How to be a Nigerian

When in 1814, Europe’s leading statesman, Count Metternich, said that Italy is “only a geographical expression,” the former Deputy of the Kingdom of Italy and the Father of Modern Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, didn’t take it as an offence. Instead, the only question on his mind was how to create Italians.

Take the recent detention and escape of one of the Binance Executives who was held in Nigeria for tax evasion, Nadeem Anjarwalla, as a case study! Anjarwalla’s escape from protective custody didn’t tell us anything other than the statelessness of the Nigerian state.

OIn some countries, there would by now have been a gale of resignations. But in Nigeria, that has never happened and may never happen! Instead, the country moves on, until the fire next time.

Apart from the run-of-the-mill criminals, a jailbreak or detention escape does not portend anything other than a weak state, that those who aided and abetted it knew what they were doing, and that nothing would happen to them ultimately. Mayer Amschel Rothschild once asked that he be given control of a nation’s money supply and he cared not who wrote the laws.

That the Binance Executive who was trying to undermine the control of the Nigerian currency could escape from custody at all was a national disgrace! It’s a telltale sign of failure of intelligence and it’s sad! It’s tantamount to America informing a stunned world that Osama Bin Laden had escaped from custody. For America, it’s not possible!

The raging insecurity in Nigeria also says something about a broken-down state, where a lack of internal security mechanisms has become the norm. Take, for instance, Nigeria has 371,800 police officers serving a population of 213.4 million Nigerians. Regrettably, however, half of them are already fanned out to political bigwigs. So, what do we expect? That’s all the more reason to devolve power to the states if Nigeria wants to stop terrorism and associated criminalities. n the average, Nigeria is good, her people are a bunch of good Bananas. Only a few rotten ones give the whole bunch a bad look and a rotten smell. Nigeria, ideally is one of the best places to live in, it is not a Police state like the so-called western democracies.

In Nigeria you can urinate anywhere and not get fined or arrested, you can get a ladder and climb the power poles and effect a change of power phases, that is if the problem is not from the nearby power transformer, which anybody can repair with dry wood.

In Nigeria, you can set traps inside your compound and catch birds and roast them to taste and not be afraid that you are at Piccadilly Square in the United Kingdom and some stern looking cops will harass you for animal rights violation. We still beat kids with cane despite parents that want to be more European than Europeans…

We as a nation need to restore national pride, a lot of us have lost hope in the system, the structure, the leadership, with each passing day, it is becoming obvious that Nigeria may be just an empty plastic cup, too light to hold a cup of coffee cold or hot.

I am rewriting this essay about my beloved nation that I originally wrote 15 years ago because lately I have discovered that I have tried hard to write nice stuff about my nation, but each time I try the truth hits me and I never end up, I criticize a lot and hardly give solutions…my reason, simple…there are enough solutions to Nigeria’s multi-dimensional and hydra-headed problems, enough to fill an American Congressional Library, well prepared by committees, panels, commissions and bodies of experts.

Name the field or area and I will refer you to a paper, a report that should ordinarily have solved that problem a long time ago. For example, how many times have we removed subsidies without removing subsidies or is it the Orasanya Report on merging and reducing government bureaucracy by shutting down some ministries and parastatals?

For avoidance of doubt, what happened to the Vision 2010, I was writing this in 2008, by then we were working on a vision 2056 for constant power electricity and it is 2024 now, how time flies and alas we still lack vision of who we are and what we want to be in terms of electricity.

I remember one committee like that with a long name that was supposed to provide palliative measures due to the rise in petroleum prices. Till date, it died a

natural death. It is another 15 years and we are not only discussing palliatives but looting it with reckless abandon that our students die in stampedes for them.

There have been reports upon reports that if properly handled would have made Nigeria number one in most things if not everything, because if despite all the ills of our society we are still thus there as the most happiest and religious in the world…Then there is a problem.

In recent times, I have watched us be reminded of the successes of Malaysia, a success that was championed and achieved simply because of purposeful leadership, leadership that had the confidence

Matter-of-factly, the vigilantes involved in the war against terrorism and banditry deserve national awards because of the risks involved in fighting with dane guns against men with AK 47 rifles and other sophisticated weapons and networks. Added to this is that Nigeria is currently ‘blessed’ with loads of ungoverned spaces. For example, Sambisa Forest alone is reportedly the size of Belgium. Niger State is also almost thrice the size of the Netherlands.

However, while the Netherlands maintains its position as the world’s 2nd largest exporter of food and agricultural products, what is Niger State exporting?

Nigeria is the world’s 9th largest crude petroleum exporting country. Still, she is deep in the sea of palliative miasma. Dishearteningly, that’s emblematic of a dehumanised society and lack of transparency on the part of the organisers and it’s disheartening. Nigeria’s problem isn’t a question of not producing enough food. Rather, it’s that the country does not have the infrastructure to have stable prices. The truth is that Nigeria has antediluvian agriculture. It is primitive and rain-fed! She doesn’t have a Commodities Exchange and Boards and/or storage facilities. In my opinion, the drivers involved in the movement of goods and services from the hinterland to the cities are risking their lives. So, how much are they going to be paid to compensate for the risks? Unfortunately, instead of building rural roads, our state governors are busy building flyovers and embarking on other vanity projects.

On the whole, Nigeria’s problem is a defective constitution. If we go back to what was the costbenefit analysis and general well-being under the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, what has happened subsequently is that Nigeria now has more than 133 million citizens battling multidimensional poverty. Under the 1963 Constitution, that’s not possible. For those who care to know, India, Australia, Canada and Brazil have been operating under the same kind of Constitution. Look at where they are, compared to where Nigeria is hibernating.

While we cannot build a country without production, we cannot also build production on a defective constitution in which every state goes to Abuja every month, cap-in-hand, for handouts. The way out is for power to be devolved to the states, including powers to raise their own finances. It should be like the 1963 revenue-sharing formula, which favoured 50 per cent to the state and 50 per cent to the centre. How can Nigeria have more than 68 items on the Exclusive List? For God’s sake, they shouldn’t be more than 8 or 9 items; and they must have a revenue allocation formula that allows each state to carry out its responsibilities as a real subnational.

The key point here is that Nigeria is presently running on a very defective foundation and, until a Nigerian leader – and we hope that President Bola Tinubu will be the game-changer – is able to say what Massimo d’Azeglio said about Italy in 1861, Nigeria will remain captured. But the day a Nigerian leader possesses the interminable refinement and the presence of mind to emphasise that “we have made a geographical expression called Nigeria; now we must make Nigerians”, and he develops the capacity to do the needful, Nigeria will be free! The only way to create Nigeria is to revisit her foundational defects, not by piecemeal constitution amendments but by writing a brand new Constitution that’s based largely on the spirit and letter of the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions and have it passed by plebiscite.

*Continues online at www. thewillnews.com of the governed. That leadership brought about economic prosperity, industrial strength, intellectual pride and dynamism. We have discussed Singapore and for us the only thing that has poured is how our best brains and not so best have become caregivers in the UK and pouring into Canada and other places that were nowhere in the map of economic discussion only two/three decades earlier.

It was only expected that when a nation barely commits one percent of its GDP on education, we would have a collapsed Unity school set up, a crazy university system. We all weep at the situation but no one really thinks how we can have national competitiveness when the level of investment in human capital is abysmally low.

A new Nigeria cannot unfold, with fast paced infrastructural development, rapid push in human resource development, healthcare delivery, when of the approximately Universities and polytechnics enroll almost 2 million students yearly and graduate around 600,000 people, of which barely 5 per cent had a chance of a job, the remaining 95 per cent slowly became an unemployable bunch with redundant qualifications and there is no plan to put a halt to this because truth be told they are formally educated but informally employed, too many graduates fighting for few jobs.

NIGERIA’S PROBLEM IS A DEFECTIVE CONSTITUTION. IF WE GO BACK TO WHAT WAS THE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS AND GENERAL WELL-BEING UNDER THE 1960 AND 1963 CONSTITUTIONS, WHAT HAS HAPPENED SUBSEQUENTLY IS THAT NIGERIA NOW HAS MORE THAN 133 MILLION CITIZENS BATTLING MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY

Today’s Nigeria lacks quality education, effective health care delivery and real development despite her wealth. We are breeding terrorists, frustrated young men, sad mothers, senior citizens that daily curse the nation because we have refused to give them their dues.

TODAY’S NIGERIA LACKS QUALITY EDUCATION, EFFECTIVE HEALTH CARE DELIVERY AND REAL DEVELOPMENT, DESPITE HER WEALTH. WE ARE BREEDING TERRORISTS, FRUSTRATED YOUNG MEN, SAD MOTHERS, SENIOR CITIZENS THAT DAILY CURSE THE NATION BECAUSE WE HAVE REFUSED TO GIVE THEM THEIR DUES

Isn’t it intriguing and excitingly Nigerian, that this is Nigeria, the rich, poor and everybody cries and laughs almost at the same time; the difference is the swing of the pendulum.

Being a Nigerian requires a tricky trait, despite the Woles, Achebes, Anyaokwus, Maitamas, Balewas, Ziks, Awos, Sardaunas, and many too numerous to call, there is a distinction to being a Nigerian and wanting to be a Nigerian. The Nigerian big man makes a law, those wanting to be Nigerian or already big men proceed immediately to look for a way to break the law, he explores loopholes and escape clauses, like the Immunity clause used for stealing. *Continues online at www. thewillnews.com