Two Sides of A Coin (I)

Since presenting that talk at TED, Nigerians and foreigners alike have been reacting to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s presentation.

As a committed, passionate and patriotic Nigerian, I am at a loss on what to make of the mindset of most Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora.

I have decided to serialize the responses to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s talk on TED into three parts ( 2 Nigerian’s responses and a foreigner’s response) for you to be the judge. There may be more than two sides to a coin, after all; with Nigeria they say “anything is possible”!!!

Below is the first response from a Nigerian…….

MY LAST & FINAL INSTALMENT ON THIS DR. OKONJO IWEALA’S BRAINWASH!

– Meniru Anigbo

Anybody who is defending the ineptitude of the governments in Nigeria particularly the last eight years mediocre government of Aremu Obasanjo has never had the privilege of traveling around the world and/or in the case of Madam Dr. Okonjo Iweala, is merely reciting a template of the administration’s manifesto. (On her personal capacity, I am a fan) She was merely preaching to the choir as the audience knows Nigeria better than that. To those people who have never been fortunate to leave the shore of Nigeria, I pity their ignorance.

Atiku Abubarkar, erstwhile vice president twisted his ankle and had to be flown to London for treatment; Umaru Yaradua, the “surrogate” president of Nigeria had a relapse of his illness and was rushed off to Germany for medical attention; the survivors of the last military plane crash were flown to “even” south Africa to receive medical attention – I said “even” South Africa, not derogatorily but for the fact that in the late 70’s and early 80’s Nigeria was sponsoring South African students through Nigerian universities and was instrumental to the struggle against apartheid and one would ask how did the fortune of Nigeria take a turn for the worst? Neighboring Ghana is today a model country and I remember very vividly the days of Ghana Must Go of late 80’s. What is wrong with Nigeria and Nigerians who seem to be in perpetual hallucination and fear/hardship induced stupor? Why do Nigerians always acquiesce with the recklessness of their ruling class? Why does Nigerians not ask the hard questions? What fate lies with the general Nigerian public who could not, for instance, even secure a visa to travel talk-less of affording the prohibitive overseas medical treatment? Yet some apostles of this failed policies of the Nigeria state is busy comparing corruptions.

One adage has it that one who must learn how to sing like a bird should also learn how to fly like one. It is not enough to compare corruptions around the world like that makes it ok for Nigeria to be epidemically corrupt – look at the last Inspector General of Police Ehindero who supposedly replaced another corrupt Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun and the twenty one (21) million naira cold cash saga (about $168000.00 which seemingly is not too much but not in a country where so many of the people depend on about $1.00 a day for survival and the average monthly salary is about $144.00). Hail to the thief! But if you must compare the bad things, please at the same token, compare the good things. Man’s basic need is simple – food, shelter and health care. In other countries of the world, at least there is food, shelter, health care including “unfake” medicine, clean running water, and good transportation network which includes road, air and water transportation. There is also security such that when their country’s chief law enforcement officer, the Attorney General, is murdered, there will be a well goal-directed effort at solving the crime. In Nigeria’s case the IG of Police was busy hatching a plot on how to swindle several millions of naira in police money rather than trying to solve a heinous crime such as the murder of Attorney General Bola Ige among several others, both high profile and ordinary pedestrians. It is also very instructive to reiterate that at the time the AG was assassinated, he had about fourteen (14) MOPOL security detail protecting him who allegedly all went out for dinner at the same time and minute the marauders struck and killed him with his wife and children watching. That these killers came at the same time and minute these fourteen security details were all on their dinner/lunch break is more than a mere coincidence and smacks of a highly planned and executed state assassination. Yet foreigners are being invited to tread where locals fear to walk!

Nigeria is as screwed up as it is because people such as some of these commentators hereunder abound in the country. Lily-livered neophytes whom would rather tremble in fear watching their family being molested than suffer a little inconvenience defending their honor! The mentality of an average Joe in Nigeria is appositely summed up by the popular song of my Nigerian idol, Fela Anikulakpo Kuti titled “Sorrow, Tears & Blood”. What is the basis of comparing corruption in Nigeria with other parts of the world when at the same time you will not compare developments thereon with what obtains in Nigeria? What flagship would you hoist as attractive enough to lure these investors? What do you bring to the table? I had expected the speaker as well as some of the apostles hereunder commenting, to tell the investors how favorably secured an environment Nigeria is for their investment. How they can catch the next flight ASAP from point A to point B without much hassle or how they could zap from Lagos to Ibadan without their cars falling into ditches of a pothole and on a federal road? How they could rely on the electricity supply to power their industry without the extra cost of generating set which runs when diesel is available. Enough of these unabashed, shameless speeches as we have heard enough of that emptiness and have become the worlds’ laughing stock! They know these officials are lying when they tell these fables!

At about $70 per barrel and 1.2million barrels per day OPEC allocation to Nigeria, please do the math and tell me why Nigeria could not boast of one fully developed infrastructure all these past eight (8) years of Aremu Obasanjo’s nightmarish dictatorship? Why won’t there be clean drinking water, motor-able access roads, electricity, health care and “good” medicine, operational rail-roads, waterways, air transportation (Obasanjo was busy witch-hunting brave airline investors such as Slok Air and Sosoliso and succeeded in forcing some of them out of the country), good public schools, emergency services and security. When the joblessness of the youths is added to the already malfeasance, it screams to high heavens. The only reason Nigeria is nearing rock bottom is that the ruling class can get away with anything in that country including murder – till date two very heinous murders of Dele Giwa and Bola Ige remain unsolved. The ruling class correctly read the Nigerian populace as very cowardly people who will melt away at the sound of even a “fireworks”; and instead of working to improve their lot is busy lining their Swiss bank accounts. The bravery of Boris Yelstin, the Tiananmen Square group, Orange revolution flock etc lacks among the Nigerian population.

It is a pity we have this many a “surrender monkeys” in that country who are busy comparing corruption and playing possum with other aspects of human well being, when one can drive from Kent to Essex by 12 midnight without fear of police road blocks or armed robbers snuffing one’s life out; or do a moonlight-scenic drive from California to New York (a distance of about 4000miles) without a pot hole on the road coupled with available road assistance. I remember having some goat meat left in my freezer for two and one half years without any blemish and sometimes cooking soup which will last for several months – all scooped in freezer bags to be used as and at when needed

How would the supposed investor get from one place to another? How would the supposed investor power his industry/home? How would the supposed investor catch an emergency flight say from Ibadan to Makurdi at any given reasonable time? Which investor is prepared to queue up and wait in line for five hours and sometimes days just to fill up his gas tank – a wait which may subsist until a runaway trailer runs their car over with resulting mayhem? Yet this is a country which produces over 1.2 million barrels of crude per day. Chevron has a large presence in Nigeria but the policy “wonks” there would not make them saturate the country with gas station as a precursor to doing business therein. Tell those speeches to the marines – luckily these would be investors know Nigeria like the back of their hands. Investors are like bees – they follow the nectar. Nigeria must first do their homework and the investors will be begging to come. Get the infrastructure developed – good electricity supply, good transportation network especially roads and air, retrain the police to instead of being another Ehindero in the waiting, will do their job of securing of lives and property with every seriousness, set example like China (who will soon be executing their Food and Drug chief with firing squad for trying to corrupt their health care system) with all those bureaucrats who make doing business in Nigeria too cumbersome to be attractive. What if the would be investor is not Halliburton who could afford to pay one hundred and eighty ($180) million US dollars in bribe money to Nigerian officials before they could do business in Nigeria? Idiagbon proved things can change and was succeeding before the arrowhead of corruption swept him away from office. This can be done and is doable!

A good wine, they say, needs no bush. All these money being wasted on advertising or trying to market Nigeria and ferrying her officials around the globe to deliver one boring speech or another is of no good and not goal directed. There is no real return on such wasteful junketing as these countries you preach to their “investors” have a dossier of the inclement investment climate in Nigeria. Their trade/commercial attaches in their respective embassies in Nigeria bring home to their country the real situation report about Nigeria and how troublesome it is it to do business there and then one factors in the scourge of 419ners. A lot of hedge-funds managers and their analysts are on red alert honing in on where they could invest around the planet; they follow global trends and would not touch the Nigeria market with a ten foot pole. All the Dr Okonjo Iwealas of this world would not be enough to sway this widely held opinion that Nigeria is a near impossible place to do business, barring bare knuckle facts on the grounds in Nigeria that things have changed for the better. The GCM and mobile telephones being bandied around as investments does not require so many infrastructures to thrive as they are open sky air-wave based industry and can be operated out of South Africa. For the “real boots” to be on the ground in Nigeria, a serious soul searching by the ruling class need to be done but why would they when they have no desire to change the status quo therein.

SOURCE: TED Talk

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