Whenever you desire to expand your knowledge on happenings in the world, there are countries
you may understand by studying their history. There are those you understand by examining
their governing policies and politics. And there those countries you may understand by listening to their people.
And there is a country inhabited by over 200million people in the continent of Africa called
Nigeria. Nigeria if properly examined differs from other countries that enjoy normality. Nigeria is a puzzle wrapped in a paradox, dipped in irony and served with generous helping of absurdity.
Just when you think you have finally understood the country, the country turns around to present you with another twist so astonishing that you begin to wonder whether you are living in a country or watching, an endless political theatre where the scriptwriter has long abandoned logic.
Nigeria is extraordinarily blessed, and extraordinarily injured by insincere and corrupt leadership.
The country has virtually everything to build a prosperous nation, yet millions are pushed to wallow in abject poverty, starvation, existing under harsh and inhuman conditions courtesy of bad governance.
Nigeria has some of the brightest minds and best brains in the world: Professors, Medical Personnel, Journalists, Lawyers, Engineers, Veterinarians, Economists, etc. Yet somehow, the country keeps crawling backward while a tiny political class appears to have discovered the hidden secret formula for turning public offices into mining fields and private inheritance.
This is Nigeria’s great paradox. Nigerians know what is really wrong, but keep on rewarding the very people making it worse. Welcome to the land of twists, turns and deceit. In Nigeria,
corruption is no longer merely a crime whispered about in the dark corners. It can become a public spectacle. A person accused of wrongdoing or even convicted, can suddenly become a celebrated political personality occupying an elective position in government.
A public servant can be enveloped by serious allegations of stealing and duping the public, and still receive a hero’s treatment in communities he stole from. A public servant can leave office amid questions about wealth in his possession and return years later as a political kingmaker without record of investigation.
And sometimes, the loudest sermons in Mosques and Churches against corruption are delivered from the pulpits and podiums where the offering of donations seems to have acquired more importance than source of the donation.
A criminally-minded public servant will steal to his satisfaction from public funds and commit a portion of the stolen funds to building places of worship, distribution of grains to the poor and sponsoring pimps, prostitutes and other hangers-on to pilgrimage in Holy Lands, deceitfully to be addressed as a philanthropist for ego and foolishness.
Receipts on the podium and pulpit while, politics in the sanctuary, and business in the sacred spaces. And funny enough, everybody somehow carries on without a damn. That is the frightening part of the whole drama. Nigerians have become accustomed to the abnormality of their leaders.
The national outrage has the lifespan of a mayfly. By the time citizens finish discussing one scandal either in the NNPCL or in the Temples of Justice where compromised judgments are manufactured in favor of the highest bidder; other scandals readily arrives wearing bigger agbada or designer suit. And then, there is the strange Nigerian relationship with credentials.
In other societies where integrity matters, curriculum vitae, is a record of one’s qualifications.
But in our present Nigeria piloted by Bola Tinubu, curriculum Vitae resembles political fiction.
Yet the political conveyor belt continues. The bigger question is not even how questionable claims survive scrutiny. It is why scrutiny so often arrives after appointment of assumption of office.
And somewhere inside our tertiary institutions, another tragedy unfolds. Universities are supposed to be citadels of knowledge, places where truth is interrogated; evidence is respected and young minds are taught to challenge falsehood with determination.
But what happens when a whole Professor becomes a political consultant, electoral strategist or partisan operator with specialization in rigging elections? what happens when academic sophistication is recruited into the service of electoral manipulation? What happens when knowledge becomes a weapon for deception rather than illumination? Then the tragedy becomes deeper and more painful.
Because a nation that corrupts its ballot box is not merely stealing an election. It is stealing the tomorrow.
The most painful irony is that Nigeria does not lack good laws, or agencies, commissions and courts to interpret and enforce the laws. It even has panels and task forces. What Nigeria frequently lacks is the moral courage to make the system work consistently. So, the machinery keeps turning while the system suffers.
The poor bewildered loyal abiding citizen watches hopelessly in confusion. And eventually, something dangerous and unbelievable happens. People become resigned to fate. They stop believing promises and expectation of anything good; they stop asking questions entirely. They begin to say, ‘God de. Na so Nigeria be. ” That sentence may be one of the most dangerous sentences ever invented by the cheated in Nigeria because it converts failure into destiny, and transforms corruption into culture. It tells the next generation that nothing can change. But Nigeria was not created to be a monumental failure. Tinubu and his gang have made the country a monumental failure.
Nigeria’s Prime Minister at independence, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, brought respect to Nigeria. Gen. JTU Aguiyi Ironsi, sustained the respect. Generals Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo, maintained and improved upon the respect inherited.
President Shehu Shagari, Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, maintained the situation. Chief Ernest Shonekan improved upon while Generals Sani Abacha and Abdulsalam Abubakar, added value to the position of Nigeria before the international community.
Leadership of Presidents Chief Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar Adu’a, Goodluck Jonathan and
Muhammadu Buhari created special respect for Nigeria. But today, under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the country has lost all the respect built over decades due to the escalation of sharp corrupt practices, insincerity and nepotism. Nigeria must find its way back to glory by electing credible leaders in 2027.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issue.
