In 2003(21 years ago), I read Karl Maier’s alarmist book about Nigeria (‘This house has fallen, 2000)’ in a series of 3 articles on 17th and 24th September and 1st October. I titled my review: This house has NOT fallen but…. I am led by the spirit to revisit that article and here it goes. I apologise upfront that this is a LENGHTY intervention and as you read, remember that this was written in 2003.
What attracted me to IT was the cover, which vividly captured the perennial, chaotic and frustrating traffic; the tormentor-in-chief of Lagosians. Then I fell in love with the title, THIS HOUSE HAS FALLEN. While I was still wondering which house fell, why it fell and why a book should be written about this particular one (since buildings collapse everyday across the country), I saw the bye-line; Nigeria in Crises. And then I noticed that it was written by Karl Maier, a white-man and published in Y2K. I was very eager to read the book; the title fascinated me and gave me the impression that the author was gifted in linguistic architecture (everything has its own architecture nowadays!). I also wanted to find out how much he knew about the Nigerian conundrum and what gave him the audacity to declare with an air of finality that this our beautiful, solid, house had crumbled; that what we were (and are still) seeing was imaginary. That was about a year ago (2002), in Enugu. But I could neither acquire nor read the book then. However, in the first week of August this year(2003), I was at Abuja for an intellectual fellowship when I saw this book again. I acquired it, read it voraciously , and I was glad that I did. But before going into that, let me digress by commenting that Abuja was so cool, so clean, so beautiful ,and so visitor-friendly that I did not feel like returning to Lagos. It made me wonder how people could lump Abuja, Lagos, Onitsha, and Igbo-Ukwu together as being in the same 3rd world or how they can quote the same life expectancy for people living in Abuja and Lagos. Of course, the person in Abuja should have a life expectancy that is almost double that of a Lagos resident!
Anyway, back to
the failed house. Maier analysed the
recent series of not-so-cheery events in Nigeria and linked them with some historical
antecedents. He took a critical
look at the Niger Delta wars, the
complex minority crises especially in the Middle Belt, the OPC wars
against everybody and everything, the Sharia question ,the manipulation
of ethnic and religious sentiments for narrow and selfish interests, the deafening cries of
marginalisation and domination across the land, the disenchantment of the
populace, the ruthlessness of our immediate past leaders(dealers?), and the unseriousness
of the incoming ones and concluded that the center had collapsed. In conducting his analyses, he
told us things that we already knew; he told us some that were not much of
common knowledge; he reminded us of some that we would rather not remember,
helped us to know some parts of our country better, and through his interviews
with some distinguished and estinguished Nigerians, made some
statements that have proved to be
prophetic within such a short period. His account of events were mostly authentic; some of the events he recounted
were too bad to be true but they were true indeed while most of
those factors the made him reach his end-time conclusion are
still prevalent as I write this.
We shall start
by looking at some of Maier’s assertions that were true and common
knowledge; some that we know, but
refuse to acknowledge; and some that were too bad to be true. Saying that Nigeria was (is) under-developing
since 2000, was worse than 1970 while some people in Akassa (Ogoni axis)
preferred the days of Royal Niger Company to the Nigeria of 1999; that the
Naira was an insignificant fraction of its former value and that the country
wore the crown as the largest failed state in Africa, were not outrageous
statements. He reminded us that the mistake of 1914 was for the
interest of the colonial predators, who laid the foundation for the present
ethnic conflagrations across the land; that the Chougry group and Abacha had an anti-Nigerian predatory alliance;
that the Ajaokuta Steel Coy. was a bottomless pit; that we had an over-bloated Airforce
(10,000 airmen managing less than 20 aircrafts);that we were too eager to
witness the soldiers exit that we readily ignored the unparalleled
squandermania that preceded it (National Assembly@$65m;Eagle Square@ $30m,hand-over
fireworks@$5m).
He also recounted that our fuel crises had its roots in mismanagement while fuel importation /the white-market would always be here because it benefited some officials. Those agonizing over 2003 elections may find little comfort from his report that it was worse in 1999 with ‘ballot ‘box stuffing, phantom voting booths, impossibly high turnout…some districts recorded a turn out of 100%even though observers reported that voting had been light. In others voters turned up to find the polling stations closed and all the ballots marked’[p38]. The only difference was that while a delegate’s vote in 1999 primaries (Jos) was worth #150,000.00, in 2003, it was worth more than #1m.( Now it has been Dollarised). He restated the obvious that Nigerians demanded very little from their Governments; that the multidimensional war in Niger Delta resulted from how the Government and Oil companies treated the people, which at times included deliberate manipulation, and divide and rule tactics; how the Government had always collaborated with oil firms to quell riots and the widely shared belief of Deltans that the Federal Government had always failed to appreciate the true nature and scope of their problems.
He also documented the collapse of secondary education after the Government takeover of schools as well as the monumental decay in the universities ‘where libraries are out of date, lecturers must engage in petty trading to feed their families and at the campus book store a thirty minute search for any recent publications on Nigerian history will turn up one or two volumes’; how we have moved from a society with ‘prestigious universities ,a thriving economy and dreams of limitless future’ to one of ‘lost opportunities ,decaying moralities and chaos’ ;the manipulation of the quartet of ignorance, poverty, illiteracy and ethnicity by the elites; the perennial cries of domination by the people referred to as Southern Kaduna (even though they are located hundreds of kilometers away from Kaduna)and that the Middle-Belt crises originated from political domination and not religious differences; and how ethno-religious strife, were followed by one sided arrests.
Maier also recounted the ruthless brutality of the
police in handling idle civilians and the tendency of the police
to take sides when sent on peace keeping operations; the increasing wave of churchmania
in which prosperity theory has
overshadowed the narrow gate
paradigm and which was nurtured by the sudden collapse into the
spiral of economic decline and military rule from the oil boom era, and
the politics of population and revenue allocation. He documented how our elites
and leaders had maintained the master-servant relationship initiated by the
colonial masters and turned the country into a ‘dog-eat-dog world in
which the elite robbed the country’s future generations to satisfy their
present desires’
Some of the
issues he raised were too bad to be true or better not remembered. These
included how Government officials under Abacha would load oil from Nigeria,
move the ship few steps into the sea, make a u-turn and supply the same oil to
the Government at a higher price as imported; the Ogoni crises, in particular,
Government high-handedness, divide and rule tactics, the complicity of the oil
companies; the controversial hanging of SaroWiwa through the
instrumentality of a tribunal that worked from answer to questions; the hypocrisy of
Western Nations concerning democracy in Nigeria and how politicians encouraged
and collaborated with soldiers on coup-mongering; the queer position of
the Igbos who were neither allowed to exit the union nor allowed to stay in
peace, who were subjected to
mass pauperization through the 1970 #20 only policy
There were also
some new disclosures and revelations. Maier disclosed that Ken Wiwa’s animosity
towards the Igbos owed its origin to his experience as a student in Igboland;
that palm oil also created problems for the people of Niger Delta just like
petroleum is doing today; that there was a difference between
kick-forward (taking money upfront from contractors ) and
kick-back (receiving post execution gratification);that Ojukwu had
contemplated overrunning Equatorial
Guinea to set up an Igbo Nation and that he was planning that agenda with an
ordinary novelist; that there was a community in Nigeria whose traditional
ruler wore only his birthday suite; that there were Igbos and there were
Ibos.
He also recalled
some prophetic statements which included Gen. Kastina’s statement in 1996 that ‘coups succeed
coups, we will never be at peace again’; Wiwa’s last statement that his
ideas would outlive him and that by Mittee that the Ogoni crises would get
worse since MOSOP was more disciplined than other forces that would emerge;
another by Alagoa that ‘when ideas
are denied natural expression, they become unnaturally explosive’; that
of Afuwaj who reviewed the socio-political dynamics of northern minorities and
concluded that the future was bleak. Then the mother of ALL
prophecies: ‘the perpetuation of the status quo with a civilian
government lurching from crises to crises, the economy remaining gripped by
stagnation and the legitimacy of the state in constant question. Nigeria would
continue to bleed away its abundant natural and human resources; living
standards would spiral ever downwards; sporadic religious and ethnic crises
would claim more lives and the remnants of the professional class would follow
millions of their country men and women to positions abroad’
Maier passed his
verdict 3 years ago (2000). I do not know whether he has been here since then
or if he had been keeping tab of developments here. If he had done neither and
decided to visit today, he will see that
the fuel queues have returned and that kerosene is now more expensive
than champagne; that the anti-corruption agenda is a farce and that
contrary to the President’s assurance, sacred cows abound (Salisu Buhari and
Chris Uba’s cases are enough evidence);that nothing has come out of the
much celebrated Oputa Panel and
that of all the leaders we have had, we are still only interested in the Abacha
loot. He will notice that the Mustapha case is still on; that the Niger Delta
crises is still on and is getting more complex; that our
infrastructure-especially roads-have gone unimaginably bad; that fiscal
indiscipline is still our bane and that after the 2003 elections, more
thugs have graduated into criminals and are now showing us pepper. He
will see that Igbos have now joined the thriving begging industry; that
government has taken most of their businesses away (or at least made it
difficult to do business);that Onitsha is still a bedlam of crimes,
lawlessness, dirt and bad roads; that
Igbo politics is still as it was-everybody to himself-and that true to their
promise, the Biafran beggars at Oji River are still there. He will of course
notice that the Benin-Onitsha route is now an expressway and that the Telecom
industry has witnessed an unprecedented revolution even though there are still
many contentious issues.
But did
all this justify his verdict that This
House Has Fallen? Has the house fallen indeed; was/is it about to fall;
or is it solid on the ground (is it there KAMPE)? Yes, we have witnessed rough
times directly traceable to the leadership, a leadership that has been
visionless, shortsighted and criminally parochial and selfish; a leadership
that will stop at nothing to satisfy its personal and allied interests; a
leadership that preaches allegiance to the national interest but will go on to
deliberately and continuously act in
ways that are obviously inimical to these interests. There are also
individuals and groups who want to corner more than their fair share of our
abundant resources. The follower-ship that takes this nonsense sheepishly and
is not ready to say through words and action that enough is enough
is also guilty.
Sure, Nigeria
has been in crises since 1960.These crises have been complex, complicated and multidimensional. The house has
had a combined, sustained and vicious attacks by ethno-religious typhoons, socio-economic
hurricanes and avoidable political earthquakes. The roof has been blown off and
the paint has peeled off; the walls have very visible, wide cracks; the doors
and windows are all broken; even the foundation has received some avoidable,
significant, wounds. But the building is still there. Nigerians still
wish to be Nigerians; they still believe that there is no place like home; they
still have hope even though its supply is diminishing rapidly; they are still
willing to live together; they are still willing to take their leaders by their
largely valueless words, always searching for reasons to trust them and they
are still willing to suffer their leaders’ incompetence, deceit and treachery.
Furthermore, those who benefit from the unjust status quo and the hypocritical
international community (whatever & whoever they are) do not want the house
to crumble yet. Finally, the ALMIGHTY has been holding the house together,
saving us from, and against, ourselves; pulling us back from the precipice on
the various occasions when it would have been Nunc dimittis. As soon as these
values start giving way, as soon as these variables vanish, as soon as these
realities cease to exist, the house will fall! The house has not fallen
but it is on a shaky foundation .What our leaders do or fail to
do and how the followers respond to these actions and inactions will determine
whether it will fall or stand. Unfortunately, our leaders are carrying on as if
all is well; they do not appreciate the seriousness of the situation or the
need for urgent action. This house has not fallen, but there is a serious
cause for alarm.(end)
That was my
verdict in 2003, 21 years ago; I was sure that there was still hope for this
house. This is February 2024 and I am no longer sure due to recent
developments! I am afraid that this house is falling! The lawmaker
representing Agatu State Constituency, of Benue State Mr. Godwin Edoh has just reported that armed Fulani
herdsmen captured and occupied at least 10 villages in his constituency and
that security men who should chase
those baldheads out of there advised him not to dare visit the place! The new
government of Kogi State has just appointed an EFCC alumnus as its Chief of
Saff, created the ‘Office of the Immediate Past Governor’(O-IPG)
to be domiciled in the Government house, and directed the people to obey the
IPG rather than himself! The Naira continues to be unequally yoked with the US Dollar,
standing at N1508 as I write, (or 0.0011 of a Dolar). Even the Zimbabwean
Dollar is HEALTHIER than our Naira! The
ZWD has moved from 16/11/15 2015, 1 ZWD=N.5500 on 16/11/15 to N2.799 on
29/1/26. All sorts of jokes are being cracked
about the Dolar-Naira relationship; that it soars like the Eagles or that it
rises every morning like the pennis. A mischieveous statistician has just
informed us that it would take four whole years to save just $1 for anybody who
started saving N1 daily!
The fate of our Naira and the consequences
Within this period however, the audacious Fulani marauders had murdered about 50 people in Mangu despite the ‘coffee’ imposed on the community, while 30 women are still in detention in Lafia for having the audacity to peacefully protest against the COURTing-out of their preferred governor. Abuja has also become a kidnappers’ haven with 200 attacks, 87 deaths and 176 kidnappings in the past 8 months. On the roads of Ekiti, two Obas were murdered and a bus-load of pupils were kidnapped ( 29/1/24)and the kidnappers asking for N100m ransom- of course, with their phones despite our NIN and all that( the pupils have just been released with 15m,food and aphrodisiac drugs exchanging hands). The Olukoro of Koro in Kwara state, Oba Olusegun Aremu-Cole was also murdered in his palace and a ransom-tag of N100m placed on his wife. The kidnap map of Nigeria shows a scarry picture. A soldier could not visit home because the transport fare(N70k) alone was more than his salary for that month(N50k) but Nigeria just bought $1bn(N1.4trn) Viper attack helicopters from US to be manned by underpaid soldiers. They forgot about the political will, motivation of soldiers and deceleration of corruption in the military and defense ecosystem. Of course we had bought 10 Apache helicopters, without budgetary approval under PMB. As seen in Ogun State, policemen are now involved in criminal entrepreneurship as Taiwo Kolawole, John Ogbe and Idowu Sunday have just been dismissed for armed robbery . As one Tony Barcanister bemoaned on 31/1/24, if you go to the farm, bandits will come after you, If your kids go to school, bandits will target them If you decide to keep them at home, bandits will come to your house If you run to your kings palace, terrorists will invade you there. Nobody and nowhere is safe as Nigeria is being parceled out by various Non State Actors.
Kidnap Map of Nigeria, family of 5 burnt in Mangu Oba Aremu- Cole
However, it is a time like this, that our dear BAT, Our Commander in Chief, abandoned his terrorized flock and an economy in a higgledy-piggledy state and embarked on a private visit to France, even while his Nambian counterpart (Hage Geingob, who died as I was writing this) told his people that he was going to US on medical visit to treat cancer. For the leader of a country, there is nothing private! Of course the security sitrep should not be a surprise to those who followed the most eminently qualified contestant in the last election. When asked how he would tackle security he directed El’Rufai to respond on his behalf at a time when half of Kaduna State was under virulent NSAs. And now, Rufai has gone underground.
Criminal Policemen. The stranded soldier Mrs. Igba and her mother
The economy is also comatose. Our long awaited hope, Dangote Refinery will import crude oil from the US because our NNPC has mortgaged our oil to rogue lenders. As the exchange rate hovers around 1500/$, a man closer to 60 than to 50 has just closed shop in Lagos when he needed N1m to replace the stock he sold at profit for N700000 and an item he was buying N5500 apiece just the other day, now goes for 40k. And I can tell you for free that staying in Nigeria is not on the cards for him. Probably, he would at this age join the deluge of 32462 Nigerians who applied for passports between 8-21 January, 2024 and are on their way out. Unfortunately, the transport fare to UK, US et al has spiked by more than 50% in the past few weeks. That is why it is generally said that people are usually forced by circumstances to patronize white-garment Churches. An importer who opened LC of $3m( N1.38 bn $=460) now needs N4.5bn to straighten his accounts just as the exchange rates for imports have risen from N757 to N785- to N972 and now, to N1356 from November to date and from N1346 to N1424 between February2nd and 3rd! How can a government contain inflation with inflationary measures? No be juju be dat? An industrialis has just told me that the money he used to import two containers of raw materials ca no onger suffice for one container!!! And we are projecting economic growth plus more employment!!! Of course, Nigeria is so cool with renewed hope dividends and that is why 33 of PMBs 43 ministers are residing abroad with 21 of them in the UK alone, enjoying the fruits of their labour! Meanwhile the disgraced boss of the Police Pensions Board has just been jailed 2 years for N23bn fraud with an option of N250,000 fine just as one of the military chiefs is being accused of $70 haul and the dossier on the person who would investigate the matter is more than the recently released FIB dossier.
I was advised not to ask why the past is always better than the present(Ecclessiastes,7:10) but I ignored the advice and you see where it has landed us( you and I). Read the 2003 treatise again and you see issues mentioned in 2000 that have become messier and more complicated like decay in the universities, handout and stranglehold-Economy, Ajaokuta Steel Mill, Chougry Brothers, corruption in the military, fuel import magic, (s)elections and the cost per delegate(or dollargate). Now, has the house fallen? In 2003, I was sure of my answer. Today, I am not so sure. I believe that this house is falling The house is falling gradually and it may fall for different people at different times while for some, this is the best time to be a Nigerian. For the man who needed N1m to buy goods he sold for N700k, this house has fallen. For the dead and the living at Mangu and Agatu, the house has fallen. For the Prof whose Salary nosedived from $2698 in 2011 to $286 in 2023( after 20 years as a Professor), his house has fallen. (My own has fallen by 80% in the last 10 years!); for the Prof who lobbied to be an assistant to a Horrible member at NASS, for those whose houses and shops were recently demolished in Lagos, Abuja, Enugu and Anambra, this house( and their houses) has fallen. For the importer who needs N4.5bn to settle a N1.3bn account, for Christiana Igba and her mother who were kidnapped in Abuja, for Enugu Graduate Farmers whose 35000 acres of farm land were razed by herdsmen in Nkanu LGA, , for Mrs. Chinyere Chukwuegbunam of Ozubulu who intended to sell 2 of her children so as to carter for the other 8, our students abroad who are now begging to sustain themselves due to the anemic nature of the Naira, and a chicken farmer at Umuga Aba, whose 800 birds were washed away by flood during the last rainy season, this house has fallen. And the most SERIOUS of all: for the man who opened a shop for the fiancée who then went ahead to marry one of her customers and the woman whose husband impregnated the house girl of his side-chick-the house has fallen irretrievably!
The BD girl, Tersugh, Nomad Army, PMBs men & women, N Ibn forone trip
However, for Bwala who cooled off with BAT in France and those who were estacoded, for the trip, for the beneficiaries of the Bazaar at the Ministry of Misery Affairs, the first occupant of the Office of the Immediate Past Governor , those who are currently stealing( including the outstanding ladies), those who are on the queue to milk us, the trade minister who budgeted N1bn for a trip to Geneva, Halima Shehu who mistakenly transferred N40bn into the wrong account, for Tersugh Aondona aka Attery Baba who weded 3 woman at ago in Jato-Aka in Kwando LGA on 31/1/24, those in the corruption value chain in the purchase of the military helicopter this house stands GIDIGBAM; it is the best time to be Nigerians! In this category are also those who are in government or friends to those in government who spend money as if it is going oit of fashion, the ‘birthday girl’ and Government of Granada as well as countries and institutions warehousing the loots of our covetous compatriots, would however wish that Nigerian continues to be as it is. For ‘idle contractors who become millionaires overnight by merely feeding fat on our common wealth, bootlickers, crumbpickers, opportunistic collaborators and friends of those in power… (Aare Amerijoye);. for those ‘billionaires’ whose debts to AMCON are more than their purported net worth( sure, they have negative net-worth), the consultant who got N3bn to verify the national social register in this anti-corruption Government, former governors who are living in state funded houses and driving state-purchased vehicles and who are in government but are receiving pensions; for serving and retired civil servants who own a good% of houses in Abuja (I heard of on who owns a whole street), things cannot be better. The same for Femi Otedola who has just been appointed chairman of FBN holdings and for sponsors of Nomad Vigilante Services Ltd who have just been registered by CAC and the contractor who will fence some graves and renovate mosques with N1.4bn in Jigawa state.
Ayodele, PO and Baba
My verdict? In my quest for an answer, I tried to consult the prophets and political philosophers. Primate Ayodele ( 8/2/23)had warned that ‘If Tinubu wins( or rather if he was declared president), Nigeria will sink; everything will be in shambles and NIGERIANS WILL suffer extraordinarily’. However, 7 months later, Baba Adeboye declared that the Naira would bounce back and become stronger than the Dollar( 3/9/23). This week, he however changed his mind directing us to pray with all our strength. PO has warned that no country can progress if its politics is more profitable than its industries. In a country where those in government are richer than entrepreneires, they manufacture poverty’. Two uknown Nigerians warned me that ‘The increasing decline at an increasing rate in almost all spheres in Nigeria’ due to the appointment of friends rather than technocrats with the likely consequence that we might read ‘Welcome to the GOLGOTHA of the economy’-and that A nation DIES when people are taught to hate their own history, their heritage, their culture and FINALLY, to hate each other. As I write this in the AM of Saturday, 3/2/24 I watched Inside Sources with Laolu Akande where the one and only genuine Aisha sadly declared that There is NO country anymore. As we are today, Nigeria is gone; what we have is the carcass while her ‘partner in crime’ Sowore concurred that we never had a nation and we are not going in any direction. It is motion without movement and any movement is backwards. For Farooq Kperogi, the searing torment Nigerians are going through is so dire, so unbearably extreme and unexampled in its rawness… the lower classes are sinking deeper in soul-depressing depths of poverty, despair and hopelessness and the lower and middle classes are now united by a common sensation of emptiness, agony and anxiety for the future. Everyday is worse, less hopeful and more precarious than the previous day and eve n hope, the last thing that dies in humans ,is desperately going into the death spiral.( Tinubu, Nigeria is sinking & streets full of tears). Casmir Igbokwe has just bemoaned that Nigeria is in a freefall. I have also just heard about protests in Kano and Mina over the high cost of living, and that 55 members of a bridal train have just been kidnapped in Kastina while Nigeria has just been ranked at 109 over 125 in the global hunger index
The Nasarawa women Protests in Kano and Minna
It is obvious that the house is falling but it will NOT likely collapse the same time for everybody. For some, it has already collapsed; for some the collapse is looming but at all times, there are some people who are always having the best of times. Nigerians are now forced to rely on stanza of the National Pledge: So help me God. The economy, the security, the governance and even the Government, the int’l respect and prestige and Socio-economic indicators. have all collapsed.
The house is FALLING
·
Apologies for the long
read! The next will not be up to half of this
-
“Find a great mentor, someone who has already been through the many challenges of being an entrepreneur..” -Jodi Levine
Entrepreneurship in Practice: Cases, Challenges and Lessons By IK, MUO PHD is now available on Amazon, since 14/5/21. Click here to view Available for order +2348033026625 | Delivery: Worldwide
Comments
Post a Comment