Nigeria, a nation of countless treasures, has suffered from bad leadership since independence in 1960. Failure of leadership has been the enduring malady in Nigeria. This coupled with the ever growing cancer of corruption has made Nigeria comatose, gasping for breath, desperate for survival.
Ethnicity and religion have made nonsense of the process of leadership recruitment and performance evaluation. Any serious attempt to critically examine the credentials of aspiring leaders or the performance of current leaders is seen through the prism of ethnicity and religion. This is why our society keeps throwing up under-performing leaders.
Leaders emerge or are imposed on us only to find out that they are least prepared for the job. Since the advent of our current democratic government in 1999, imposition of leaders has been one of our greatest on doing. Rather than allow the people to decide who should govern them, powerful individuals are imposing their choices on the people through violence, financial inducement and crookery. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed Umaru Musa Yar Adua (of blessed memory) as President, few Nigerians would have realized its consequences on the nation. Today, we are counting the cost of that imposition and an even greater price maybe just ahead.
The global goodwill towards our country as the foremost black African state during her independence has long been squandered. With worsening insecurity, pervasive poverty and rampart corruption, Nigeria is failing.
Insurgency is a global phenomenon. Others have fought it in a more civilized way. Our approach has been rather lackadaisical, crude and brutal. The world has consistently shown us that jungle justice is itself barbaric and has the tendency of hardening insurgents. The gruesome killing of Muhammad Yusuf and the failure of the government to bring the killers to justice remains a dark spot on our conscience today. It is perhaps one of the reasons for the continued reprisal attacks unleashed by the terror group on defenseless Nigerians.
High-handedness by the Nigerian military may have worked in the past. It is obvious that our government is yet to understand that 21st century requires a more intelligent approach rather than a war that endangers more lives. Under Paul Biya’s command, we have seen Cameroonian army smoke the sect out of their hideout. Does that suggest that Cameroon has a better army than us? Some believe that Boko Haram is an Islamic movement that became politicized. There have been cases of non-Muslims being arrested. Again, more Muslims have lost their lives in most of the attacks. One is tempted to ask whether the self-acclaimed God’s warriors are out to kill God’s worshipers or the northern leaders are killing their own people to make it for political gains?
Whichever way it is viewed and no matter the divergence of opinions, it is the duty of the government which has been entrusted with our security, resources and well trained military to tackle Boko Haram. It remains the affairs of the Nigerian state. The Boko Haram insurgency has festered this long due to corruption. We have heard of soldiers buying their own uniforms and kits and not having weapons to fight despite the billions being spent on the war. We have heard commanders inflating the number of soldiers under their command in order to collect the salaries and allowances of ghost soldiers for themselves.
Our government’s complacency whenever our security is threatened cannot be understood. The presidency joined the global condemnation of the Hebdo killing of 17 people and also joined the world in ignoring the Baga massacre of over 2,000 innocent people, a massacre of genocidal magnitude. Are Bagans not humans? Are they not Nigerians? It took our government 16 days to address Nigerians over the abduction of 276 high school girls nearly a year ago. There is no better evidence of this government’s incompetence than the inept way it handled the Chibok girl’s abduction. Had the government acted in time we could have saved our girls or even avoided that attack as the military was said to have been informed before the attack. As the girls were being taken away, it was said that one of the vehicles carrying them broke down. Yet, the Nigerian soldiers were nowhere to rescue them.
President Goodluck Jonathan to me is a man of goodwill and I cannot but wonder why our country is facing severe degeneration, until he confessed his confusion over the different suggestions addressed to him on critical issues. Isn’t that what leadership is about? Probably such confusing suggestion has led us to see thugs and pastors involvement in buying weapons for Nigeria. The buck stops at the president desk. He cannot blame his failures on bad advisers.
Corruption in Nigeria today has reached an alarming proportion. We live in a country where one can be sacked for speaking about corruption and someone will remain in office after exploiting 6.5 million poor Nigerians for the vacancy of 4000 jobs, an exercise carried out in a single day leading to a stampede and death of more than a dozen. The promises made to the families of the dead are still unfulfilled today. We live in a nation where the number of private jets is used to measure the economic growth. What about the ordinary Nigerians? We live in a country where the government flies 10million dollars ostensibly to purchase arms in South Africa. We live in a country where a minister spends N10 billion on chartered jets in two years. We live in a country where a minister spends N225 million to purchase two cars.
For the sake of our future, it is time for us all to examine the stark reality of an impending doom should things continue to be in the way they are today.
We cannot afford to fail. We must collectively take Nigeria to her rightful place in the globe.
Beyond our common direction towards change, this age should define our participation and ensuring that our interest is protected. We have seen the ruling party and it counterpart kicking out local government autonomy on the grounds of protecting federalism that never worked for us, what does that tell you as an ordinary Nigerian? We still see their similarity of imposing leadership today. Our failure to stand for ourselves will make it difficult for the few good leaders surrounded by the corrupt.
Our dear nation needs our prayers and every enlightened Nigerian has a noble duty to enlighten the unenlightened generation of our youth; that voting is their weapon not violence. As desperation is ever rising among our leaders, these vulnerable generations is at their disposal. We have seen the war of words gradually becoming more and more physical. People are already apprehensive judging by the exodus of people across the nation. War is ugly. We have seen it before. We are seeing it today in Baga, Konduga and Chibok among others, which of course is like a tip of an iceberg should we not brace ourselves up to avoid a greater storm.
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