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THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
MATTERS OF THE MOMENT
Unangry Nigerians
Hank Eso
hankeso@aol.com
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
~~Aristotle,
Just several days after the Nigerian National
Assembly passed a bill approving huge lifetime remunerations for former Nigerian
leaders and upkeep allowances for widows of deceased leaders, the government
coerced the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to
suspend a planned two-day national strike over the non-passage of Minimum Wage
Bill by the same National Assembly.
The unions were demanding the passage of a bill stipulating
a minimum monthly wage of 52,000 naira ($346), as opposed
to an increase to 18,000 naira ($120) recommended by a government committee.
The present minimum monthly salary is a paltry
9,500 naira or $63.
 The
randomness of iniquitous events that underpin the misgovernance of their country
hardly fools Nigerians. Yet they seem to accept such transgressions willfully
and with unequaled equanimity. That disposition raises a fundamental question
about the enormity of such seemingly collectivized apathy and its deleterious
consequences on the advancement of a vibrant and potentially great nation.
Many have wondered why
Nigeria
has not imploded and, indeed, why the level of restiveness from the docile
masses has been rather tepid. Nigeria remains
a paradox, even so in this context, since her real terms disposition belies
Aristotle’s contention that “poverty is
the parent of revolution and crime.” Crime, perhaps, but certainly not
revolution.
Nigeria
should be taken seriously. But can
she? The question is beyond the
rhetorical; indeed, it is a defining point statement rather than a question –
and a statement that only Nigerians can make. Ironically, whereas everyone seems
to understand that Nigeria
matters, it is also painfully obvious to all that no amount of well wishing,
bellyaching, or pontificating could turn Nigeria around except the nation
decides to self-modify, genetically. Nevertheless, from whence will that change
come?
The fact remains that
Nigeria’s misgovernance persists because
Nigerians are insufficiently angry about their collective fate and that of their
nation. Accordingly, absence of enduring grassroots agitation, trenchant
political opposition, labor and other forms of industrial action speaks to the
lackluster level of the national population’s engagement.
There can be no change without the desire.
If Nigerians are angry, no one seems to notice or care any
more, more so, since that anger has certainly failed to manifest in the polling
booths since the return to democracy in 1999. Perhaps having once been declared
a “happy people,” Nigerians are
incapable of mustering anger, even in their own interest. The corollary,
however, is that Nigerians like to think in compartments, when any issue
pertains to their nation. Fractured thinking essentially means fractious
response or engagement and fragmented action. Dissipated anger translates to
broad inaction.
Nigeria’s
apathy has dire consequences as we are learning. If today Nigeria is looked at askance by even
those it once helped, or by those with which it ought to share common
values, it is no coincidence. Once deemed a sub-regional and continental power
and even a presumed global Medium Power and problem solver, Nigeria is now itself a problem
begging for solutions.
A nation of endless paradoxes,
Nigeria
is very nimble and astute when it comes to confusing her interlocutors. Those
who wish to hedge their bets on
Nigeria
grow increasingly weary over her irascible, mercurial, and fractious tendencies.
Inexplicable as it seems, evidence abound that at all levels, the government is
the greatest source of neglect and various abuses foisted on the national
population. Government has failed in its responsibility to protect and guarantee
human security, especially that of life, property, and ordered liberties.
Still, Nigerians are contented to be unangry.
Under the present circumstances,
Nigeria’s domestic problems have extrapolated
abroad, resulting in dissembling foreign policy flimflams.
Nigeria is a nation that quite often, sends out its second rated teams to
represent her abroad and has even topped that by having two of her nationals
compete for one international post. The clear disconnect between domestic and
foreign policies have resulted in an enormous brain drain. Paradoxically, the
latter has led to huge sums in Diaspora remittances estimated presently to be
US$10 billion in 2010. People and nations notice and shudder; and they wonder
how to adjust to a nation, which has the potentials of playing in the big league
but opts unceasingly to be in the minor league.
Gone are the days when international observers and leaders
made veiled and politically correct references to
Nigeria’s needs and challenges.
These days, such remarks are not-too-subtle and focus mainly on national
shortcomings and corruption in high places. For this reason, any juxtaposition
of the transparency index and the human development index (HDI) casts a painful
pall over Nigeria. A
further comparison of Nigeria
with nations such as
Indonesia,
Singapore
and South Africa,
presents a disconcerting contrast.
In real terms,
Nigeria’s strategic dynamics is also fraught
with confusion. Once politically non-aligned, now,
Nigeria
seems to play the field by pallying with both China and the US as well as
with other democracies. As far as its democratic credentials go, she is
Janus-faced – ideal on paper and precepts but opaque in concrete terms. The
nation has successfully made excuses that the greatest challenge to its nascent
democracy is trying to find its feet and standing firm during a learning
process. Hardly discussed, is the fact that the fundamentals of any democracy
rest on peoples’ power and the doctrine of government-of-the
people-by-the-people-and-for-the people.
Also rarely discussed, is the residual influence of the
military on how the nation considers and conducts its affairs.
Several key people in top leadership positions are ex-military; and these
are people who are yet to abandoned their anti-politics and siege mentality.
They have no apology to make for their erstwhile excesses during forty-something
years of military rule, even when it seems contraindicative that they should
continue to benefit from such excesses. Paradoxically, most Nigerians seem
oblivious of the disconnect between those who once contributed to bad governance
ruinous policies and diminution of ordered liberties and whatever reform they
pretend to have undergone that would qualify them as new democrats and
therefore, present day rulers.
A lot went wrong in
Nigeria
that needs addressing. Besides malfeasance, profligacy, and non-adherence to the
rule of law, the sustained inability to prosecute those involved in various
forms of criminality and white-collar crimes including grand larceny, while in
office, has given rise to a new culture and level of impunity. Such ills, if
left unaddressed will translate to the bog down impetus, which dictates that the
nation cannot make headway given the prevailing culture-cum-precedence that in
Nigeria, no one worth his or her salt ever goes to jail - safe in occasions
retributive or hostile inquiry. Such an endemic self-defeating norm is much to
the nation’s detriment.
Nigeria’s
fourth attempt at democracy is inevitably a saga and continuing experiment that
couples numbing realism with humiliating satire.
For all intents, Nigeria is on sympathy strike,
hardly through commonweal choice of the electorate as it is through the
machinations of the ruling elite.
It needs be said, however, that whereas it is now fashionable to blame the
ruling PDP for such ills, the party apparatchiks are continuously assisted and
ably so, by the fickle and badly emaciated political opposition, which is
essentially fractious and toothless, but more painfully, also seemingly unaware
of its enabling, redeeming and defining
remit.
It is visibly clear that for fifty
years, successive Nigerian governments have shown inadequate focus on the needs
of the masses; that disposition, interestingly, does not seem set to change any
time soon. Translated differently, government and the cotemporary political
system have been consistent in the total breach of Section 14 (2b) of the
Nigerian Constitution, which stipulates, “The
security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
One can seek to be kind to the Nigerian politician by not
generalizing. Essentially, most politicians inhabit that orbit to which H.L.
Mencken, once assessed and consigned an eminent American politician, as
“…. cheap, sordid and grasping
politician, a seeker of jobs all his life, willing to do almost anything
imaginable to get them.”
Incontestably, most Nigerian politicians fit well into this cluster.
One notable trouble with
Nigeria, amongst many others, is not that the
masses are bereft of deep contempt for their benevolently oppressive leaders and
the culture of impunity they wrought and fraught on the nation.
Rather, it is that they lack
the zest to vent their deep-seated anger and
push collectively, in asserting and securing those rights hard-earned by
demanding gadflies – like Ayodele Awojobi, Tai Solarin, Bala Yusuf Usman, Olu
Onagoruwa, Fela Anikulapo Kuti,
Chris Okolie, Dele Giwa, Saro Wiwa, and Pa Imoudu of this world.
Sadly, these selfless icons and social activist, who were capable of
triggering social conscientiousness and restiveness, are mostly dead.
The last of these breed, Gani Fawehinmi, aka "Senior Advocate of the
Masses," passed in 2009.
These revered Nigerian gadflies must be turning in their
graves, mindful that their presumed apostles now living, have either been
generally cowed or co-opted.
Regrettably, emboldened reformers and fresh messiahs are now in short supply.
Ironical as it is tragic, the so-called elder statesmen, if there are any left,
have all gravitated to the comfort of “mellifluous
obscurity” with most becoming perennial wards of the state. Ditto, many
traditional rulers. Hence, Nigeria has
drifted towards being a nation without a conscience.
It is inconceivable that Nigerians cannot rally to a common
cause and orchestrate a national shutdown, industrial action, and civil
disobedience that would compel any government of the day to take note and act.
The once proactive Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) seem to have mortgaged their respective
mandates. What was it that the denizens of Czechoslovakia possessed in 1989
that gave rise to the “Velvet
Revolution” or the Ukrainians, in 2004 that prompted the “Orange
Revolution,” which the
Nigerian population lacks? Nothing,
except perhaps, the desire and drive to make a difference.
In Nigeria, anger and rage have become
the first casualties of survivability.
Therefore, the challenge
of Nigeria
continues, utterly devoid of any opprobrium from within and less so, from any
conviction, even from the masses that ought to be able to muster such even if
only as a survival instinct and a declaration of their last stand.
Hence, the prevailing political and socio-economic environment in
Nigeria
is one that is remarkable for its full-body tattoo of poverty and crime, less
so, any revolution.
It is not entirely
unlikely, that the prevailing docility is born of two practical considerations;
that those who have not joined the bandwagon of looters of public coffers
retain high hopes that their time would soon come or that they are already the
vicarious beneficiaries of those in the power corridors.
Here is my take:
Every
nation deserves the government it gets.
Nigerians are no exception. Clearly, good laws make good people.
Conversely, absence of good laws produces a negative effect and its multipliers
with impunity as the under gird. That is the state of present day Nigeria. Bad
leaders and an unangry populace cancel each other out.
What we have is the willful repudiation of the social contract that
compels a state’s duty to the citizen and in turn, elicits a citizen’s
obligation to the state, and one born out of patriotism rather than coercion.
Stalemate!
With
neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and
observe closely.
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Hank Eso
is a columnist for
Kwenu.com.
His observations on Nigerian, African and global politics and related issues,
has appeared in various print media, journals and internet-based sites.
© Hank Eso, 16 November 2010.
Email:
hankeso@aol.com
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