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BY Mu'awiyyah Yusuf Muye
Nigeria, to a great extent has been fortunate, fortunate in the sense that many countries haven't been as lucky as Nigeria, some people refer to Nigeria as a religious country, even though That religious tag doesn't in any way reflect the characters of most of our political leaders who are everything but God fearing.
We can surmise that God has indeed been good to us, even though God loves all mankind, the way you reciprocate the love to God determines how much HE showers HIS blessings on you. So we can deduce that If God was indeed going to use the character of our leaders and even the led to judge us, we definitely won't have been this fortunate.
Many countries that have collapsed have had less institutional bastardisation than Nigeria. Take Greece for example, in 2015 They experienced "The Great Greece Depression" after the ancient country slid into Recession. Greece's recession wasn't caused by corruption, they can't possibly have grave corruption issues like nigeria.Theirs was caused by policies that were more people oriented but was not sustainable.�
Another evident example is Venezuela who are one of the biggest Oil producing countries in the world, They are equally going through Economic crisis at the moment, Venezuela was an 'efficient' country during The reign of their former revolutionary leader Hugo Chavez and was at a point touted as the wealthiest country in South America, but today Venezuela is in turmoil due to economic crisis, brought about by fall in oil prices, some thing Nigerians can clearly relate to but in our own case we had a change in Government. we now have a leadership that have been able to miraculously pilot the affairs of Nigeria despite all predictions of doom. Our own case would've probably been worse given that Nigeria's problem was not restricted to economy, we had other problems to contend with including insecurity issues represented by Boko haram in the north east, Fulani herdsmen in the north central, Niger Delta Militants in the south south and IPOB unrest in the south east coupled with the fact that we have a very tense religious atmosphere in Nigeria. It has indeed been remarkable to have survived all these, it wouldn't have been possible if the old order had continued.
�Our greatest misconception was our naive expectation that President Buhari alone could address the socio economic problems and corruption plaguing Nigeria. We were gullible indeed or probably just too busy or fixated on getting him elected as president that we ignored other strategic positions that would've helped him achieve our dream of a better Nigeria. Today, there are as much enemies of Nigeria in the ruling APC as There is/was in PDP.The other day, one of the apostles of Corruption in today's Nigeria, Senator Dino Melaye launched a book on Anti corruption titled "The Antidotes of Corruption". A book launch that saw majority of the dignitaries at the launch and even the person that wrote the book's foreword, having different pending corruption cases on illegal enrichment and looting of public funds, senator Melaye's deliberate attempt to mock Nigerians by writing a book on how to tackle corruption while his actions in the Senate have been contrary to fighting corruption. This is akin to Senator Ben Murray Bruce writing a book about Common sense while his actions don't really show some one that have sense. They must think Nigerians are foolish, I guess they have quite a cult following of foolish people.Two of the dignitaries at Senator Melaye's book launch who are the number three and four men in Nigeria respectively, in their speech at the occasion, discredited the Buhari's Government's fight against corruption. These same men have been the stumbling block in the National Assembly; of the war against corruption, they have refused to pass bills which will make the fight against corruption more effective. Did I forget to add that, they are both members of the ruling APC. The height of the charade by Senator Melaye was the choice of the chief launcher for his 'anticorruption' book, our dear Dame Patience Faka Jonathan, the former First Lady who had a $15 million found in her account frozen by the EFCC and is in court trying to claim money she couldn't give clear account of.Having Dame Patience Jonathan as the chief launcher or guest at an anticorruption book launch is like having Shekau at a Book launch about Peace and Anti Terrorism, Senator Melaye's was a joke taken too far. Funny part of this whole debacle is, while the previous PDP led government was in power, they never pretended to wage any serious fight against corruption or for that matter mock Nigerians about the scale of it but this APC regime most especially the legislators really take Nigerians for fools. Yes Corruption was the order of the day during PDP, infrastructural decay was at its highest peak, institutional bastardization and impunity was normalized but they never for once pretend about it or spit on our faces. However these crop of leaders brought to the leadership position by APC have been dining with us while backstabbing us behind our backs.
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They used the goodwill APC had before election to fool Nigerians. For those of us who are members of APC and have been supporting and defending the party, it's becoming increasingly difficult to defend the party, the party's principles intact, very few members of the APC espouse the ideals of the party.If you look at most of the people cheering these set of people on, you will realise that most of them are people of questionable characters, who are either members of PDP or those who have/had connections with the PDP and are doing it because they are part of the grand plan to frustrate PMB and APC's policies in order to continue to push Nigeria to the abyss. To them, frustrating APC and having their way is tantamount to winning a perceived political war they have with certain leaders of the party. Nigeria will always be the victim of their callousness it's been difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that these set of people are gradually succeeding in continually making Nigeria as a country look like a joke.Even though Nigeria was already perceived as a joke in the past, the western Nations see Nigeria and africa as a whole as a joke because of the fact that our leaders have refused to be serious in governing their people, corruption is always the order of the day but these set of leaders are even more despicable, I sometimes don't even know if I should cry or laugh at their shenanigans.
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Senators turning the legislative institution into butt of jokes in the face of serious problems bedevilling the country, is it Melaye's attempt to take a flight from Abuja to Lagos in order to prove a point to the people that he is not scared of a certain politician or his now famous Ajeokun iya ni oje dance of shame which got even little kids mimicking him as their favourite clown?. It's been a painful sight to behold, they have succeeded in making our legislative institution synonymous to comedy.
The other day, The Senate gave inn to pressures from Nigerians to #OpenNass after two years of doing so and were celebrating it as an achievement. Celebrating #OpenNass as an achievement is akin to a Man that has been stealing your money, even though he knows you are aware he is stealing your money, coming out to admit he is infact the one doing it, while not changing his ways. Can that same man celebrate doing the right thing?�
The painful part of all these, is been the caricature of opposition we have and the Phony characters there inn, who have been factionalised and have been in court battling with themselves instead of providing credible opposition to the party in power, not that It is surprising.How else do you expect people that made Ayo Fayose, Nyesome wike, Femi Fani Kayode and Ali Modu Sheriff and their likes, their poster boys to behave? with these set of characters, who would ever take the opposition seriously?�
Not to talk of the new set of activists we have who are more of jokers than activists with their attention seeking tantrums, it's as though they do not know what activism entails, the kind of madness these set of people exhibit, makes one wonder if they are really doing their activism for the betterment of the country or it's a popularity contest for them. I call them misplaced activists. They reveal their true color when they are given a position of power, we have seen quite a number of them get to power and become boy boy of the oppressors.
The Executive arm of government haven't really gotten everything right either, even though they have proven to be the most serious among the three arms of government, but one would've hoped with a decent opposition, we would've gotten a better governance out of them, but some of the appointees have equally proven that they have not been on the same page with the president, some of the cabinet ministers have gone into deep slumber as early as when they were appointed, I do believe, Mr President in order to convince Nigerians not to start seeing his own cabinet as a caricature of some sort, also need to reshuffle his cabinet to sustain the hopes people have in him. �
Take for example, The Minister of FCT who I must admit a lot of People have told me is a principled man and means well, he has been a no show, Abuja's security situation is worsening day by day, kidnapping and armed robbery is been on the rise not to talk of the uncountable cases of car theft that has occurred in recent times in the city.
My own friend went out with his friend to Jabi lake mall months back, after getting to the mall, they went inn for a movie only to come out and their car was nowhere to be found, till date I am writting this, not a thing have been heard of that car, her original credentials and laptop among other things were in the car, my friend's younger brother equally had a case of car snatching around the same time, it was a daylight robbery. They were so fortunate that there were good samaritans around, a taxi driver that sensed foul play followed them and did his best to block them, the car snatchers ran away but one of them was caught, the case was in the police station for weeks. Driving around Abuja at night is no different from driving around my village in the night.An NYSC member who graduated from university of maiduguri equally got shot by armed robbers while coming back from outing with friends few weeks ago, she lost her life while the robbers got away, these are three cases among several others in a capital city for that matter, if Abuja isn't safe for people, I wonder where else will be
There are two dozen more ministers that haven't done quite well, the likes of minister of health, Minister of education, Minister of Power, who is one of my favourite politician who I must admit has done well in works and housing department of his ministry but hasn't reciprocated that in Power department, I believe power ministry should be removed and given to another person to handle for effective result.President Buhari got in power and got Nigerians and even western countries believing in Nigeria again, we can't let that goodwill just go into the dustbin again, we have to start putting Nigeria first, we have had too many near disaster experiences not to see the warnings clearly written on the wall, we have to learn from countries like Egypt, Venezuela, Greece, Syria etc. If what happend to these countries should happen here in Nigeria, it will be more disastrous because we don't even have strong institutions to withstand these kind of disasters.I know Nigerians are intelligent, all they require is a conducive environment to flourish, look at the new set of entrepreneurs Nigeria has produced since the coming of Buhari, everywhere I look is a Nigerian starting a shoe, cloth or catering business, not to talk of the new wave of software developers the country is producing that got even the Facebook founder mark zuckerberg visiting Nigeria, we have become so enterprising by just the confidence we have in a leader, imagine what we will achieve with constant power supply, stable economy, motorable roads and good hospitals and healthcare system.
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Nigerians aren't asking for much, all we ask is these basic amenities.
Nigerians themselves admits We have been caricaturing the country,not realising the damages we are doing to this nation, Our leaders need to understand they are not being smart in not developing Nigeria,we have experimented corruption for decades now,how about we switch up style and try developing this country for a change,let's see how far that can take us.. waiting every four years to vote out those that don't perform is an experiment that is costing us a lot, how long do we have to continue to carry out this experiment before getting the required result? since even the good ones become something else after winning election. Our attitude towards governance must change and now too..
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Mu'awiyyah Yusuf Muye Is on twitter as @MP_Muye
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