A Nation of Prodigal Leadership
Nigeria’s leadership, at every crossroads of our political history, has been largely underwhelming in the task of nationbuilding and provision of sophisticated infrastructure. Ours is a tragic nation, bogged down by the prodigality of our leaders. The best that leadership offers here is tokenism in terms of commitment to real development, adequate security of lives and property, and genuine welfare of the people.
Those who are saddled with the responsibility of leading us to El-Dorado are habitually corrupt and have consistently and unconscionably mismanaged our commonwealth. They are either building monuments to madness in or outside Nigeria, or stashing money stolen from our public treasury in foreign banks. They are propelled by the need to assure their sadistic ego, which thrives on the vain assumption that, by cornering our patrimony, they would have secured the economic future of the next three to four generations of their children. How callous!
We came to this sorry pass because of the retrogressive mode that leadership has assumed, ad infinitum, since independence in 1960. And, to be sure, the tragedy of our nation is the persistent fail- ure of leadership that has been egregiously foisted on us by a successive cohort of military-political elite for the preservation of their enlightened self-interests.
It is emblematic that Nigeria has suffered mindless mismanagement in the hands of consecutive leaderships; whereas, leadership, as exemplified by the state, is a critical element in development administration. But Nigeria has not been lucky to have the right kind of leaders that could galvanise sustainable economic growth and sophisticated infrastructure development for the overall national good.
That our country has been muddling through for all of 56 years, unable to utilise her huge petrodollars and tap her diverse natural resources for development of a strong and robust economy is heartbreaking commentary about the rudderless leadership that has sorely afflicted us. And the fact that we have not been able to reverse the trend, as a people, is reason we have been in a vicious cycle of poverty and underdevelopment.
Rather than stand up, as a collective, to save our nation, we engage in a divisive game of appropriating opportunities to either join the cabalistic leadership or seek refuge in the corridors of power where those with the intellectual capacities and integrity capital to reengi- neer governance and bring about accountable and transparent leadership are sufficiently compromised and come out of power, eventually diminished, with their tails in between their legs. This is sad.
The shame of our nation is our collective shame. Corruption has since become Nigeria’s moniker. This is unfortunate. We are loathed globally. And, sadly, we perpetrate it against ourselves. As if bewitched, we competitively rape our commonwealth for personal aggrandisement. We adulate criminals who should be punished for betraying the public trust. We are, no doubt, beside ourselves to accord recognition to plunderers of the public till. There is no way we could have made progress with this kind of conservative and crude mindset.
Little wonder, the aggregate flowing cash at the disposal of corrupt public office holders, both former and serving, as being contemplated, could even be more than that of the country. If this is the reality, it cannot be anything else other than sheer lunacy. And, this verily explains why, over the years, sophisticated infrastructure has not been built. Our nation is still struggling to solve the basic questions of provision of good roads, wellequipped health centres, constant power supply, pipe borne water, social security benefits, et al.
Remarkably, budgetary allocations are provided and released for the same projects on yearly basis for as long as the budget ritual continues and such projects are never completed. The present administration’s acclaimed zero budgeting system, which was considered a solution to this problem, has become a mere rhetoric. The perfidy of yore and the more recent past before the Muhammadu Buhari administration continue to taunt us. The bulk of the money had found its way into the pockets of public office holders and complicit local and foreign contractors. Our leaders are our enemies.
Is leadership failure in Nigeria a product of mismatch of the ethnic mindsets that have coalesced into a national psyche which has been contorted by corruption, fuelled by the desire of one region to help itself to the wealth of the nation more than the other regions? It is depressing that this is the sordid narrative of a 56-year old resource-rich nation, whose development has been stunted by corruption, rent-seeking and dependency that is being told here.
Compare Nigeria with the United Arab Emirate (UAE), for instance, and the reality of our leadership irresponsibility will unravel in much bolder relief. Dubai, the most populous city in UAE, where Nigerian leaders and public office holders go to lavish their stolen wealth, was developed to the opulent grandeur it is today in 17 years beginning around the mid ‘90s. The city was built from the global increases in oil prices during the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, which allowed it to focus on rapid development of key infrastructure.
What of the Malaysians who, through the Dutch expedition in the 19th century, got palm seedlings and planting materials from Nigeria? Malaysia is today ranked number two palm oil producing nation in the world behind Indonesia. And where is Nigeria ranked? Number five! Even the production of crude oil in which Nigeria is ranked as the seventh volume producer among OPEC nations and 15th globally, the nation has not been able to achieve real and concrete development from the foreign exchange earned from our crude production sale since oil was discovered in 1956 in commercial quantities at Oloibiri in present day Bayelsa State before it was exported in February 1958.
The truth is that, if we have had visionary, accountable and transparent leaders who abhor corruption with all its variants or dimensions; leaders who pursue development for the general good, our nation would have been firmly put on the path of sustainable economic growth and sophisticated infrastructure development. Nobody would care who occupies Aso Rock Presidential Villa or the various Government Houses in the states if there is good governance with all its attendant positives.
It is not too late to compel visionary and accountable leadership in Nigeria. This generation owes this to posterity. This is citizens’ obligation. The Muhammadu Buhari/ Yemi Osinbajo administration has committed itself to accountability and transparency. It has confronted an aspect of the behemoth that has bogged the nation down from the outset-corruption. The administration should fight the war transparently and correctly to win the prize and set us on the path of manifest redemption; otherwise, our little hope that corruption would be extirpated and our nation would regain international respect, would have become a mirage.