I begin this one by congratulating President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday’s commissioning of Phase I of the Abuja Metro network, Nigeria’s first city rail transportation.
I have hungered for this for a long time, partly because I know how acutely this form of transportation transforms economies and societies.
Mr. Buhari described the event as a dream come true, asserting that it demonstrated the commitment of his government to critical infrastructure.
Commitment is a strong word. It is not one I would use to describe an administration with so many weaknesses and blind spots. But with national elections on the way, it is understandable the Abuja Metro would be turned into a major campaign weapon.
A great deal of the credit goes to Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, who signed a loan of $3bn during his visit to China in 2013, $500m of which was meant for the project. Weeks before he departed office in 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo had laid the foundation, and the project was to be completed by 2011. But it has taken four governments and over 11 years to deliver one phase of it.
Nonetheless, according to Buhari himself, the project was 68% completed when he assumed office. That is, while it took the Jonathan government two years to undertake 68% (two-thirds), it would take Buhari three and a half to complete the one-third.
Speaking of commitment then, the question is: if it took Buhari three and a half years to complete 34% of Phase I, how long will it take the same government to complete the remaining Phases II-VI?
And how much will it spend? Speaking to State House journalists in March 2017, Mohammed Bello, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, said Phase II would cost $1.79bn, to be provided by China, and that it had been approved by the Federal Executive Council meeting and awarded to China’s CCECC.
Speaking of projects, it is well-known that I am a complainer. I have a philosophical objection to lazy, dubious and ineffective governments.
But in Nigeria, when you criticize a government, those inside of it call you names. You are either merely malicious, or criticize only because you have not been given a piece of the pie.
Current presidential spokesman Femi Adesina is known to have dismissed critics as “wailing wailers.”
Ahead of him, in the government of Mr. Jonathan, presidential spokesman Reuben Abati labeled the same species as “children of anger.” In a famous diatribe, he rounded them up as “…cynics, the pestle-wielding critics, the unrelenting, self-appointed activists, the idle and idling, twittering, collective children of anger, the distracted crowd of Facebook addicts, the BBM-pinging soap opera gossips of Nigeria,” and an “army of sponsored and self-appointed anarchists.”
Their mission, he said, was only to “pull down” President Jonathan.
As a child of anger therefore, a wailer, you express objection never because it is warranted or because you are patriotic.
Why? Because being in a government is seen as an achievement: The achievement. It is the biggest leap up a Nigerian can make. When you make it into the government, you have arrived. You are special; you are numbered among the saints.
Sadly, getting a government job is not seen as a call to service, implying accountability, perhaps because it is often interpreted by those involved as a call to serve yourself.
Being in the government-your title pre-fixed with the indefinite article, “the”-you are a star in the heavens. The Minister. The Permanent Secretary. The Special Adviser. The Chairman. The Spokesman.
When you arrive in such a firmament, not only do you have power beyond measure, you are also omniscient: Your knowledge is complete and unchallengeable. Your immense influence elevates you from the aches and pains of ordinary men and women.
As an insider, you certainly do not wake up in the morning expecting to be challenged as to whom you really are. You are The. The Director. The Honourable. The Excellency.
The Minister. Such as The Minister of Finance, Her Excellency Kemi Adeosun.
As a people who appear to have no meaning unless in monetary terms, to be Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria means you are the most important person in the country.
Yes, more important than the President and the Vice-President. Because unless you pronounce their offices materially empowered, they have no power.
And then, you wake up one morning to be confronted with an explosive press report that you are a fugitive from justice; claiming that not only did you not serve in Nigeria’s National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC), as required by law, you forged an exemption certificate in 2009 to cover your tracks.
To add insult to injury, as the sleepless days and nights pass by, the offending newspaper indefatigably continues its investigation, publishing one damaging new element after another.
The NYSC itself issues a statement affirming that while its records show you did apply for an exemption, it did not grant one. “We shall investigate the origin of the purported Exemption Certificate in question,” is all it would allow in its terse intervention.
And the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, asked about the scandal, says the NYSC’s position is the position of the government. The message seemed to be clear: Mrs. Adeosun is on her own.
And yet last Friday, one week after the story broke, the Minister had yet to say a word in her own defence, or offence. She was too important to quit her position.
And yet, as last week closed, Mrs. Adeosun was seen in at least two public meetings with President Buhari, the leader of this government of “Change.”
Speaking of commitment, the government said on Thursday it would publish a list of 200 persons who may have enriched themselves, possessing lavish real estate in Abuja.
The initiative, based on a new software pioneered by the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), was announced by Okoi Obono-Obla, the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution.
As elections approach, this is evidently one of those cheap, ad hoc measures designed to attract public attention, in which only persons who lack the approval of the most powerful and people of opposing political persuasions will be harassed.
Again, there is no recourse to principle or the rule of law. Remember this is the same sanctimonious government that has refused to publish the lists of looters ordered by two courts.
Commitment cannot be spelt as convenience. True service does not cut corners.
• @SonalaOlumhense
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