“In foreign policy, there’s a term for governments that don’t govern. We call them failed states. A state can fail for many reasons, but weak or clueless leadership is usually a factor. In a failed state, insurgencies grow, warlords arise, and chaos reigns.” – William Saletan, 2016
As usual, Nigeria is all over the
news, foreign and domestic, all for the wrong reasons. According to Financial Times
of London, “Nigeria has asked the World Bank and African Development Bank
for a $3.5 billion loan. The request comes as Africa's largest economy
grapples with a $15 billion budget deficit in the wake of the oil crash
that has seen prices fall about 70% in the last year and a half.” There is no
doubt that Nigeria’s economy is in dire straits and we urgently need a fix for
the peculiar mess we found ourselves. What is in dispute is the willingness of
our political leadership to take responsibility for their profligacy that
brought our economy to its knees.
Our former president, Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan (GEJ), the man who presided over the highest income ever generated by
any Nigeria government, and who sadistically spend all on trivialities struts
around the world capitals celebrating how he successfully handed over an empty
treasury to his successor who by the way, handily won the election! As Punch
newspaper editorial rightly quoted Christian Welzell and Ronald Inglehart,
“Students of democracy increasingly emphasize the fact that democracy implies
government by the people, not mere ‘electoral democracy’ in which elites have
elections, but the citizens have little real influence on their actions.”
To add insult to injury, our National
Assembly, is busy sharing the loot called the national treasury by buying
expensive and luxurious “state of the art” cars for themselves. When they take
time off from looting the already depleted treasury, they fiddles while Rome
burns, cue their current effort to pass ordinance that will ban “the internet
from publishing negative articles about politicians” to quote one of them.
It is in the mix of all this, that
President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), approached World Bank and African Development
Bank for a $3.5 billion loan. My first retort is to urge an opposition to that
loan request until PMB can prove that he and his party are capable of managing
the out of control and profligate National Assembly. Why should we continue to
mortgage Nigeria’s future to make rich a conscienceless elite ruling class? PMB
must guarantee to us that none of the loan will be use to pay National Assembly
or the Executive branch emoluments or salaries. He should be made to guarantee
that none of the money will be funnel through the office of the National
Security Adviser to fund governorship election as GEJ did in Ekiti state. He
has to guarantee that the loan will be transparently deployed for the benefit
of the suffering masses of Nigerian and monitored by independent Nigerians who
are not beholden to the current political class in Nigeria.
We have had enough of borrowing from
Peter to pay Paul, so as to enable Paul to be able to build
skyscrapers in Dubai and jet off to Caribbean Island where they have plush
homes. It is time we send a message that the only thing standing between full
scale revolution in Nigeria and our profligate ruling class is PMB commitment
to anti-corruption and time is running out for him. Nigeria has no faith in
party politics and politicians who will steal and loot the treasury in other to
win election. So we say NO! to borrowing from World Bank and ADB so the
National Assembly could pay themselves mega salary. We say NO! to loans so
governors could ride rough shod over us. Our current National Assembly and
state governors have to agree to cut their coats according to our falling oil
prices for us to move forward. Nigeria meets the definition of a failed state,
we have clueless leadership, growing insurgencies, north and south and chaos
reigns everywhere. NO! You don’t reward clueless leadership with $3.5 billion
loan. It is time we start mobilizing the streets to come out and send that
message to those in power.
