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| FEATURE ARTICLE |
| Osita Ezeliora | Tuesday, May 8, 2007 |
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noezeliora@yahoo.com Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa 
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Progressive Retrogression, Retrogressive Progression:
Nigeria's Political Independence and the Tyranny of Kleptocracy
have been asked to speak on Nigeria's 'Independence' in view of the recent developments in what is often referred to as 'Africa's most populous nation'. I have crafted the subject of my discussion to read: 'Progressive retrogression, retrogressive progression: Nigeria's political independence and the tyranny of kleptocracy'. Given the phrasing of the subject, I can almost visualise everyone here present waiting for me to 'punch' the leadership of my country, or worse still dismiss the entire nation as totally inconsequential and hopeless in solving the dilemma of Africa, let-alone that of the global humanity.
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So godly was the out-going president of my country that he once held the esteemed position of the Vice-President of the Berlin-based 'Transparency International'. Do not get me wrong: he is still a very godly man. Recently, he matriculated in the newly established Nigeria's Open University to pursue a diploma programme in the field of Theology. It is expected that before long he will become a full-fledged pastor who will convert many souls to Christianity, just like one of his predecessors, Yakubu Gowon, whose primary achievement since leaving the affairs of government in 1975 was to obtain a PhD in political science with a bias in the field of prayers to God. How then can anyone say that our leaders are corrupt? In the specific case of the out-going president of my country, I would like to crave your indulgence to allow me call him St. Olusegun Obasanjo.
As a prominent member of the holiest of institutions, the 'Transparency International', St. Obasanjo is so godly a ruler that on assuming office as president of Nigeria in 1999, he made some very remarkable decisions: his farm in the town of Sango Otta in South Western Nigeria's Ogun state was at the time virtually moribund. The total income in the company's account was put at less than twenty-two thousand naira (N22, 000.00) or U$D150.00. As a man of God, however, he made a very quick recovery from his financial crisis: on becoming the president of the country in 1999, he also added to his office the headship of Nigeria's Petroleum Ministry. Since he had little or no time to attend to his private farm, he appointed God the managing director of his farm, and soon the company made an average of US$30,000.00 every month in a country where almost everyone is a farmer. So, how can anyone accuse St. Obasanjo of corruption? I shall return to this issue much later in the course of this discussion. But first, why is it necessary for me to start my discussion along this line, in a topic that promises to explore the state of Nigeria's political independence?
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I have just used the phrase 'so-called dominant groups': I shall clarify my deployment of the idiom given the contemporary politicization of numerity as a fundamental determinant in the discourse of power relations. My argument, here, is that dominance in our specific instance need to be revisited since power in Nigeria is not necessarily within the confines of the more highly populated ethnic communities. It does not even take into account the contributions of some ethnic communities in the political emancipation of the nation. By October 1st, 1960, Nigeria secured 'a form' of political independence from Britain: 'a form', because the independence was doomed to crash from the beginning. As a former British colonial officer, Harold Smith, recently reveals in his autobiography, Nigeria was programmed to fail. Smith reveals that the census conducted in the 1950s was tailored to favour the Northern part of the country as a way of punishing the recalcitrant nationalists from Southern Nigeria who insisted on the liberation of the country. In his words, "The massive power of the North rested on the census figures produced by the British officials in early 1950s. All attempts to confirm those figures since have proved a failure and this has become the most bitterly contested issue in Nigerian politics" (my emphasis).
The attainment of political independence by Nigeria in 1960 took a very long battle from a number of nationalists. While Harold Smith's integrity as a colonial officer in Nigeria has been interrogated at various fora, and his self-glorifications dismissed as an implicit venture in 'the rigging of Nigerian history', there are certain aspects of our nation's history that simply cannot be dismissed even by the worst of our enemies. For instance, it was an established fact that since its formation in August 1944, the NCNC enveloped the nation as the only truly nationalist party: the party made such a threatening progress in its challenge of colonial legacies that both the party and its leaders immediately earned the hatred of Britain and her colonial officers. As one Northern Nigerian leading scholar of Nigerian history of decolonization eloquently suggests, "The successes recorded by the NCNC in the mobilization of the ordinary people of Nigeria to struggle for independence, earned the party and its leadership, particularly Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the dislike and hostility of the colonial administration and some of its leading officials" (Abba, 2005). Some of the successes of the party remain strategic sites of our nation's political memory: the first of its series of achievements was the mobilization of Nigerian workers then led by Pa Michael Imoudu to organize the nation's first workers' strike in 1945. This lasted for 44 days with devastating political and economic consequences to Britain. In 1946, the party successfully mobilized the people against the balkanization of the nation along tribal or ethnic zones in the much-loathed Richard's Constitution. Its rejection of regionalism at this point in the nation's history led to its monumental popularity throughout the country. In the 1951 parliamentary elections, it was the only party that contested for positions 'nationally'. The AG and the NPC remained very 'regional', but even this confinement to their tribal territories did not stop the 'nationalist' party to win elections in the three regions. In fact, it is a fact of history that in the Western regional election of that year, the NCNC won 35 seats while Obafemi Awolowo's AG won 29 seats. Again in the federal elections to the House of Representative in 1954, the NCNC were elected to 23 seats against the 18 by the AG.
A threatened colonial regime in the 1950s had to show its desperation to retain control of the colony in its antics through the manipulation of the defeated political parties. In particular, evidence abounds that Britain, AG, the NPC, connived against the nationalist NCNC's poise to assume power at the centre. Britain celebrated its victory of entrenching tribalism and regionalism in Nigeria, especially given the recalcitrance of Dr Azikiwe who rejected the position of Prime Minister in what was obviously a guaranteed victory of his party in an NCNC-AG alliance. As Abba clarifies, "The evidence of this conspiracy, which had the AG and the NPC, working closely with the British, against the nationalist forces in the NCNC, comes from a top-secret report no. G221/97, now available in the Public Records Office, in London. The Chief Secretary to the Nigerian Colonial Government in Lagos, Mr. Ralph Grey, sent this report to Mr. T. B. Williamson of the Colonial Office on 31st December 1954. The Chief Secretary reported that:
Abubakar [Tafawa Balewa] dropped in again this morning to report further on the "situation". He showed me a paper, which recorded the results of his talks with Mr. Akintola and Mr. Rosoji on 16th December. (These followed an earlier meeting on 15th December at which the Sarduana and someone else from the Action Group, possibly Mr. Awolowo, were present).
2. I glanced through the paper very quickly and wished that I had a better photographic memory. The main thing was to form a United Front Party- consisting of the NPC, AG, UNIP and KNC- under NPC leadership. All members of those parties elected to the House of Representatives would sign a declaration of adherence to the new party...
3. An undertaking was taken by the Action Group that they would cease to press for the Regions to be broken up into States or for an alteration in the North/West boundary..." (PRO. CO554/1178)
It is interesting that in spite of this massive conspiracy against the most vocal of the nationalists, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, his rejection of the foremost position of Prime Minister of Nigeria in an NCNC-AG alliance endeared him to most Nigerians at the time who immediately observed his selfless determination to serve the nation. The immense hostility he endured from Obafemi Awolowo and his AG, especially the seizure of Dr. Azikiwe's property in Lagos and refusal to pay compensation for the property became one scandalous development that was later to manifest more holistically against the Igbo several years later when Awolowo emerged the no 2 citizen of the country as Finance Minister under the leadership of Yakubu Gowon. The point being stressed here is that what has emerged as the Nigerian social formation first under Abubakar Tafawa Balewa since October 1960 was designed by the British to dangle around aimlessly like an overloaded jet piloted by a lunatic. Yet, nowhere in the history of Nigeria has anyone proved a case of corruption against Tafawa Balewa. That admirable leader of Nigeria's first republic may have been a stooge in the hands of the British, but he was a sane stooge whose humility remains incontrovertible. He, like the late Aminu Kano, belongs to the rare breed of Nigeria's true leaders who never as much as owned a private house till death. Recall that Obafemi Awolowo and his top AG colleagues such as Anthony Enahoro and Mazi S. G. Ikoku were all tried and convicted of treasonable felony in 1962. Except for Ikoku, neither Awolowo nor Enahoro was bold enough to admit their plot to overthrow the Balewa government (perhaps, Enahoro might still do so before he dies).
The plot by the AG leadership, directly or indirectly, inspired a number of hotheads in the military. In January 1966, Nigeria witnessed its first military intervention into her politics. Ever since then, the Nigeria's military constituency has demonstrated a rare ingenuity in their prolificacy in coup plots and coup executions. In the idiom of the soldiers, every coup is right except when it fails. To this end, Nigeria has had the misfortune of having been ruled by military regimes in nearly all of its 47 years of existence: the January 1966 coup was followed by another six months later. Two heads of states were killed in the process: Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Gen. J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi. The assumption of office by Yakubu Gowon witnessed one of the most wasted moments in the nation's history. With a 3-year holocaust of an atrocious civil war that saw the systematic genocide against the Igbo with over 3 million lives wasted, the Gowon regime presided over a system of waste that squandered massive wealth that would have been enough to industrialize the entire West African sub-region. It is a fact of history that Yakubu Gowon was reputed to have proclaimed that the problem of Nigeria was not money, but what to do with money. The global crisis at the time, especially the Egypt-Israeli as well as the America-Vietnam wars had shot the prize of crude oil to a significant high, with the implication that oil-producing nations of the world at the time made enormous profits.
At this point in our nation's history, Nigeria produced a large number of military apologists. For a people just recovering from the traumas of wars, it is a statement in our collective memory that the Finance Minister under the Yakubu Gowon regime insisted not only on seizing the landed property of the Igbo in many parts of the country, but also adopted the policy of seizing monetary possessions of the defeated people in all the banks in the country. All citizens of Igbo extraction who had stupendous wealth in many Nigerian banks were ordered to accept only twenty pounds (£ 20.00) to start life afresh. This was the moment that the Finance Minister under Yakubu Gowon chose to privatise the entire national assets and business interests to 'ordinary' Nigerians with the result that barely a decade later the phrase 'Ijebu Industrialists' became the defining idiom of the new Nigerian super-rich.
The privatisation of national assets and the quest for material possession soon led to new levels in 'graft'. The military soon devised patterns of 'take-over' in which every deposed leader is accused of corruption and incompetence. In 1975, Gen. Yakubu Gowon was overthrown by Murtala Mohammed who became an instant hero. Six months later Gen Mohammed was assassinated by Col Bukar Sukar Dimka who failed in his attempts to seize power, and soon became a villain: he was executed like a dog. One Gen Olusegun Obasanjo succeeded Gen Murtala Mohammed in February 1976 and handed over the rein of power to an amiable Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He, too, was overthrown by the combined team of Mohammadu Buhari and Sani Abacha. Buhari's draconian regime soon gave inspiration to one ambitious smiling Gen. Ibrahim Babangida who sent him packing in the August of 1985. After eighth years of dribbling Nigerians in an endless political transition programmes, Babangida's regime produced over 90 military millionaires in the form of former State Governors and Ministers of Government Departments. It was a venture that made the Nigerian scholar, Chinweizu, to label him 'Nigeria's Political Maradonna' to mark his consistency in inconsistencies in the political chess game of Nigeria's leadership. But it was not an easy ride, even for the Maradonna of Nigeria's politics: in 1986 he executed his life-long friend and colleague, Gen. Mamman Vatsa, a very lucid poet who was highly venerated as a highbrow intellectual in uniform, for plotting a coup that failed. In 1990, too, Maj. Gideon Orka led another coup to overthrow Gen Ibrahim Babangida. It was a disaster: the coup failed, and Maj. Orka was executed along with his fellow coup plotters.
Gen. Babangida 'stepped aside' in 1993 after annulling the election generally believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola, and installing as 'President' what the Nigerian military would usually call "A bloody civilian" in the person of one Ernest Shonekan. He lasted for only three months as 'President' of the Interim National Government [ING] and was kicked aside by Gen Sani Abacha. The only other 'coup' after Abacha's overthrow of Ernest Shonekan was the attempt by Gen. Oladipo Diya, his second in command, to take over power, and while this 'manual' coup failed, Gen Abacha was soon confronted with the coup of all coups: Death simply walked straight into Nigeria's presidential mansion in Abuja and 'overthrew' this strong general, Sani Abacha, who was then on a mission of installing himself Nigeria's life president, if only to beat the records of Generals Yakubu Gowon and Ibrahim Babangida who spent 9 and 8 years respectively as Nigeria's Head of State. The death in 1998 of Gen. Abacha barely a few months after the mysterious demise of Moshood Abiola in detention, saw the rise to power of yet anther General: Abdulsalam Abubakar. Luckily for Nigerians, Gen Abubakar was not interested in retaining power for as long as his predecessors. He immediately organised an election and installed the 'repentant' General Olusegun Obasanjo who professed to have seen God while in prison and had vowed to sanitize the nation of corrupt leaders. At this point, it feels right to ask some basic questions: is Mr Obasanjo corrupt? What is the point of convergence between Nigerian political leaders since 1960? Do we really have any role model amongst our politicians and militicians? What is the state of the nation? What level of progress have we made across the cultural, educational, and technological sectors of our nation after nearly half-e-century of existence as an Independent nation?
I make bold to say, ladies and gentlemen, that at the political front, except for one or two of our former and present leaders, Nigeria has suffered the irreparable misfortune of having been ruled over the past five decades by kleptocratic regimes: Abubakar Rimi, a former civilian governor of Kano State during the second Republic, once suggested that Nigerian military leaders should be tried for 'armed robbery'. For, after all, when they went emptying the treasury of State stored at the Central Bank, they went with lorries, fully armed with machine guns. At the height of what seemed like the uncontrollable squandermania of the NPN during the second republic in 1983, Chinua Achebe (1983: 42) had written on the gradual rise of corruption in the country till 1983 when, he submits: "And so, from fairly timid manifestations in the 1960s, corruption has grown bold and ravenous as, with each succeeding regime, our public servants have become more reckless and blatant".
Kleptocracy or a governmental system defined by its immeasurable greed and corruption seems to have taken root in the administration of most third world nations. Nigeria is certainly not the worst of nations given to this kind of governmental irresponsibility. But as the saying goes, to whom much is given, much is certainly expected. Nigeria is arguably the most gifted nation in the African continent in terms of the nation's immense natural and human resources. The Bulletin of the World Health Organisation recently reported that one of every seven medical doctors from Africa's Cape to Cairo was trained in Nigerian Universities. Over ten thousand Nigerian medical doctors are currently practising in Canada and North America, with more than a third of this number still on the queue waiting for licence to practice medicine in these countries. Add the numerous Nigerian practitioners in the Middle East, Europe, and even South Africa, then we shall begin to appreciate the immense contribution of the Nigerian educational system since the attainment of political independence in 1960.
Where it is often taken for granted that the black peoples of the world lack the scientific and technological spirit, evidence on ground point to the contrary. Nigeria has an impressive number of strategic mathematicians and scientists at home and abroad. The sheer size and quality contributions of Nigerian scientists from PRODA to NASA is indicative of the creative energy of the African. Two important, path-breaking projects currently developed or being developed by Nigerian scientists are Gabriel Oyibo's 'The Mathematics of Everything', and Philip Emeagwali's 'The Twenty-second Century Internet'. Observe that even the CNN clearly identifies Philip Emeagwali as 'Father of the Modern Internet'.
At the level of cultural productions, Nigeria's immense contributions remain phenomenal. Wole Soyinka's winning of the Nobel Prize for literature over twenty years ago is only reminiscent of the creative energy of Nigerians. At the moment, there are at least five Nigerian potential Nobel Prize candidates on the queue. The point being stressed, here, too, is that the educational sector in Nigeria has performed brilliantly since independence in 1960 notwithstanding the too many impediments from the political elite in the country. In any case, the information coming from North America that there is hardly any University in the United States that does not have a number of senior professors from Nigeria attests to the level of progress made by Nigerian academics over the years.
In fairness, Nigeria has made remarkable contributions in stabilizing not just the West African sub-region, but also the entire continent. Beyond the contribution of combatants to conflict regions as diverse as Congo in the 1960s, Lebanon in the early 1980s etc, since the early 1990s, Nigerian soldiers had played immense roles in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and are currently serving in the Sudan, among others. Nigeria spent over US$ 10 billion dollars and lost several hundreds of soldiers in Liberia alone. In Sierra Leone, we witnessed through modern technology, the demonic amputation and killing of several innocent Nigerian businessmen because some of the rebel groups were unhappy with the interventions from Nigeria. Research has also indicated that for the Southern African sub-region to extricate itself from the shackles of white minority rule and domination, Nigeria spent over US$ 61 billion.
The problem with Nigeria, however, remains with the crisis of political leadership. It is a crisis emanating from greed, lack of vision, and inability by Nigeria's politicians and militicians to manage the abundant resources endowed the nation. One uniting feature of most of the leaders from Nigeria is the blatant display of affluence, a mannerism that has finally entrenched a morbid value system in which mediocrity is often celebrated over excellence. For a nation that has produced prophets and professors across every imaginable field of human existence, why are we not surprise that after 47 years of its corporate existence as a nation, Nigeria is only about now getting ready to be 'led/ruled' by a University graduate? The tyranny of corruption and kleptocracy manifest in the lunacy of primitive accumulation, the poverty of private wealth, and the obscenity of deliberate deprivation and dispossession of the mass of the people. Kleptocracy is sustained by sycophancy, encouraged by culture, and protected with brutal force. Kleptocracy in Nigeria and many African countries is energised by political and economic leaders of many of the so-called western, advanced countries who care little or nothing for the predicament of the ordinary citizens of African countries. Four days ago, Don Mckinnon, the incumbent Secretary of the British Commonwealth of nations observed that Commonwealth members such as Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh, and Pakistan rank "dangerously near the bottom" in Berlin-based Transparency International's statement on public perception of graft. While the United Nations notes that corruption costs Africa US$ 150 billion, Mckinnon adds: "In the case of Nigeria, where graft is a major worry, authorities have secured some 150 convictions and recovered US$ 5 billion since 2002".
Scholarship on corruption is vast, and the subject has been classified along the three major categories of political or grand corruption in which the highest office holders are defined by their shameless attitude to graft; bureaucratic or petty corruption experienced daily in offices, licensing centres, etc, and often seen when someone obtains special favour in a very inappropriate way; and electoral corruption in which votes are sold and purchased, sometimes people are killed, and payments are often masked as gifts, etc. Kleptocracy often ignores such dubious engagements as bribery, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, favouritism, and nepotism (Dike, 2003). In the specific case of Nigeria, we have been told that the incumbent government has done a lot to fight corruption. Among the agencies entrusted with the task of maintaining 'moral sanity' among public servants, we are told, are the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the Nigerian Police Service (NPS), the Court of Law, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent National Elections Commission (INEC), and several others.
At the surface level, it would seem as if the out-going president of Nigeria meant well for the nation, after all, he was a prominent member of Transparency International. On assumption of office in 1999, there were indications to this persuasion, and when we witness the executive arm of the federal government 'haunting' the Sani Abacha family over Gen. Abacha's looting of State fund, many Nigerians shouted: "A Daniel is come to judgement". But the entire fund stolen by the late Gen. Abacha, which is often put at some US$ 4 billion appears to be a child's play when compared with Gen. Ibrahim Babangida's eighth years of blatant corruption. The Oputa panel, one recalls had indicted Gen. Babangida for his inability to account for the over US$ 12 billion accrued from the excess crude oil sell during the Gulf war in 1991. St. Obasanjo could not muster enough courage to try Gen. Babangida for corrupt enrichment, and indications are that Gen. Babangida's 'personal gift' of over N400 million in support of St. Olusegun Obasanjo 'election' to power in 1999 may have generated a moral crisis for St. Obasanjo. Consider the case that in spite of the fact that Mr. Uffot Ekaette who currently serves as Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria was also the secretary to the Oputa panel, one is alarmed that till this day, even the Presidency cannot provide a copy of the Panel's report to enable the State's prosecution of Gen. Babangida.
Consider also the case of St Obasanjo's Chief of Police, Mr, Tafa Balogun. The Nigeria media reported his owning a 'Jeep Farm' with about 90 4x4s in his 'country Jeep-yard' in Osogbo, Osun State. He was also reported to have stolen over N10 billion of State fund traced to over sixty bank accounts. Mr. Balogun spent barely four months in 'detention' when petty criminals spend life sentence in Nigerian prisons. A perception is incited, by his 'trial and sentencing' to the effect that St. Obasanjo might not truly be a saintly president. In addition, St. Obasanjo's disdain for the rule of law interrogates the basis of his claims to be presiding over a democratic system. Of the 43 lecturers wrongfully 'dismissed' by the authority of the University of Ilorin, a legitimate court of law ordered their re-instatement and payment of their arrears. But St. Obasanjo felt that it was an opportunity for him to demonstrate how important he is in the society by ignoring rulings by courts of competent jurisdiction. St. Obasanjo refuses to pay University teachers in Nigeria, and even while still in office, this saintly president felt it was a chance for him to build his own private University. A man who only a few years back had less than US$ 200.00 (two hundred dollars) has, while in office spent several millions of dollars to establish his privately owned 'Bell University' while his estranged deputy, Atiku Abubakar, spent similar millions in constructing his privately-owned ABTI university.
In South Africa, we have watched with interest as the Health Minister, Mrs Msinang suffered a most traumatic ailment that required very delicate surgical operation. Mrs Msinang attended the nation's General Hospital in Johannesburg and was released only last week after several months in hospital. In Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar was flown to Europe for experiencing 'a muscle pull' while training in his private gym. And this happened after eight years of service as Vice President to St. Olusegun Obasanjo; Umaru Musa Yardua, who has just poised to take over the mantle of 'leadership/rulership' from St. Obasanjo was equally flown abroad for the treatment of 'flu' or what he called 'catarrh'. Almost every Nigeria's ruler since the attainment of Independence in 1960 has been known to fly abroad for one medical treatment or the other. None has bothered to address the health department with the serious consideration it deserves. The tyranny of kleptocracy, here, is evident in the dilemma of the ordinary citizenry who are not certain of the possibility of having a next meal, let-alone raise funding for flight ticket and foreign medical treatment. Dapriye Alamiesegha, the impeached governor of the Niger-delta State of Bayelsa spent millions of dollars of State fund buying personal mansions in London and Cape Town. Yet he took the next available flight to Europe for a medical check-up because it did not occur to him that he could build a State of the art hospital in the Bayelsa capital of Yenegoa.
Kleptocracy among the political class in Nigeria is not restricted to the executive arms of the federal government. You are all probably aware of the battle by the people of the Niger Delta for a more humane approach to Nigeria's prebendal politics. Not many are aware of the stupendous wealth often stolen by leaders of the Niger Delta when social infrastructure could easily have been provided to ease the lives of the ordinary people. I'll give one simple example: in 2006, the Rivers State Government's annual budget was the equivalent of US$ 1.3 billion. This is more than the annual budget of several African countries combined. We read, for instance, that "One local government dedicated only 2.4% of its revenues to maintain its crumbling primary school infrastructure while spending 30% of its budget on salaries and expenses for the offices of its chairman and legislative councillors", just as "the office of the state governor had a travel budget of roughly US$ 65, 000 per day in 2006, along with budgets for unspecified "grants", "contributions" and "donations" that totalled an additional US$ 92, 000 per day". The tyranny of kleptocracy is implicit, therefore, in the criminal neglect of basic priorities of human development due to the avaricious lives of many of our 'rulers'; it is evident in the inability of many young people who are desirous of acquiring higher education but are often denied the opportunity due to nepotism and favouritism; the tyranny of kleptocracy is evident in the many pitiable experiences of many Nigerians in different parts of the world who are being ridiculed, brutalized and sometimes killed for xenophobic reasons; the tyranny of kleptocracy is evident in the loss of human dignity for reasons that are not of the making of our youths, but from the so-called political office-holders. It might help to compare Nigeria with a number of smaller African countries. I am reliably informed that about six years ago, Paul Biya, the Cameroonian president sent an envoy to South Africa to ascertain the number of Cameroonians who were qualified to acquire higher education. This was at the peak of the period when many Africans from the north of Limpopo suffered immense hostility from their South African hosts who called them 'Makwerekwere'. To avoid the incidence of his subjects being humiliated, many Cameroonians were encouraged to enrol for degree and postgraduate programmes. Paul Biya's envoy took a comprehensive list that ran into hundreds of postgraduate students who were later to receive the sum of US$ 3, 000.00 each to ease their studies in South African Universities. In our very eyes, we have witnessed similar developments among postgraduate students from countries as small as Gabon and Rwanda. When a Nigerian citizen raised such questions to St Olusegun Obasanjo during his visit to South Africa, our out-going president abused the young man in pidgin English: "You dey craze. You go die for this country". During another of his numerous visits, another Nigerian had politely asked how he feels driving around the well-maintained road networks of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Our honourable president did not hesitate in his response: "You no know say na becos oyibo man dey here?" This from our president!!! Yet, Nigeria is said to be 'the giant of Africa'.
You all probably monitored events in the recently concluded 'elections' in Nigeria. I am not aware of any other event in the annals of our recent history that better clarifies the crudity and executive recklessness of Nigeria's outgoing president, St. Olusegun Obasanjo. I have spoken with friends and relatives from Nigeria, and there is a consistent affirmation from everyone that there was no election in my native Anambra State. But because for St. Obasanjo, the 'election' was a "do-or-die affair", his anointed candidate, one Mr. 'Andy' Uba so notorious for his fraudulent activities was declared 'elected' governor of Anambra State. Mr. Uba who also claims to have obtained a 'PhD' even though he neither studied for 'honours' nor for Masters' degree, was declared winner with a figure that was almost three times the total number of registered voters in the state. Following angry complaints from several quarters, St. Obasanjo's INEC Chairman, one magician of a 'Professor', Maurice Iwu cut the number by half, only to discover much later that in spite of his venture, his new figure still exceeds that of the total number of voters in the State. Consider the fact, also, that Mr 'Andy' Uba was a personal friend of the Magician 'Professor' Iwu since their days in the United States, and that Mr Uba was actually instrumental to the appointment of Mr Maurice Iwu as INEC chairman by St. Obasanjo.
Another scenario of immense interest is St. Obasanjo's disdain for legal processes. A good instance is the case of the nominated gubernatorial candidate for Imo State, Ifeanyi Ararume. With a massive 2,066 nomination votes, St. Obasanjo insisted on his disqualification by the ruling Peoples 'Democratic' Party (PDP), for the choice of one Mr. Ugwu, reputed to have scored only 166 votes in the primaries. When Mr Ararume sought redress in the court of law and even won his case at the nation's apex court, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, St. Obasanjo announced to the world that his party of kleptocrats has not fielded any candidate for Imo State. His anger was that Mr. Ararume had the effrontery of taking his grievances to a court of competent jurisdiction, when he simply should have committed suicide or, worse still, take to armed insurrection in defence of his rights to an elective office.
Where, ideally, we should be moving toward the direction of progressive progression in which the immense resources of Nigeria should positively impact on the lives of the peoples of the West African sub-region, the reality since the attainment of political independence is that we have transmuted from progressive retrogression to retrogressive progression. The degeneration in our value system has resulted in astronomical rise in graft. Kleptocracy has become institutionalised and the pattern of our nation's moral decay has continued to take us down and down the abyss of global waste-yard. In simple terms, we have advanced from innocence to a less obvious level of experience, and yet it is the kind of experience that sane peoples of the world must avoid: it is an advancement in all that is socially unacceptable; it is a progressive retrogression. In the same way, the progress we have made in the areas of education, health, human development and good neighbourliness whether within Africa where Nigeria has played the 'benevolent big brother' since the attainment of political independence, or even beyond Africa where Nigeria is known to have paid the salaries of the entire civil service of some troubled nations for one year or more should not be dismissed with a waive of the hands. Nigeria should continue to provide support in the advancement of the human person within the continent and beyond. Yet, the fact that her citizens do not benefit from these various accomplishments in any determinable ways amounts to some kind of retrogressive progression: an advancement in our nation's social image that makes little or no sense to the average and ordinary citizens of the State. The nation is perceived as making progress, but a kind of advancement that reduces the quality of life and dignity of her people.
By way of conclusion, then, Kleptocracy becomes monumentally tyrannical in our specific instance as research students outside the shores of our countries. We witness governments of smaller nations show immense interest in the welfare of their citizens; we see citizens of biggest nations as they celebrate the accomplishments of their governments who reach out to them on quarterly basis. We swallow our pride when we board the national carriers of other nations when we cannot find one from our own countries since our national airlines were destroyed by kleptocratic regimes; we hide our faces in embarrassment when visitors to our country come to inform us how bribes were demanded of them from our international airport in Lagos, or how they were required to pay for trawlers at the arrival sections of the airport; the list is endless. But we also know that ideas have consequences. That is why we should, even as students and researchers, embrace every opportunity to present our ideas which may not necessarily be acceptable to everyone. It is time we insisted to our people that being a politician is not a career, and anyone that presents himself as a professional politician should be treated with disdain. What this means is that we should encourage our graduates from tertiary institutions to put in some service to the nation, from teaching in Kindergarten to civil service for upwards of ten years for anyone interested in contesting elective positions at the executive levels, be it local government chairmanship, state governorship, or even for the highest office in the country. We should create conditions that should enable those elected to positions of authority to return to their jobs on completing their tenures, be they medical doctors, teachers at all levels or civil servants. Students of African origin should not only assert their ideas, but should also possibly form groups to enable them sustain such ideas through every available media.
Those of us in South Africa should have our ears on the ground; already there are reports that politicians from Nigeria are buying off houses all over the cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. Some of them buy these landed property directly, or through intermediaries. What is certain, however, is that State funds are being used to purchase these property. We should be on the watch, and keep records for a possible documentary on the new idiom of kleptocracy in our countries, whether or not it is political, bureaucratic, or electoral. This is one way of reminding our leaders that the poverty of private wealth constitutes a tyranny that will, if unchecked, continue to haunt the leader and the led when complacency is the choice of the privileged. Our independence, therefore, is a mission yet to be accomplished: we can only attain it when our idiom is channelled to a progressive progression rather than be overwhelmed with the complexities of progressive retrogression and retrogressive progression.
Thank you for listening.
