Like a bull in a China shop, Nigeria’s political elite, hardly learning from the past mistakes of their forebears, are at it again. They appear more resolute in perpetrating impunities, nurturing corruption instead of taming it. They foist tension on areas that otherwise should be calm, allowing insecurity to fester and featuring at all the theatres of the absurd in their bid not necessarily to serve Nigerians, but to hold down the polity strictly to serve themselves and massage their egos. In times like this, the truth is always told, but because it is damning and irritating, political actors carry on as if Nigeria is theirs to tear to shreds without any hindrance. It happened in the First Republic; and the consequences the nation was yet to recover from when it repeated itself in the Second Republic. The Third Republic suffered a still birth; and now the Fourth Republic. The only difference at present is that the nation seems resolved on forging on, though still groping in the dark, with its democratic experiment. So far, all the reward the political class can boast of for that resolve is denigrating, indeed, sniggering on the citizenry.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a couple of days ago, rose against President Goodluck Jonathan and members of the National Assembly in a language we crave the liberty of interpreting as the verdict of a country’s concerned former military and later civilian leader on a nation that is clearly adrift, though those piloting the ship of state are singing halleluiah! Obasanjo accused Jonathan of intimidating the opposition; and also tongue-lashed members of the National Assembly themselves, saying they have turned the hallowed institution into a haven of corruption and themselves have become a bunch that specializes in extorting money from the executive and contractors.
“Apart from shrouding the remunerations of the National Assembly in opaqueness and without transparency, they indulge in extorting money from departments, contractors and ministries in two ways. They do so during visits to their projects and programmes and in the process of budget approval, when they build up budget for ministries and departments, which agree to give it back to them in contracts that they do not execute… Corruption in the National Assembly also includes what they call constituency projects, which they give to their agents to execute but invariably, full payment is made with little or no job done. In all this, if the executive is not absolutely above board, the offending members of the National Assembly resort to subtle or open threat, intimidation and blackmail. When the executive pay the huge money, normally in millions of dollars, all is quiet in form of white-washed reports that fail to deal effectively with the issues investigated”, is how Obasanjo lamentably put it.
The former president also spoke on the nation’s economy that is wellpraised in official circles but with scant yield on ground, saying: “The often-quoted GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth neither reflects on the living condition of most of our people nor on most of the indigenous industries and services, where capacity utilization is about 50 per cent”.
Many have criticized Obasanjo for those comments. But we do not believe that a man who has seen it all like him trivialised the situation, no matter the extraneous grudges he might habour against the system. When the nation’s democracy got scuttled in the past by military opportunists, some of the complaints on the lips of the citizenry then were not different from those resonating today. Political brigandage of the sort witnessed so far in Rivers and Ekiti states, as well as the National Assembly and pervasive corruption in all the tiers of government and even the private sector as exemplified in political profiteers, swindlers, men in high and low places that sought bribes and demand 10 per cent; those that sought to keep the country divided permanently so that they could remain in office as ministers or VIPs, tribal jingoists, nepotism peddlers, those that made the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that corrupted the nation and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds, were all made reference to.
Worse still, it would seem the 2015 polls have dwarfed all the other life threatening realities presently confronting the nation, including the grave challenge posed by Boko Haram. And should it hold eventually, it seems only a visibly free and fair election next year will save the nation. Therefore, it is imperative that Nigeria’s political leadership and actors err on the side of caution this time.
