Nigeria, the statistics say, is now the poverty capital of the world. Ordinarily, that would be a shame. But the people of Nigeria are far too busy trying to eke out just one more day to bother with shame.
When you are trying to fend off hunger, or to find N5000 to buy medicines to keep your sick child from dying or N10000 to keep him from being thrown out of school, you become immune to shame.
Last week, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo told visiting faculty members of the Harvard Business School in Lagos how extreme poverty in the country is giving him sleepless nights.
Mr. Osinbajo was probably thinking about the recent statement by businessman Aliko Dangote in which he profiled extreme poverty in Nigeria, particularly in the North, saying the socio-economic disparities with the south were “very alarming.”
“In the North Western and North Eastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in extreme poverty,” said Dangote, who added that “the 19 Northern states, which accounts for over 54% of Nigeria’s population and 70 per cent of its landmass, collectively generated only 21% of the total subnational IGR in the year 2017.”
And then he warned that the North will continue to fall behind if those 19 state governments do not rise to the challenge of closing the development gap with the south.
To which, instead of wasting those sleepless hours, Osinbajo ought to have referred to his economic team to cook up recipes for a government that is long on diagnosis and blame, but mute and lame in response.
As if to reaffirm that character, President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday told the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria how aware he is of the enormity of Nigeria’s population problem.
“We need to move very fast, and the government will try and encourage you as very much as possible so that the problem of unemployment and the provision of other services relative to our population and state of development can be tolerated,” he said.
It was unclear who should “tolerate” the problem.
The truth is simple: Nigeria continues to flounder because its leaders have neither honesty nor clarity about what to do. Let us not forget the savage lies the All Progressives Congress (APC) sold to Nigerians in 2013 as it sought power as an “agent of change.”
“Those compatriots who have lost faith in our dear country because of insufficient and corrupt leadership; count on us for we represent an Agent of change for committed, transparent and focused leadership,” it said in its manifesto.
“As a change Agent, APC intend to cleanse our closet to halt the dangerous drift of Nigeria to a failed state; with a conscious plan for post-oil-economy in Nigeria.
“To achieve this laudable programme APC government shall restructure the country, devolve power to the units, with the best practices of federalism and eliminate unintended paralysis of the center.”
And yes, APC swore it understood democracy: “Democracy, to be stable and meaningful, must be anchored on the principle that government derives its powers from the consent of the governed.
“This means that governments are instituted on the basis of free, fair and credible elections, and are maintained through responsiveness to public opinion. In addition, the exercise of political authority is rooted in the rule of law. APC believes in the doctrine of social contract between the leaders and the led; which means that the public office holder is a trustee of the people and that power must be used in the interest of the people rather than in the interest of the public office holder.”
[Caveat: This was long before the party’s embarrassing declaration in its revised manifesto last January in which it said, “Our first priority is keeping America safe and secure…”
Free and fair elections. Public opinion. Rule of law. Social contract…APC even affirmed that it would model a new electoral law after the Justice Uwais Report, as well as give Nigerians credible elections by making the Independent National and State Electoral Commissions fully independent.
But as the world has found out since APC won the presidency in 2015, each of those claims-and many more-was a brazen, shameless lie. APC had neither the intention, the character nor the capacity to re-invent Nigeria for Nigerians. APC was a fraudulent party, with a fraudulent manifesto, marketing a fraudulent patriotism and a fraudulent ambition.
That is why a party which had everything and was given everything in 2015 needed in 2019 all the political sorcery, arm-twisting and rigging that are now being questioned in the courts.
Sadly, APC spent four years demonstrating that it lacked not just the capacity to advance change philosophically or culturally, but perhaps even the concept of Nigeria as one nation. Remember: by the time APC was taking power in 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which Nigeria had mismanaged into failure were being replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September 2015, Buhari noted the “lofty aspirations and…heroic assumptions,” of the SDGs, adding that “the core objectives of poverty eradication and reducing inequalities…[were] precisely at the centre of the agenda of his administration.
“We intend to tackle inequalities arising from massive unemployment and previous government policies favouring a few people to the detriment of the many,” he pledged before a world which had during the MDGs seen several nations liberate tens of millions of their people from poverty.
It is these words of hope that are at stake when the #2 person in the administration announces in mid-2019 why he cannot sleep.
The question is what-beyond the pledges and promises of his party in 2013-2015-his government has done to pull people out of poverty. To repeat Dangote, “In the Northwestern and Northeastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in extreme poverty,” with the figure only a little better in the south.
Largely because of an administration that has failed to rise to its leadership advertising in its self-appointed tasks. For security, Buhari responds with daily “security meetings” in Abuja, while the military chiefs he assigned to the northeast are not known to have left Abuja. How can you have security when the administration appoints to critical positions persons who lack competence or respect?
Consider that last week, Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai publicly attributed the lameness of the army before Boko Haram to the “simply insufficient commitment to a common national/military course” of his soldiers. That is the definition of collapse.
Corruption? Enough to say that corruption won the war for Nigeria, because all it hears is of a coming battle. It never had to “fight back.”
In the end, Nigeria suffers from the same old ailment: leadership by rhetoric. We feed the poor not by giving them bread, but by praying for them.
What about a massive plan-today-to meet the crisis of poverty head-on?
That was the hope of that voter who is now too hurt to cry. But who would implement it?
• @SonalaOlumhense
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
