FANNING THE EMBERS OF FIRE

Dear blog, here I am again filled with excuses why I wasn’t able to keep my last promise. I hope you understand. Its not easy being a Nigerian with all the woes - garnished prefixes of “lack” everywhere; electricity, peace, security, money and all. So I hope you will really understand.

I was forced out of my shell amidst all these woes, to write a passionate piece to Sahara Reporters, a web based news syndicator who have kept Nigerians informed about happenings around us. But sadly the umbrage that the “comments” to most of the news items elicit is so discomforting and provocative that I had to spare time to write this. Read on.

Dear Editor

I am one of your regular readers and also someone who believe that your efforts have taken information dissemination to higher and beneficial level, which eventually will lead to sustainable development especially in Nigeria. However, I am a bit worried by the amount of freedom you gave your readers, especially in their comments. Nigeria today is sincerely at a cross road and her unity, you will agree with me, is threatened as a result, such that any well meaning Nigerian is deeply worried about.

As a patriotic Nigerian, I take pride sincerely in our oneness, while been conscious of our diversity, which to me defines the beauty and elegance of the country. This diversity, which ordinarily should have been the cornerstone of our development, is still been peddled negatively since independence. The Igbo man in addition to his business, should have been guiding the Hausa man on how to manage his farm produce using his business skills such that waste resulting from storage and transportation is reduced. While the Yoruba man on the other hand, should have been acting as the financier for the two. And proudly, we would have been one big family call Nigeria. But sadly this isn't so.

Every opportunity, especially those bordering on negativities are exploited and interpreted by all using the prisms of ethnicity and religion, completely devoid of any kind of support to the region or group facing such "trying times". The outcome of this, is that all parties are beginning to feel totally disparate and by extension hated by the other. I think its time for us to start emphasizing on positives and less the negatives, to see if it will make a difference.

Reading the comments from fellow Nigerians on every news or article published by you, makes me feel so bad, that a times, I am forced to simply close your site, never to come back until the following the day. This is notwithstanding the urge to follow you on happens around the world.

The idea behind reading comments, is to triangulate stories, so as to arrive at a sound conclusion about a particular issue, but unfortunately the comments one reads on your site are filled with hate and intolerance that one finds very difficult to digest as a Nigerian who wish the country well.

I am not asking that you gag your readers, but there must surely be a way that you can filter comments such that only those that add value to the news or article in question are published. Allowing the currently trend where members of one region or religion cast aspersion on the other because of a news item about their member or son will not only in the long run affect your readership, but will also continue to negatively impact on the country.

Consequently, I am pleading that you kindly introduce content filtering of comments to bar publication of "hates" and the likes. I am asking this of you as a Nigerian who is passionate about the peaceful coexistence of the country and the application of its diversity for positive development as against the current mudslinging, backstabbing and bare face lies peddled by the elites across region and religion.

The country is indeed going through trying times, but fortunately Nigerians are resilient sets that have overcome bigger challenges in the past through collective efforts. Let this request be Sahara Reports role in ensuring that we overcome this trying time.

Let me use this opportunity to thank you for your effort in keeping Nigerians informed, thereby arming us with the necessary tool to fight these emerging ills.

Voodoo Poll

Dear Page, let me confess, deep in my heart, I wanted to keep you more busy and more informed of happenings around me, but my chase after daily bread won't let me. I have a lot of things to share, but as expected, they are stocked in my brain. It's not new year yet, I would have made a resolution. Not to worry. I will workout a strategy, and let you know of it.

Meanwhile, here is a small piece in response to This Day Newspapers poll pre 2011 general elections.

Predictably, last week, my friend and I talked about the This Day Polls and wondered when it will come. It's simply becoming a trademark of 'This Day' to try and sway opinion in favour of the ruling political party. Their polls interestingly, if you follow the trend, usually come very close to the general elections, and its results are always antithetical to popular view. I have no proof to support the fact that they have been compromised, but as a Nigerian, who also feels the pinch, I know that there is more than meet the eyes in their findings. Gauging the anger and deep yawning by Nigerians for a change, it will be very difficult for one candidate to run away with 60% of the votes out rightly. Its either the This Day's researchers are not Nigerians, or their data collection tools are flawed. Or better still, they may have a motive!! If you talk to 10 Nigerians on each of the candidates, you will get 10 different views.

With all sense of modesty, I am joining Nigerians in condemning this poll. This Day wake up, the days of shadow manipulation has passed, even politicians themselves have moved on. Empower Nigerians to make the right choice, but don't participate in taking their powers away through subterfuge.

Mistaking Passion for Fact

This is a response to one Wale on his write up on Saharareports on this address - http://www.saharareporters.com/article/open-letter-general-muhammadu-buhari?nocache=1#comment-140966

Dear Wale

I almost believed you in the first 2 or 3 paragraphs, and was nodding my head as I read along, until you started making comparisons. First with OBJ and finally with Ribadu. To the average northerner, the two names (OBJ & Ribadu) are quite synonymous. In the eight yrs misadventure that OBJ took the country through, I was in Kano. Before that period, Kano can boast of about 1000 light & heavy industries, all fully operational and servicing Nigeria, until a Tsunami called OBJ stroked. By the time OBJ was through with the Nigeria, Sharada industrial layout where most of this companies were housed, became a shadow of its old self. And it still is up to date. This disaster, swept through the entire north. With Kano and Kaduna as the most hard hit areas.

As for Ribadu, his crime is two folds, (1) playing to the gallery, too frequently and (2) mistaking governance with police work. The two traits are OBJ's stock in trade. And we have seen where such traits have taken us. So save us from another OBJ.

Wale as a Yoruba man, you disappoint me greatly by thinking that you can read correctly the pulse of every Yoruba man in Nigeria! If you and your few cronies are pro-Ribadu - by all means go for him - but please stop putting Buhari on the same pedestal with your "green & spur of the moment piece". Buhari may have all his flaws, but given the candidates we have today, Nigerians cannot but place their hopes on the doorstep of non other but Buhari.

Mr Wale, I will advise that you push less, issues that seek to divide us, and by extension forcing others to respond to you with sharper divisive views. If you want to campaign for Ribadu, there are better and cleaner ways of achieving your objectives. The days of smear campaign is past, our collective objective is to move the country forward, and if you think you have a candidate that can achieve that, please sell him in such a manner that you don't demean others.

mjdoko

Tribal and Sectional Sentiments in Nigeria

I read with grave displeasure the article on the infighting at the Nigeria Embassy in Malaysia. The article is about leadership succession reported on Sahara Reporters (http://www.saharareporters.com/report/ethnic-politics-nigeria-high-commission-malaysia-looming-dangers?nocache=1#comment-123638).

Whether the submission is true or not, it is my candid feeling that Nigeria is surely sitting on a time bomb of tribal or sectional sentiment, which at the end will do neither north nor the south any good. The earlier we wake up from this dangerous slumber the better. I don't have any link with Malaysia, Indonesia or the characters in the write up, to be able to confirm the authenticity of the claims made, but one thing is sure, - the substance of the write up is a living testimony of what is happening in the country today.

Rather than ensure that persons of integrity and quality are given the opportunity to lead the country, we are busy fighting each other on whether its the north or south that should be given the opportunity. I understand the crave for resource control, which is a subject for another day. But with good governance which has the rule of law at the heart of its affairs, will all this tribal and sectional sentiment weeping still be necessary?

For 50 years we've been "nominating" leaders, and putting wedges on the emergence of more credible ones. Haba!!! Isn't it time that we wake up from this dangerous slumber? Rather than debate north or south, I think we should be more interested in the change that every leader has been able to elicit. Or better still, if we feel very strongly that we can not stay together again as one, shouldn't we be thinking of splitting up the country peacefully, to avoid a repeat of the instances of the 60s and early 70s? Nigerians please wake up!!!

Nigeria at 50

As our "rulers" converge on Abuja to celebrate their loot in the last 50 years, I hope they left someone in charge of ensuring that the 15 school children kidnapped recently in Abia are set free. Come to think of it, how many of these kidnappers has been brought to book? what about the looters of the last dispensation, is any of them in jail? What is the status of the scandal in the National Assembly that almost deafened us few months back? How about the flood in Sokoto? several other woes bedevilling the country. Happy anniversary to the looted who have survived the hardship thus far. My friend said the fact that he is alive today is something to celebrate, but not because he is a Nigerian or that Nigeria has attain 50 years.

A cynic a few days back threw a poser to Nigerians, which I found quite interesting. He asked Nigerians to demonstrate their patriotism by indicating interesting on his blogsite to volunteer for conscription into the army to fight an imaginary war. Two weeks after, he got no response.

That is the character of the country Nigerians are celebrating today. Some see it as mere geographic expression where nothing exist that serves as the uniting factor.

That expression might be true, but if juxtaposed by the fact that we have no any other place to call our own other than Nigeria, shouldn't we all begin to reflect on how to bring about that uniting factor? What is it that we are doing wrong, how have other countries of the world that are adjudged successful, gone about it?

For Nigeria to move forward, its citizens must be patriotic and this include the leadership. The leaders can not expect the citizens to be patriotic if they themselves are less so. Stop looting today, and we may have something to celebrate about tomorrow.

Love

Our leaders stand accused and guilty of all the woes in Africa today. These woes are by no means limited to corruption and decay in infrastructural development; they encroach unwittingly into issues bothering closely on morality and collective existence of Africans. A non African reading this on the prisms of his/her society, may be tempted to call it balderdash, but the oppressed amidst the world would rather I continue.

Love, you will agree with me is complicated. Even though there exist in the dictionary, definitions of it, we still feel what we feel about it. And sadly, these feelings are very difficult to capture in words. Some see it in the context of shared perspectives, others in chemistry, and some even assess their partners in terms of physics. In Africa, it use to be so, but nowadays, it’s simply co-existence for the sake of it, and nothing more.

In Africa today, there exists deliberate clogs placed against the identification and/or expression of true love! Couples are so strange and lovers so stiff, to such extent that love is expressed only in the context of the “expected”, the “normal”, etc. Have you ever stopped to wonder why lovers no longer express their feelings for each other openly, be it in the confines of their four walls? Or ponder on why newlyweds are not on honeymoon in Africa? It’s quite simply; they are busy thinking of their tomorrow, which tastes and feels so sour and bland today. This is not in any way unconnected with our governments’ complacency about the welfare of its citizens. Everywhere you go; Africans are busy thinking of the mundane, fighting to catch up with what other nations have ceased thinking about. – Lack of food, shelter, security, jobs, rule of law, wars, etc. All this has eaten deep into the space that Africans have to exude love. How sad.

Rather than the high profile approach to governance, enunciating policies that will end up in shelves, African governments should worry itself more with issues that will enhance the living standard of its peoples. Such activities that will bring pride and ownership to Africans should be the immediate concern of the leadership. Africans no longer believe in their continent, our proclamation of the words “black and proud”, “proudly African”, “black is beauty”, etc were made when we still look onto Africa and the leadership with hope. We have waited so long and so much, and the tiny fuse has blown. If you hear Africans alter these words, they are done in search of identity or as a whitewash against their adversaries to enable them gain an upper hand. They truly don’t believe in it deep down. In Africa it’s all about denials, even for love.

This might sound fatalistic, but the fact still stands that most Africans today, even if desired, have been denied the expression of true love. We have been so weighed down with bags filled with woes, leaving little chance for love and ultimately, activities that leads to self actualization.

Our leaders, please wake up before it’s too late. As the saying goes, “govern well”, to help your citizens realize their dreams.

Corruption! Why Not?

The sing song in Nigeria today, is corruption; it has assumed such an important place in the national discourse, such that all tabloids in the country, like a religion, must give it a mention on daily basis no matter how small. To demonstrate how much hate it has garnered, it’s commentator go to the painful length of qualifying it with scary adjectives such as “endemic”, “crippling”, “deep-rooted”, “pervasive”, wide-spread”, etc. This is with a view to conveying the degree of its infestation. – But what is the point, if all the efforts will only end in mere talk without commensurate ‘will’ to act?

Like several issues in Nigeria, that has attained notorious heights in national discourse, policy makers response to them is simply to join the fray, their actions have never gone passed the display of eloquence and public show of disdain for such vices.

These vices, such as corruption, have been widely condemned by every Nigerian, yet it won’t go away. Keen watchers of activities in Nigeria will ponder why, but the reasons are not far fetched. – Our leaders inaction is not informed by ignorance, or want of ideas, rather it is a deliberate ploy to protect a cartel that ensures free and easy access to stupendous wealth. Else, tell me why very few live in absolute affluence, and the majority subjected to a life of hardship and pain?

How does one explain a situation where very few are unimaginably rich, and the majority walk around in penury? How do we explain a situation where about $47 billion is stashed away in foreign reserve, yet majority go on empty stomach. Or better put, using a very recent example, how does one explain a situation where an ex-president, just three months after leaving office bought a $33 m worth private jet, yet his kinsmen are starved of basic necessities of life, such as electricity, clean water, security, food etc.?

Rather than repair the roads, government officials and their cohorts, resolved to buying Hommer jeeps, SUVs, and high utility vehicles to help them cushion the effects of the ditches on our roads, leaving the majority with the only option of plying the roads in unserviceable vehicles and killing themselves in the process through road accidents resulting partly from bad roads and partly from decrepit vehicles. Last month alone, two very annoying accidents were widely reported in the national dailies, several go unreported, because they are no longer news. The first was about a Trailer that attempted dodging a ditch in the middle of the road and in the process smashed an 18 sitter bus, killing all the passengers on board. The second, also similar to the first, but this time the “Tanker” killed 33 people. The government never saw anything wrong in all these. Millions of people are killed in Nigeria yearly through this insensate carelessness.

If the government does nothing, except protect themselves with Jeeps and SUVs, rather than fix the roads; as an ordinary Nigerian, if you have the opportunity to steal money through corruption to protect yourself and your family, will you still be flying the flag of anti-corruption? Your take is as good as mine.

The flipside of these sordid corruption perpetuation tendencies is the “wage freeze” policy. Inflation figures in Nigeria since the 80s, has being on an upward spiral, yet remuneration system is treated with kid’s gloves. Average “Minimum Wage” across states in the country is about N3,500, meaning a civil servant on Grade Level 1 Step 1 will earn about N3,500 monthly in salary. This is absurd. Many have insinuated that the policy was shove down our throats by the IMF and World Bank. Agreed!! But are our leaders daft? Cant they see that the civil servants are losing their heads because their take home pay, stops at the first turn from their offices!!!

To help shade more light on this issue, let me give a real life account of a School Principal who is a friend of mine; he kindly availed me the data used in this write up.

Alhaji Kabir Gimba (name not real) has being in government service for 35 years. A graduate of Economics, who rose through the ranks to the position of a Senior Secondary School Principal 6 years ago, on Level 16 step 6. Level 16 is about the last level except for special levels, wherefrom retirement is eminent. Alh Gimba is due to retire in 8 months.

At level 16 step 6 Alh Gimba’s total monthly salary is N49,500 ($390). He has a wife with six children and three depends from deceased siblings. Alh Gimba and his family live in a government quarters and drives a 1983 model of Peugeot 504. Based on this data, I computed Alh Gimba’s salary that will qualify for a living wage as thus:

Details Total
Feeding at N10,000 per person per month x 11 people                              N110,000
School fees at N20,000 per child per quarter x 6 children
= N120,000 per quarter ÷ 3 months
(to arrive at the amount payable monthly)                                                        N40,000
House rent on his official Quarters N20,000
Medical bills at N5,000 per person per month x 11                                        N55,000
Transportation for the entire family per month                                                 N15,000
Clothing at N2,000 per person per month                                                        N22,000
Utility bills at N7,000 per month                                                                         N7,000
Socialization for the 2 parents (not quantified) -
Demands from extended families (not quantified) -
General maintenance and repairs (not quantified) -
Purchase of security and payment for collateral damages (not quantified) -
Several other attendant monetary request by the family (not quantified) -
                                                                                                                        --------------------
                                                                                       Total                             N269,000

From the rough estimations above of what Alh Gimba’s real income should look like, a total of N269,000 was conservatively arrived at, as semblance of what should bring some degree of comfort to him and his family. But unfortunately, when this amount is considered against the backdrop of what he currently earns, a gulf of N219,500 will be left on filled.

As the Principal of a Senior Secondary School, Alh Gimba is the accounting officer of the school in charge of about N60 million school fees which he collects from the 4,700 students in the school quarterly and is expected to remit to the ministry of education on receipt.

Even if Alh Gimba chooses to be a saint, he will still be saddled with the responsibility of his family’s upkeep, and to function as the Principal, he needs to put in 100% of his time into the job. How is he expected to make up the balance between the N49,500 he receives currently as monthly salary, and N269,000 which is a close approximation of the real income he needs. Like every human, the options open to him will be to either ‘indulge’ himself with the school takings, or drench in a cesspool of misery. Most Nigerians, and am sure almost all sane beings, will choose the short route. Onlookers will call such action corruption, but I call it the after effect of insensate leaders.

Nations with near corruption free societies, placed priceless values on their citizens, the government of Nigeria cannot continue to debase its civil servants and expect them to be patriotic. Respect they say, is earned, the government should live up to its expectations by considering its citizens as important piece in the puzzle, only that way can it expect them to shun corruption. A hungry man, they say, is an angry man.

Corruption in all its ramifications, have motives, majority of such motives in Nigeria stemmed from implausible poor governance leading to decay in infrastructure, rule of law and security. Pay people well and fix these aforementioned problems and corruption will go away, you don’t need to fight it or give it demonic names. Corruption in Nigeria is simply a response to bad governance. Nigerians are law abiding sets, but like every human being they have needs.

This piece is meant as a wakeup call to those concerned and not to encourage corruption, please.