Seventeen years ago today, Nigeria returned to civil rule. Although it has been an unbroken years of democracy, the consensus opinion is that the masses of this country have not had it rosy. While 16 years were years of abundance, the commonwealth was however, plundered in the same manner locusts descend on green vegetation. On the other hand, one year under Muhammadu Buhari has been a mini hell on earth. The famine is pronounced.
Sixteen years under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) provided a paradox of abundance of water, but none to drink. While the country raked in trillions of petro-dollar, the masses pined away in abject poverty. 16 years before the advent of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government, was the most lucrative period of the country. But folks watched helplessly as school dropouts, who found themselves in politics at the local level became rich, earning stupendous amounts of money, more than university professors.
Poor Nigerians watched helplessly as the oil money was shared between the Executive and Legislature. Despite their huge allowances, they were also ‘stealing’. In the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, for instance, corruption cases were rampant. Although that administration founded the EFCC and ICPC to rein in the monster, it was however, corruption-personified. Critics faulted the agencies, saying they were merely attack-dogs of government to malign and intimidate those that tried to challenge the powers that be.
The Yar’ Adua administration, though continued with the corruption fight, cronies in the corridors of power were profligate. During the Goodluck Jonathan administration, crude oil price got to its peak, selling for close to $150 per barrel. Despite the huge accruals, that administration could not point to many sustainable infrastructural development in many parts of the country. The money was stolen and shared away by those close to government. The ongoing revelations on the level of squandering and thieving that transpired in that dispensation is still a shock to many right-thinking members of the public.
In that dispensation , a former military chief is said to have made it a habit to steal up to N500 million on a monthly basis. Today, the nation’s courts are filled to the brim with cases bordering on mindless stealing and blind acquisition of wealth to the detriment of the country.
The period from 1999 to 2015 was a dispensation of boom and affluence in the land, but human locusts and caterpillars ate up everything, so much that by the time the current administration arrived the scene, it had become a wasteland. Today, President Buhari appears to be presiding over a scorched land.
One year down the line, analysts believe that the APC-led government has not shown any economic direction to move the country forward.
Salihu Momoh, Edo State APC treasurer, said: “It was 16 years of waste, mismanagement, lack of planning, money-sharing that brought the country today to where we are. No regime is as bad as that not even the military; particularly the last six years saw the sharing of Nigeria’s commonwealth. In a nutshell, PDP’s 16 years of rule has brought the country to where we are today; it brought up all the problems Buhari is trying to solve. We were not as this bad as a country by 1999. In a nutshell, the 16 years of PDP was a disaster.
“Nigerians should give APC government and President Buhari the support and chance to carry out his electioneering promises. It will be good, well and better for Nigeria because I am very confident that the APC government will turn the country around for good.
Before the emergence of APC, we had become a laughing stock in the comity of states because of corruption and now, before you do anything, you have to think twice.”
An analyst said the country, like the Prodigal Son, has frittered its inheritance in “riotous” living.
“There have been too many missed opportunities. We ate all our years of plenty during the several oil boom cycles that would have helped in the diversification of the economy. Apart from maybe 2003-2007, we have mostly made the wrong moves economically. An exception has to be the liberalisation of the telecoms sector. The results of that are apparent. One cannot imagine Nigeria today without the millions of lines and jobs and the billions of dollars in investment that have come with it.
“Looking back, it is a case of missed opportunities and poor choices; moving on, we must do better, open up the economy, attract private sector-led development, overhaul the educational system to fit into the contemporary needs of our economy, improve accountability and transparency in governance, punish the corrupt severely and make ours a nation where dreams do come true, not just for the rich and privileged, but for all Nigerians.”
Sunny Amojor, president, TotalMan Fellow, a non-profit men’s leadership organisation, told BDSUNDAY in an interview that the cruelest locust to have visited Nigerians under the PDP’s 16 years’ grip on Aso Rock was the $16 billion sunk into the power sector without anything to show for it by Olusegun Obasanjo, PDP’s first president in the current republic.
Amojor lamented that despite the billions that have been pumped into Nigeria’s power sector and the many promises on power generation by the PDP, many parts of Nigeria cannot boast of constant and uninterrupted supply of electricity and that, in worst cases, several Nigerian communities are in total darkness.
“You cannot talk about 16 years of locusts in Nigeria without talking about the $16 billion wasted under Obasanjo that went to private hands in the name of investing in the power sector. If the money had been properly invested in the power sector, there would have been abundant energy supply in Nigeria by now. This is just one of the several examples of how Nigeria’s money was squandered under the PDP for the 16 years they had the seat of power. Sadly, no one is jailed of the power fraud,” he
said.
Wale Adedayo, CEO at Journal Communications Limited, said corruption, rooted in impunity by appointed and elected public officials along with their friends, is a dangerous and merciless locust that has continued to eat up Nigeria’s ‘green leaf’.
“There is that belief that given their connections, Nigerian politicians are above the law. In some cases, the corrupt pay their way out. President Muhammadu Buhari, in my view, is yet to commence a war against corruption. Any war against corruption that does not start with uprooting impunity cannot endure. It will only last for as long as the administration of Mr. President. Once he leaves office, ‘business as usual’ will resume.
“The primary institution that can effectively tackle corruption in Nigeria remains the Judiciary. Regretably, the Judiciary itself is riddled with corruption through acts of impunity by its officials. How many retired or serving judges have been investigated for having funds beyond what their former or current offices allow”? He asked.
He said further that an average Nigerian perceive President Buhari’s current move against corruption as being selective, and that such attitude is part of the impunity that had, and still ridiculing anti-corruption war by successive governments till date.
“Nobody is talking about corrupt former or current APC officials. Virtually all those being probed or prosecuted are PDP members. In that kind of arrangement, impunity reigns. It simply means that once you belong to the ruling party, nothing can happen to you. It should not be that way. The fight against corruption should be holistic”, he tells BD SUNDAY.
Chuka Uroko and Nathaniel Akhigbe
