By Obi Nwakanma
A few weeks ago, newspapers in Nigeria reported that the National Council of State met, and the current president, Mr. Bola Tinubu, chaired it. For starters, I’m still unable to reconcile with the fact that a man of the quality of Tinubu would sit on a seat on which the giant Azikiwe sat. It is a travesty. Think about it dear country men, and you will see the incongruity; the tragic slide in our station as a people and as a nation. That picture alone tells us about the real tragedy of Nigeria.
The quality of national leadership; the quality of aspiration; the quality of insight; the quality of presence and carriage; the depth of preparation – one a thoroughbred all-rounder that embodied the highest human ideals which nature stupendously endowed in one body, and the other with a very uncertain past. I’m ahead of myself. But it gets much worse. Take a look at those who came to the Council of State meeting. You would see the picture of Nigeria and why it has failed as a nation.
It is a gallery, not of heroes, but of incompetent
people who have, within a generation, supervised the inexcusable decline of a
nation once touted as the ‘giant of Africa’. Take a good look, and you will see
Nigeria at work. And what again is the job of the Council of State? It has
neither legislative nor executive function. It is, at best, an advisory body
which gathers once in a while to eat a sumptuous meal, drink good coffee, and
pick their teeth at the expense of the tax-payers whose lives they have
collectively ruined.
At worst, it is a mutual admiration club. They have no constitutional function, and they should have none. But yet again, Nigeria is that country that makes high ceremony of madness. But there has been very little media scrutiny about why these geriatric wastrels of Nigeria’s golden years gave the incumbent president a vote of confidence, which basically urges him to continue the flagellation of Nigerians.
These men clearly get satisfaction from seeing the misery of
Nigerians. Nigeria has been degraded under their watch, from a nation of means,
influence and substance, to a two-penny banana republic. Nigeria has become the
laughing stock of the black race. Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the
world. Nigeria has become the piss-pot of terrorists, bandits, and many violent
non-state actors.
Under their watch, every fearful
thing has happened to Nigeria. But these folks still carry themselves about
with a sense of worth and importance, when they should actually be hiding their
faces in shame, and from the potential missile of stones and rotten eggs aimed
at them by very, very angry Nigerians. Nigerians have seen the real work of
these men. They have contributed nothing of value to Nigeria. I want so
desperately to be contradicted on this assertion. The clear evidence before me,
however, is that these men who came to the Council of State meeting have
contributed horror to Nigeria! The horror! The horror!
The horror of it, that these
Lilliputians who supervised the squandering of Nigeria’s national riches, and
her standing in the world, dare to come to sit in council, and do what exactly?
Offer advice? Insight? Wisdom? I’m afraid they have nothing more to give to
Nigeria. When they had their chance to serve, they created chaos, hatred,
tyranny, poverty, and larceny. I say, Council of State, my foot! I mean, look
at a man like Muhammadu Buhari. Nigeria gave him everything. But what did he
do? He screwed Nigeria over! Think about this: Muhammadu Buhari could not even
present the West African School Certificate that admitted him to the Defence
Academy.
There is in fact still no
evidence that he sat for that exam. There is more certainty that he was one of
those candidates recruited straight out of school by quota or affirmative
action, from Northern Nigeria, by the efforts of the immediate
post-independence Minister of Defence, Muhammadu Ribadu, in 1962. I have
nothing against quota or affirmative action. I believe that properly used, it
could achieve strategic balance and inclusion, which a nation as diverse as
Nigeria really needs, for nation-building. But it must never be at the
sacrifice of merit.
Buhari is a clear case against the kind of quota system that has effed-up Nigeria. There is record that his cadre of Northern Nigerian recruits was sent off to the Canadian Military Academy for officers training in 1962. But the quality of their preparedness was so subpar, according to his contemporary, the now late Ben Gbulie, that the Canadians rejected them wholesale.
They were quickly returned to Nigeria, sent
off to the newly established Nigerian Military School in Kaduna, and within six
months, they were commissioned as Second Lieutenants.
While their better prepared colleagues recruited at the same time were undergoing serious, rigorous military officers training in places like Sandhurst, where they spent the full three years before their commission, Buhari, among the rejects from Canada, spent only six months at a hurriedly built military academy in Nigeria, and commissioned way ahead of his peers.
He was then packaged off to Mons. His
advancement in the Army followed the same trajectory. He got his military ranks
and service privileges through the quota system, and that was why he governed
Nigeria with very limited capacity.
Take a look at the work of his hands, dear Nigerians; his legacy of which history can never be blind: in his first coming as a coup plotter in 1985, Buhari’s way of enforcing discipline was by sending armed soldiers on the streets to flog Nigerians and force them into a line. It was savage, and it was government by fear, intimidation, and brutality.
He wore the toga of an enforcer of the strict, disciplined virtues.
In 1980, he was on the list of those whom the Senate Committee investigating
the disappearance of N2.8 billion (when the Naira was 70 kobo to the dollar),
when he was Petroleum Minister, named. He refused to appear. Instead he plotted
a coup. In 1994, General Sani Abacha set up the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) to
run projects from Nigeria’s oil profits. Muhammadu Buhari was appointed
Chairman.
To date, there is nothing concrete to show for the
billions of funds allocated through that largely off-the book fund. As
president, Buhari served both as President of the federation and as Petroleum
Minister. But there has been no account to Nigerians of her oil earnings under
Buhari. The man ran the most brazenly corrupt government ever to govern
Nigeria. It was so brazen that his Minister of Humanitarian Affairs said she
spent money meant for the feeding of school children running into billions at a
time the children were home during Covid lockdown.
Under Buhari’s watch, his
nephew, Hadi Sirika, said he spent billions of Naira on the Air Nigeria failed
relaunch bid. It was a scandal of such proportion that Buhari himself was too
gobsamacked to talk about it. Buhari’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, is
still under probe for alleged illegal trade of Nigeria’s crude worth about $75
billion. These are just tips of the iceberg. Yet Mr. Buhari has the temerity to
appear at the Council of State. Mr. Muhammadu Buhari should be investigated.
After all, he jailed Professor Ambrose Ali, Aper Aku, Sam Mbakwe, Bisi Onabanjo
etc. These were men who actually did proven work and were innocent of
corruption. Goodluck Jonathan too must be investigated, and if he is found
culpable of corruption, he must be jailed.
Meanwhile, Bola Tinubu is
sitting under a tinder. From all indications, he and his family have now given
true significance to the real meaning of ‘Emi lokan!’ They have allegedly put
their hands in all things petroleum. The story continues. The wheels turn in
increasing and furious cycles. Nigerians grow numb, angry and restless. Those
who have fled into exile are quickly discovering the “harshness” of migration.
Those stuck at home are in utter shock and befuddlement. They can’t even
organize a protest. The Chinese are seizing Nigeria’s presidential jets. This
is only the beginning. More questions are now been asked than answers
given.
Meanwhile, Tinubu is jetting off
to France, and his way of solving Nigeria’s problem is throwing insulting
‘palliatives’ at Nigerians. The use of palliative – that is the ‘national
almajirinization’ program of the APC – is intended to turn 95 % of Nigerians
into beggars, in order to better control them. Disempower them, and make them
dependent hordes. Once most Nigerians begin to chant “Babin Allah!”, it is done. They would have achieved the political
aim of this very mad generation of the Nigerian ruling class. The fleecing of
Nigeria has a strategic purpose.
It is a feudal ploy. And so is
the creation of the Council of State: it is of no use other than the
perpetuation of oligarchic interests. It is the mutual admiration club of
Nigeria’s ex-these-and-thats who come routinely to pat themselves on the back,
and advise the incumbent on how further to keep the “savages” (meaning
Nigerians) in check. And if they are not in check, exterminate them! Otherwise,
how else can anyone interpret Buhari’s temerity to come to this Council of
State meeting after what he just recently did to Nigeria, or why indeed does
anyone give Tinubu a vote of confidence, after his one year of disastrous
governance? Somebody, please tell me.
*Nwakanma
is US-based poet and professor
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