Guest
Last Friday, Nigerian workers celebrated May Day. Like proverbial zombies who do not dispute their masters’ commands, workers trooped in their thousands to various venues across the country to celebrate political and economic de-emasculation, joblessness, the global economic meltdown and financial mess, our national political ineptitude, corruption and a host of social malaise. Unlike their counterparts in most other nations however, Nigerian workers have nothing to show for their almost forty-nine years of hard labour. While they worked very hard to make Nigeria great, our leaders strive very hard to steal the nation blind and into economic oblivion. In place of the development promised by our nation’s founding fathers and successive governments, Nigerian workers only have broken promises from Balewa to President Yar’Adua whose inaugural seven point agenda is still lying fallow on the drawing board. Considering the quantum of broken dreams Nigerian workers have suffered, it is about time every worker sees 2011 as a year installing a pro-people government that make and indeed keep its promises.
It is pertinent to review some of President Yar’Adua’s promises at this stage, mindful of the now legendary manner in which his government has so woefully failed to fulfil any of its seven point agenda. Central to Yar’adua’s right to rule was his government’s declaration to fight corruption in all its manifestation. The President hit the ground running during his inauguration over 731 days ago when he declared that under his government, there would be “zero tolerance for corruption in all its forms.” As if to assure Nigerians and further consolidate his promises at the time, President Yar’Adua proclaimed inter alia, “We are determined to intensify the war against corruption, more so because corruption is itself central to the spread of poverty. Its corrosive effect is all too visible in all aspects of our national life.”
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Two years later, the flames of the war against corruption have not only been doused, our President who hit the ground running two years ago now travels at snail’s speed, watching corruption bankrupt workers and the nation alike. From a nightmare with one head, corruption in our public offices and corridors of power has become a hydra-headed monster waiting to devour every resource our nation earns which otherwise should have been channelled towards fulfilling Yar’Adua’s seven point agenda. Anyone in doubt should ask the President to tell Nigerians how many of the corruption cases he inherited from the Obasanjo administration have been successfully prosecuted by the now toothless EFCC. I bet whoever wrote that inaugural speech that has caused Yar’Adua nothing but embarrassment would have been sacked by now, or like Ribadu who had the guts to step on sacred, though corrupt toes, driven into self exile.
Fortunately, events from America provided President Yar’Adua an opportunity to redeem his government’s now rotten image of perceived pro-corruption stance with the advent of the Halliburton mega corruption scandal. The findings of investigations conducted by the American authorities were handed to our government. Albeit, given the trumpet, the President and his spin doctor, Michael Aondoakaa, chose to blow the trumpet into millions of broken dreams. Rather than reveal names of those involved in the scandal which the government obviously already has, Aondoakaa chose to resort to spin tactics. In a manner reminiscent of a ruler whose subjects no longer believe any word that proceeds from his mouth but who fails to realise the disdain with which they hold his promises, President Yar’Adua again promised recently as follows; “I promise this nation that once we have a response, those names in the response will be made public and we will take action and direct that the names should be forwarded to the EFCC and those officials and former officials involved will be arrested and prosecuted…”
The President’s close aides and kitchen cabinet members should tell him honestly that no single Nigerian believes his promises any more. Once beaten, twice shy they say but for workers of this nation, it is now once beaten, two thousand times shy as far as President Yar’Adua’s promises are concerned.
Let’s evaluate the President’s promises to create employment for instance. Two years ago, this promise was another cardinal programme on the seven point agenda. So far, the only visible jobs the government has created are jobs for political collaborators and god fathers. Across the country, Nigerian workers are losing their jobs in various industries- textile, oil and gas, manufacturing and even the public sector, with no opportunities for upskilling, no social security, and no assistance whatsoever in a country where there is no water, no electricity, no diesel, no petrol, no roads, no public transportation and virtually no government.
In an obviously belated response to workers’ criticism about the near absence of jobs and the government’s unfulfilled promises to create employment, the government came up with another hot air balloon- a promise to create a million jobs for youths annually with the implementation of the National Youths Employment Action Plan (NIYEP) for the period 2009 to 2011. Talk about attempting to go from zero to hero and you would not be far from the truth as evidenced by the now classical strategy the government resorted to- the inauguration of a steering committee on employment generation, with membership drawn from the Ministries of Labour and Productivity, Youths Development, Commerce and Industry, Finance, office of the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Office of the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Millennium Development Goals, and the Nigerian Institute for Social and Economic Research. As far as this government is concerned, it appears the solution to every Nigerian problem lies in committees.
