The wretched can wait

Nigeria can be a much better place if only leadership will not quickly disconnect from the most important need for their existence; reduce the poverty among the people. Simple. This is the most urgent need for government today in Nigeria. It is true that we cannot all be rich, because we don’t all think alike or have the same histories. Think about all the people you attended secondary school with. Everyone has ended up with different circumstances because of different choices along the way. So, no matter the choices that people make, the role of government is to focus on the bottom millions while educating them to make better choices. We blamed Jonathan for boasting about how his government created Private-Jet riding billionaires. We were right. I believe Nigeria can do much better if we focus on trickle-up economics. Money given to the poor will naturally end up with the rich.  Everybody buys products from Dangote. Salt. Sugar. Rice. Noodles. Water. Cement. Textiles. Name it! But money given to the rich, ends up in a safe in one room in Sabon Tasha, Kaduna, or the countless other undiscovered safe houses that Nigeria’s wicked big men have all over the country even when their own people can hardly feed or drink clean water! 

 Forget about trickle down. The guys at the top have simply brought in bigger basins to collect the booty. Nothing trickles down anymore because everyone is now too wise and there are ways to spend more and more money in a globalized world. This is not to say that some big men – again like Dangote – do not put their money to good use, even when they are making money, but to also add value to society. 

 My concern today is that we use legalisms and all sorts of excuses to delay the rapid response we should give to the simple and stark problems in our land. Any government should see itself as paramedics. Like an ambulance, you have to rush, sirens blazing, to the rescue of the people, given the way things have degenerated till date. If you don’t, and you tarry and debate, hem and haw, you will get the type of situation we have in Nigeria – crime on the streets, fraud, kidnapping, daredevil robberies, filth, despondency, protests, riots, embittered citizens, religious and tribal conflicts which could become bloody, and society will collapse. Any government worth its salt must understand the URGENCY OF NOW!

 Yesterday I was re-reading my friend Greg Odogwu’s writeup in the Punch regarding GEJ’s botched clean cook stoves project. See http://punchng.com/lawmakers-investigate-failed-clean-cook…/. These stoves were procured for the poorest of the poor in Nigeria, and to help the environment. Naturally there was a huge fraud involved. The cost of each stove was inflated by say 400% allegedly. The stoves are also not enough for all that need it. But I can confirm that almost 2 years after Jonathan left, those stoves are indeed sitting in the velodrome of Abuja Stadium; thousands of them. Laurentia Mallam, the Minister in charge then did say the stoves were in the stadium. Yes they are… rotting away, and depriving anyone from using that velodrome, which is meant for cycling, for judo and other indoor sports. 

 My take is that while we are investigating the frauds, why can we not deploy these things that have been procured to those who need them? Why are thousands of cooking stoves just sitting in a stadium? Are we thinking of the effect those stoves could have on the integrity of that stadium? And why are we allowing these poor peasants suffer for one day longer by keeping those stoves? Why are we allowing them cut down trees and destroy the environment still, for one day longer? I know that current leaders may not know these things; so we have to bring it to their attention. All those who are aspiring to positions of leadership should explain how we would be able to have an eagle-eye view of Nigeria, to know what is where. Those thousands of stoves were procured with Nigerian money; or even loans… even if they were gifted to Nigeria, they cost money, for no gift comes for free in today’s world anyway.

 It is in the same vein that I see all these billions of dollars and billions of Naira that the Buhari government claims to have recovered. The other day I sat down to do the research. If we added them up, we can fund this years’ budget and the next without borrowing. Yet, we are talking of borrowing huge sums. I just cannot understand the logic that runs governments in Nigeria. If Andrew Yakubu’s stash is injected into the forex system, the gap between official and black market will close considerable. We need EXECUTIVE ORDERS perhaps (you’ve got to love Trump, warts and all). We are in an emergency situation. We ought to be shooting first and apologizing later – except if we aren’t sure of our own intentions and integrity. Did the government not bust the houses of judges at night because they were allegedly corrupt?  It is however when it comes to deploying these recovered resources for the good of the common man that things slow down. We start to hear about how the case is in court and the next moment we stop hearing anything at all.  When we grab these monies, let us deploy for the good of this nation while the bastards who stole the monies will be sweating to explain themselves. That is the way I see it. Whereas we are under an economic emergency with stagflation bearing down on us all government seems to be taking its time in rushing to our aid. All the talk about Keynesianism is about rapid intervention and nothing more. 

The other time, the government promised to reel out the names of those who have cases and the amounts recovered from them. Nigerians waited with bated breath because the symbolism of naming and shaming criminals would have been priceless, just as open asset declaration would have set the highest of standards. Till date we are still waiting. They just parried and papered over this simple issue of integrity. Today, Nigerians have altogether stopped asking. But government should not think we have forgotten… or forgiven. 

Anyway, there you have it. Pity the people. Nigeria can surely and truly be greater than this. It’s just rather disheartening how things are panning out.  They should start out by going to take those clean cook stoves from the stadium velodrome. The poor people who need the stoves should have them. This government and those to come after should also develop a template by which they see where our resources are. The case of the cooking stove is another evidence of wasted money, capacity and assets. As for Andrew Yakubu and his likes, who stash tons of money in different places even when their own family members go hungry, well, ‘there is God’. Because if I should start raining abuses with the anger I feel inside, this page will not be enough.