The news going round is that Nigeria is broke. I, for one, do not believe that fallacy. However, if the treasury is, indeed, empty or nearing emptiness, then what it means is that this happened because the government, this government and past governments, had not exercised good fiscal, economic responsibility and management.
I am not an economist, but I do know when money and other resources are being mismanaged. And as we will all agree, including the whole world, Nigerian governments have never been held in high esteem for fiscal management, unless we want to deceive ourselves, which is another additional path to impending disaster.
What it also means is that despite the massive oil revenue (and other incomes from other sources) earned over the decades, these have not been managed to serve the people of the country, as we have not really seen so much what the revenue has done to better the lives, security and comfort of the majority of Nigerians, except only a few highly placed thieves. If, indeed, this is the case – that the country is broke – we saw it coming, but we ran smacked with eyes wide open into a waiting disaster. We have been cautioning our rulers for decades that no country can sustain the massive corruption that goes on in Nigeria.
All entreaties for our rulers (and sometimes, followers) to change have fallen on deaf ears. Some do not even entertain the thought that oil, being a fossil fuel formed over millions of years, will be exhausted one day, or that developed countries have been frantically looking for, and perfecting alternative sources of energy, so as to reduce, and eventually stop their dependence on their energy/petroleum sources coming mostly from unstable and irresponsible Third World republics like Nigeria. Oil has been God’s (or if you like, nature’s) gift to Nigeria; we have failed miserably to make the most of it to ameliorate our own lives, caused mostly as a result of selfishness, nepotism, greed and insensitivity to our brothers’ plight.
It has been “only for me and my family” as against the communal spirit and morality for which many African societies were noted before the white man came. It is “grab what I can while I am there” and “I don’t care what happens to others as long as I get mine.” Very sad what we have descended into. It is now always “Me or Myself or I”, not “We or for them or for all of us.” We now seem to be at a loss what to do. Deep, brilliant and great minds of the society are even confounded and in despair, and about to give up. Even our rulers, who are the causes of the problems, are flailing about, secretly taking their family out of the country and relocating them to “better and safer” countries, with the intention that when the shit hits the fan, they will join their families abroad.
Meanwhile, the ordinary Nigerians are being blitzed with poverty, bombs and insecurity, poor healthcare, among others, on a daily basis, and also being fed with lies and unfulfillable political promises, because the failed rulers still want to hang on to to power and drain every single last drop of oil and money from the country, as well as the peoples’ blood and sweat in the process.
The other day, we were told we have $38 billion in the Foreign Reserve; but what the government did not tell us is what they did with the over $68 billion in foreign reserve that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo claimed he left for his successor, the late Umar Yar ‘Adua, and which was passed on, albeit less a few billions, to Dr Goodluck Jonathan.
As I said, I don’t believe we are broke, but then, the people of Nigeria have always been broke and broken anyway, so it makes no difference to us, if the government of Nigeria is broke or not. When we were practically swimming in oil and massive wealth, did this filter down to the majority, to ease the poverty in their lives and be proud to call Nigeria and its various governments their own that they believe in?
The answer has always been No. The fact is we have been short-changed by our rulers, and we continue to be short-changed, with apparently no end in sight. Even a beam of hope for better things to come, for better rulers to come in 2015 is looking highly impossible now and is fading fast, because, one, it is looking more and more likely that we may have the same set, cabal, the same crooked and obtuse politicians back in power to continue the looting spree, and, two, it is even bleaker that some unscrupulous, blood-tainted and criminal elements who have illegally acquired some big money (aided by those already in power) may also join those of their ilk who are already at the driver’s seat.
All kinds of worms are crawling out of the woodwork to feed on our common wealth. Compatriots, we are at a crossroads (we always seem to be nearer elections). The future is not looking rosy for those of us alive or for many generations to come, if we continue to let things go the way of the devil.
In fact despite the noise and false assurances by our politicians, who are pleading for a second chance to make lives better for us, we know deep inside ourselves that we are gradually turning this nascent democracy on its head and abusing it. Democracy can only be government of the people, for the people and by the people.