Which way Nigeria?

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

In 1985, the year Nigeria marked the silver jubilee of its independence, Sunny Okosuns and his Ozzidi band released a song titled “Which way Nigeria?”
The song, which was so popular that it rocked every radio station in the country, was a lamentation of the realities of the time as well as a prayer for the salvation of the soul of Nigeria, the touted Giant of Africa.
“Many years after independence we still find it hard to start. How long shall we be patient before we reach the Promised Land? Let’s save Nigeria so Nigeria won’t die,” Okosuns sang.
“Inefficiency and indiscipline is ruining the country now/Corruption here and there and everywhere, inflation is very high. Let’s save Nigeria so Nigeria won’t die.”
And the chorus: “Which way Nigeria? Which way to go? I love my fatherland, and I want to know which way Nigeria is heading to!”
Two years earlier in 1983, Chinua Achebe, Africa’s foremost novelist and author of Things Fall Apart, had published The Trouble with Nigeria, in which he outlined everything that was wrong with the Nigerian system – reckless, irresponsible leadership, tribalism, lack of patriotism, social injustice, indiscipline, widespread corruption, among others.
Today, the circumstances that necessitated both Achebe’s book and Okosuns’ song have only grown worse. The trouble with Nigeria has remained essentially the same as in 1983, only increasing in dimensions and magnitude. It has been a catalogue of woes, unmet expectations, dashed hopes and aspirations, and worse. And the same old question lingers on the lips of every Nigerian: Which way Nigeria?
In 1966, barely six years after independence, many Nigerians of that generation had been fed up and some had started to regret why the British left in 1960, with some others calling for re-colonisation. Even the military coup of January 15 of that year was borne out of disenchantment with the civilian administration of the First Republic.
Today, fifty-six years after Nigeria attained political independence from the British colonial overlords, things have gone progressively worse and the country has remained in perpetual infancy, still passing through teething problems, still encountering the characteristic faltering of initial baby steps.
The country, an agglomeration of over 250 ethnic nationalities, is far from attaining nationhood. This is evident in the cacophonous voices and the drums of war sounding everywhere. Bribery and corruption are rife. Nepotism, ethnic jingoism, cult of mediocrity, social injustice and inequality are the order of the day. Our politics remains a do-or-die affair, characterised by thuggery, violence, ballot-snatching and stuffing, and rampant rigging. Politicians have grown more audacious, looting the public treasury in billions and trillions whereas their predecessors stole in millions. Every new administration has turned out to be worse than the one before it.
Economically, it is the old paradox of want in the midst of plenty, abject poverty dwelling side by side with stupendous, ostentatious wealth. A rentier system brought about by oil wealth continues to create overnight billionaires through entrenched cronyism that has refused to go away, even as oil discovery, exploration and exploitation led to abandonment of agriculture and other productive sectors and undue reliance on a mono-product (crude oil) – a situation that is partly responsible for the present economic quagmire that the country finds itself in. After 56 years of independence, Nigerian leaders still go cap in hand to advanced countries of the West – as well as to China and other Asiatic countries – begging for aid. For instance, shortly after President Buhari was inaugurated in May 2015, David Cameron, then British Prime Minister, invited him to a G8 meeting and asked him to come with his wish-list.
Public infrastructures have all but collapsed. Most roads are in terrible condition; the public education system is comatose and the emergent private sector is ripping the public off with exorbitant fees without commensurate services rendered; public health care is a nightmare, causing more deaths than saving lives.
Across the states of the federation, civil servants and pensioners are owed several months of unpaid salaries and pensions in an economy where the local currency, the naira, continues to plunge against international currencies and inflation is at an all-time high of 17.6 percent. Prices of food and other basic needs continue to skyrocket as people’s earnings continue to plummet.
Youth unemployment is on the rise, just as there is massive retrenchment of workers, with its attendant rise in crime rate. Businesses are closing shop while those still in operation groan under poor operating environment, including huge cost of operation and multiple taxation. Armed robbery, financial crimes like advance free fraud (419), kidnapping, terrorism, prostitution and other vices are rampant as many young people get in the race to become millionaires by hook or by crook. The catch-phrase seems to be “Get Rich Quick Or Die Trying”.

The trouble with Nigeria
In terms of policy, Nigeria has some of the best set of policies in the world, but it has not translated into any tangible benefit for the nation. What then is the problem? According to Achebe, the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.
“There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of the leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership,” Achebe wrote in The Trouble with Nigeria.
Over the years, we have seen this in the tendency of successive governments to always blame the administration before them. Today, for instance, President Muhammadu Buhari and his cabinet have demonstrated a failure or unwillingness to accept responsibility for fixing the country’s present challenges but have rather continued to engage in blame-game and buck-passing, blaming their non-performance on the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan.
“But I say why me? Why is it that it is when they have spent all the money, when they made the country insecure that I returned? Why didn’t I come when the treasury was full? Oil price was over $140 per barrel and when I came, it slipped down to $30. Why me?” Buhari lamented in a February 5 interview with Al-Jazeera.
Even up till now, Buhari and his co-travellers have not ceased to blame past administrations for Nigeria’s present predicament, even though Buhari himself was an active player in that ugly past.

What Nigerians say
Delivering a lecture as the lead speaker at a colloquium held by the National Conscience Party (NCP) in honour of the party’s founder, Gani Fawehinmi, in Akure in July, Femi Aborisade, a lawyer, blamed the woes of the country on the greed of politicians and those at the helm of affairs.
Aborisade, who spoke on the topic “Abolition of poverty is a struggle the masses wage and an agenda NCP must actualise”, was unapologetic as he cited personal aggrandisement as the problem of the leaders.
“The situation in Nigeria today is sad; politicians have devalued our lives and given us poverty. There is hopelessness and economic crisis in our land but when we remove the greed of the politicians, the pains will be removed,” he said.
“There is crisis in the land and Nigeria is not broke. If only government can recover all the stolen loot and whatever is recovered used for the benefit of the masses in terms of economy, education, power and others,” he said.
Expressing sadness at the state of affairs in the country 56 years after independence, a female psychologist with a federal institution, who craved anonymity, said the country appears to be where it has always been.
“There’s no progress; rather, we are worse off. There is hunger in the land, youths are roaming the streets aimlessly, and insecurity has become a major challenge. People are dying out of frustration. Some can’t afford to pay their children’s school fees. Victims of insurgency are left to cater for themselves; they have been dumped at the IDPs’ camps scattered across the county. No food, no water and no medical care. House rent has hit the roofs and large numbers of Nigerians have no shelter. Many people sleep under trees and bridges, while some of our politicians have warehouses of dollars and naira. We thought we would have gone beyond this level by now, but the reality on ground is that we are retrogressing very dangerously,” she said.
“In the early days of independence, Nigerians were patriotic. People were willing to die for their fatherland and there was reason to live. The roads were motorable and infrastructure generally was to a reasonable extent great. Life was grand, but today no new constructions are going on and because of lack of maintenance, many of the ones put in place many years ago have since rotted away. There’s a massive plundering of the commonwealth. Today, rather than building, Nigeria is selling off national assets and leaving huge debts for generations yet unborn. It is a sad story indeed,” the psychologist added.
Uchendu Onu, an Umuahia-based legal practitioner and a retired director of citizens’ right, Ministry of Justice, Abia State, said as a matter of fact Nigeria at 56 has nothing to show on ground, noting that corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of the nation which has adversely affected the citizens.
Onu said that Nigeria’s sole dependence on oil while ignoring agriculture, which was the mainstay of the economy before oil was discovered, portrays the country’s leaders as being myopic. He attributed the present economic recession to over-dependence on oil whose price has fallen drastically in the global market, thereby affecting the country’s revenue.
Uche Ezionye, a retired civil servant, agrees that Nigeria has nothing to show for 56 years of its independence, expressing disappointment that a country that is so blessed with both human and natural resources could still be crawling like a baby.
He added that countries that Nigeria has more comparative advantage in population, human and natural resources than have excelled where Nigeria has failed.
Tony Odilli, a pharmacist in Surulere area of Lagos, said those who are involved in the retail business are the worst hit in this time of recession as prices change from one day to the next, eating into their capital.
Since late last year when he had his last import consignment, he has packed up that side of the business due to scarcity of foreign exchange, he said.
But Ifeanyi Umere, a PDP stalwart and a special assistant on orientation to Abia State governor, insists that Nigeria has made history by still being united as a nation despite ethnic and religious diversities, noting that so many nations that did not have problems that were as complex as Nigeria’s had since disintegrated while Nigeria is still one.
Umere said the fraternity that holds Nigeria together is still intact, adding that this is a great blessing to the entire country.
He observed that the Buhari administration has witnessed the most agitations, protests and all sorts of uprising from different ethnic groups calling for self-determination, but regretted that instead of addressing the issues raised by the agitators, the president has continued to ignore them to the detriment of the unity of this country.
He called for restructuring of the country as a way of curbing the agitations from various groups, which he attributed to marginalisation.