilemmas and misfortune.  The economy of the country is in animated suspension and the most pressing need is to get money to buy food to eat.  People still have their money seized by the bank in the name of monetary swap policy of the government in which they misled citizens to take their old notes to the bank in exchange for newly redesigned notes.  If we survive this, as we are bound to, many citizens may have to reconsider the use of banking facility as this harrowing experience will not go away soon.  The government is as confused as the people are frustrated in the whole enterprise.

Suddenly some analysts are praising the apex Court to high heavens for its judgment castigating the government for the ill-conceived and poorly executed policy which is targeted at political ends anyway. This is misplaced as the judiciary itself has become a huge burden even to itself, lacking men of steel conscience who can speak truth to power.  This time, those who feel that judiciary is the last hope of the common man miss the point by miles in assuming that the order of the apex court for the old notes to be used along with the newly designed notes until December 31^st, 2023 is in the interest of the masses.  It is not for the common man who has since deposited his life savings but was not given the new naira notes in return.

The apex Court judgment is simply to give life line to the money bags that have warehoused the old notes.  This is the judiciary itself suffering from the same malaise of integrity deficit giving to corruption and perversion of justice and handing over political offices to individuals who have lost elections in curious judicial interpretation of the law.

The good news is that the youths are beginning to see through the elite conspiracy and hopefully they should reposition themselves to reclaim the country from these ravaging locusts and political bandits; it does not matter their tribe and religion. We have selfish elite and political leadership that are interested in building personal edifice and castles from moneys stolen from our commonwealth and giving handout to pacify the masses that rise to defend them in the cloak of tribe and religion.

For the just concluded Presidential election going forward, we have to tread with caution.  The electoral laws may have been violated and rules broken. The aggrieved have the right to ventilate their grievances in court and be ready to accept the outcome. As my friend, Mr Ifasuyi Ayodele, a columnist with the Nigeria Tribune Newspaper would say, “Nigeria” has happened to the election!  Elections are rigged everywhere in the world but the scales differ.  For the first time in the United States of America, former President, Donald Trump revealed electoral fraud in the American system which almost led to a “coup detat” at the Capitol Hill.

The Presidential election of February 25^th, 2023 reminds one of a certain sound bite on a radio station in Lagos in those days, “he who out-rigs you, out politics you”.  For the first time I have my doubts about the resolution of a political problem by sophistry of judicial fiat, common sense and logic.  People have their right to contest perceived injustice in court and so by all means let us go the full hog.  Whichever way the gavel of judicial pendulum swings, Nigeria is not about to build a consensus on any national issue of political nature; the divisive rhetoric will continue.  One is also persuaded that all hope is not lost as the youths are getting better galvanized to pull themselves together across ethno-religious divide for rescue mission.  They see what is happening in other countries and they just have to replicate it here in Nigeria.  In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is of Indian parentage; we have Nigerian citizens who are in political offices in Canada and the United States of America.  Let us stop defining ourselves by tribe and religion which is not going to take us anywhere.  May “Nigeria” not happen to us again!

Mike Kebonkwu Esq, the author, wrote in from Koyen-Hi Kebonkwu Chambers, Wuse Zone 5, FCT, Abuja and is accessible via mikekebonkwu@yahoo.com