Nigerians, I hail you

29 years already

I wrote a blog exactly a year ago and ended it with the paragraph below without telling that other story. I do not this blog would be the space for it either, it would probably go into my story, if I get the inspiration, motivation and will to take it beyond the chapters I have already written.

On the 30^th of December 1990, I left Nigeria, on Nigeria Airways flight WT808 running almost 3 hours behind schedule. I had £15 in my pocket and a future ahead of me. That is another story.

Blog - My last 4 weeks in Nigeria, 28 years ago (The business angle)

I wonder why I commemorate the 30^th of December, it has been 29 years since I left Nigeria, it is strange that if work commitments had not necessitated my travel to South Africa in 2015, I would never have set foot in Africa since I left.

Gone but not done

Like I would normally protest on Twitter, my having left Nigeria that long ago has not meant a disengagement from the country of my forebears. I cherish and guard my Nigerian heritage jealously as much I try to be informed and well acquainted with issues and events therein.

The contention with parents, relations, and friends is whether I can be persuaded to return for a visit. I have not convinced myself of the sense of security, safety, or comfort that this would afford me. Until I can get that sorted in my head, I can categorically say, it is not on my agenda.

Blog - Nigeria: You'll keep hearing from us in the diaspora

The retiree then

We can only hope that the man who has negotiated for himself the best retirement package of his generation and peers soon moves on to a sort of retirement home. Our witness of his first regime in the 1980s is what ushered in the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the annulment of the 1993 elections and then Sani Abacha.

Whatever his plans were then appeared to be a systematic regimentation of Nigeria towards a North Korean style of socialist control of not just the systems but the minds of the people. Whilst we were not barred from leaving the country, the message was we shouldn’t. It is without a doubt that Muhammadu Buhari has some animus towards Nigerians based abroad, maybe because much as we can criticise him, we are beyond his junta-inspired grasp. [See the blog below.]

Blog - Nigeria: President Buhari, get to work and honestly, shut up!

The retiree now

Meanwhile with his 1980s mindset, he rules the roost, retired of ideas, policy or direction much as we can recount that after he exited national politics he was involved in no activity until he rekindled his entitlement to leadership that he fought for thrice before winning. The people beguiled with the spectre of integrity that doesn’t appear to radiate beyond the man.

Now, he lives in the best residence gets the best medical attention in London that flounces off to at a whim, flies in a presidential jet arriving in countries where all courtesies to a head of state are a diplomatic necessity whilst the country teeters on the edge of incomprehensibility, the youth unable to adequately plan a future in their country of birth, they are leaving if they can.

Nigerians, I hail you

Yet, I must commend those who have found ways to thrive in that environment, but there is another wave of the Exodus like those of my generation who left about 3 decades ago and they are not planning on returning.

In my view, you can make a success of your life anywhere in the world if you have the drive, the ambition, the skills, and the sheer determination, by God, we have spunk. Many leave Nigeria and get to live their best lives. I just hope we have enough people left to really take the country forward, even those of us who have left, pray constantly for a better Nigeria.

Nigeria: President Buhari, get to work and honestly, shut up!

Just a few black sheep

In some tweets and probably some blogs I have railed about how certain Nigerians resort to criminal enterprise in Diaspora. It is sad that the activity of those Nigerians eventually has a deleterious effect on the lives of other Nigerians once a stereotype is created from the few events, usually borne of the reportage that follows.

For every few black sheep Nigerians involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, fraud, swindles, corruption and other crimes of reputational impact, there multitudes of Nigerians who as world citizens dispersed around the globe living decent, honest, valuable, amazing and commendable lives in their communities bringing pride and showing exemplary conduct.

Archaic at best, ignorant at worst

In a recent visit to the UK, President Muhammadu Buhari seems to have expressed opinions of an archaic, ill-informed and frankly ignorant nature about his fellow citizens abroad, having failed to qualify his statements and thereby unwittingly and unforgivably besmirched the reputation and integrity of the Nigerian majority in Diaspora.

There is no doubt that in his words, “We have an image problem abroad and we are on our way to salvage that.” But that is hardly the whole story. [The Telegraph]

He went on to say, “Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but they have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking, I don't think Nigerians have anybody to blame. They can remain at home, where their services are required to rebuild the country.”

The potential never realised

We need to break this down, I have been in Europe a total of over 30 years, I was born in the UK, we returned to Nigeria after the civil war and the promise and ideal that was Nigeria for the decade of the 1970s became a rapid decline in the 1980s, a good few of us left Nigeria, disillusioned young men and women as the 1980s closed and we got into the 1990s and that with much reason.

Whilst things might not have been difficult for me in general, things were made difficult by a system that neither celebrated merit nor honesty, there was a rent-seeker down the chain of every attempt to do anything in the public and the private sector that expected a backhander, it was suffocating.

Others experienced worse, university courses stunted by incessant strikes, job opportunities going to those who could peddle the right sort of influence, people persecuted for being different, insurrection and militancy creating impossible living conditions and in the words of a friend that recently left Nigeria, “We keep hoping for the best for the nation but when the government does not think it criminal to owe its employees’ wages, the employees have to look for another means of surviving.”

This is ill-informed

The President seems either blinkered, myopic or indifferent to the plight of the Nigerian majority suffering at home to come over to the UK and pass unqualified and unfair judgement on Nigerians abroad, on the basis of the infractions and the criminal enterprise of a few.

Indeed, Nigeria can do with the services of amazingly resourceful, knowledgeable and expert fellow countrymen, but there must be an unbreakable contract in the provision of this service, the most important of this is paying promptly for the products and the services; extending to employee rights, the duty for employers in all sectors to pay salaries in full and on time, the prospect of career development, the right not to have to work in exacting conditions of abuse, disrespect and forms of bonded slavery.

People leaving school should know they have a possible work life in Nigeria that would exploit their potential to the fullest. The issue of infrastructure needs to be addressed with the engagement of Nigerian talent in roads and transportation, power, health, education and other areas of development.

That war on corruption must be prosecuted to the fullest extent and the looted funds ploughed back into the economy, the insurgencies and militancy need to be contained for the regions affected to see development and much else.

Get to work and honestly, shut up!

President Muhammadu Buhari has his work cut out, the greatest of which is restoring the promise that Nigeria once was at her independence and rewriting a contract of citizenship with Nigerians that shows we have a place and a stake in Nigeria. He is not going to get far with insinuation and vituperation masquerading as frank patrician talk to the foreign press, it is just bad form.

What comes into Nigeria from Diaspora is great and not to be belittled, yet, until the project that is Nigeria heads towards a greater prospect which is for his leadership to conduct and direct, the exodus from Nigeria will continue and for good reason, we all have one life to live and everyone wants to make the best of that life regardless of where that can be done, for some, it is outside Nigeria.

Nigeria: Old Dishonest Generals Praise Abacha

Speaking lies of the dead

I can understand the sentiment that one should not speak ill of the dead, probably from the premise that the dead cannot defend themselves when something untoward has been said about them – in some circles it is just good manners.

However, just because one should not speak ill of the dead, it does not confer the opportunity to blatantly lie about the dead in some revisionist poise towards the past.

I am getting worried about how memorial or remembrance events in Nigeria provide a forum for partying, but the speech givers then provide a slant of history that would almost always be too far from the truth to be credible.

In March 2008, a gathering of “elder statesmen” and I use that moniker liberally because there are only a few for the memorial of the elder brother of our current President left us breathless with incredulity as the speakers chose the occasion to castigate each other.

Memorial curses on Abacha

So, this weekend, remembrance prayers were said for General Sani Abacha celebrating – if that could ever be right – 10 years of his death, which occurred marking the culmination of his rule of 5 years in 1998.

I think it is common knowledge that Abacha’s reign was probably the worst ever leader inflicted on Nigeria and basically he was a despot of the most maligned order.

As these occasions go, some ex-leaders were invited to these prayers that included General Muhammadu Buhari and General Ibrahim Babangida – rather than say their prayers and move on, they went to on suggest that General Sani Abacha never looted the national treasury.

Lies, blatant lies

General Babangida had this to say about Abacha as a “courageous, loyal and honest military head of state who stood for the unity and development of the country during his years in government; it is not true that he looted public treasury. I knew who Abacha was because I was close to him”.

Repeating himself to make the point even more clearly, he said, “Abacha was a courageous person who stood firmly in handling the affairs of the country during his regime. There is no doubt, during his administration as head of state, Abacha contributed his best to the nation’s economy which we are still enjoying”.

General Babangida must be suffering the first indications of dementia with the possibility that amnesia has set in because as the news report indicates, he had a different view of Abacha in 2000.

Unfortunately, General Buhari also suggested that the idea that Abacha looted the treasury was baseless, with which he has suddenly lost any credibility he ever had.

The man who took over from Abacha, General Abdulsalami Abubakar who first had the task of cleaning out the Abacha Aegean Stables now contends the Vision 2020 initiative draws inspiration from Abacha’s Vision 2010.

Are these all lies?

I would not propound any further theories about this apart from asking these men, about the following:

The millions returned by ministers in Abacha’s government, this happened under his watch. (BBC).

The return of $500 million by the Swiss banks all related to Abacha, his family and his associates. (Swissinfo.ch)

The press briefing in 2005 with the World Bank President, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz and the then Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on the repatriation of Abacha funds. (The World Bank)

The questions raised by President Olusegun Obasanjo where he opined that the Abacha family cannot have legitimately worked to earn $100 million of disputed funds. (Global Policy Forum)

The way London might have been implicated in the possible transfer of more than $4 billion by the Abacha regime which named 15 London banks. (BBC)

One cannot list the many other sources but these should be authoritative enough to indicate that General Sani Abacha was implicated, involved and instrumental to a number of deals that took money out of Nigeria illegally.

Exterminate this vermin, forthwith

I would suppose the three Generals would contend that General Abacha was keeping all this in trust for Nigeria in high-interest numbered Swiss accounts.

These generals must think Nigerians are fools who have no recollection of the past or of the facts.

It saddens me that we still have this ilk of people able to say things like this and get away with it and it makes me regret that we did not have a Nigerian Jerry Rawlings to rid us of atrocious military generals who have squandered every good thing about Nigeria for their own ends.

Ghana does not have an old Acheampong, Afrifa or Akuffo to revise history with dishonest intent, it is time we did not have a Shagari, Buhari, Babangida, Abubakar or Obasanjo coming out of the woodwork to mess up Nigerian history well after they had messed up Nigeria during their tenures in government, I would spare General Yakubu Gowon.

If these people cannot retire and keep quiet then it is probably time to make them forcibly depart their mortal coils, Nigeria cannot continue to countenance this sort of thing.

INEC frustrates Nigerians with incompetence

Incompetence becomes INEC

Many Nigerian Bloggers have already reported on the elections that took place in Nigeria yesterday and I am not going to add much to that.

However, going to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) website, it would appear the time they should have spent sorting out their logistics was probably expended in the politics of disenfranchisement of Nigerians.

In all the time that they had to prepare for the elections, how is it that on election day some polling stations were only opening up 6 hours late or not at all? BBC.

Then the President whose total 11 and a half years in office represents a failure that history would most assuredly record has the temerity to suggest that the polling had gone relatively well.

Time and again, the ruling parties have frustrated Nigerians in order to obscure and manipulate the electoral will of the people and usually with success.

Indeed there are issues of safety and security for the precious votes of Nigerians and the polling officials who need to be able to do their work without fear or favour.

Trying us by trying

Nigerians have been longsuffering if not supinely docile to accept half-measures, incompetence and shoddy planning as sufficient even that the mentality of low expectations is translated into one phrase - They tried.

We should stop trying and start doing and from what happened yesterday for something so critical to the survival and future of Nigeria to be handled with such confusion and levity is a disgrace.

So when INEC announces that the law makers and journalists were happy with INEC's facilities and level of preparedness, I read that with an overdose of healthy skepticism - the use of the phrase, selected journalists is already a giveaway, sycophantic praise-singers who parrot the desired propaganda.

This entourage visited the INEC headquarters which had over 100 gun-totting mobile policemen - only in Nigeria can legally armed law enforcement officers be called gun totting - a phrase usually associated with militias, gangsters or a force under unruly or ill-disciplined command.

Proper investigative research required

In the end, the entourage was awe-stricken; read - easily impressed, but having a Central Depot does not a national election make, somehow, the entourage should have been visiting locations closer to the polling stations and I doubt if the sycophantic journalists would have had the conscience to relay what they saw.

This obviously makes the visit and views of two former heads of state in the persons of Dr. Yakubu Gowon (1966-1975) and General Muhammadu Buhari (1983-1985) rather immaterial as they pandered to the window-dressing in the centre rather than a proper research of the facts in the regions.

In the circumstances we are saddled with this atrocious service and might have to condone it for now, but if for once we believe that INEC's independence in conducting the elections as free and fair then it would definitely be time for Nigerians to rise and claim their country back from the petty tyrants who have committed this great country to a cabal of corrupt politicians.

Healing on a jet plane

Running for president

This is beginning to look like some sort of amusement, a comedy mating with a farce to produce the utterly laughable.

Only last week, the obituary was written of the rather sprightly and seriously healthy presidential candidate of the PDP when he was carted off (flown) to Germany for a checkup related to "breathlessness", which he fully recovered from, he would shortly be back on the campaign trail.

Now, it seems the Vice President was over-doing his daily workout on his treadmill and has in the process acquired a torn tendon - Go figure! Those things have emergency STOP controls. He was then flown out to the UK to his "local" hospital on the presidential jet - was that the magnanimity of Jekyll Obasanjo or Hyde Obasanjo at play? - For surgery. He was literally running for president, one chuckles.

My frustration at the fact that there are no health services capable of handling breathlessness or surgery in Nigeria is really disheartening.

Another opportunity for excellence

The Vice President for instance has established a seemingly reputable university in his home state of Yola which from all appearances would be a centre of excellence. - [Late edition - I stand corrected by Chippla, the home state of the Vice President is Adamawa, whatever happened to the good old North Eastern State? Thanks Chippla]

One wonders why one or two teaching hospitals cannot be selected to be groomed as centres of medical excellence where resources are not spared in bringing the best medical brains, equipment and means to serve as the incubators for raising health and healthcare expertise in Nigeria.

The people who have then built these institutions can from there become ambassadors or evangelists of administrative prowess and development for other hospitals such that we do not have to run off to Europe for anything as mundane as a sneeze.

One can only wish these men well, but if in the 47^th year of our independence we cannot fulfil basic health needs beyond primary health care and international NGO-sponsored immunisation programmes; Nigerians now need to demand of their leaders better stewardship of health along with other infrastructure needs as electricity, transport and communications.

For anyone who aims to lead Nigeria, these should be no-brainers, Obasanjo failed to see the sense of duty to handle these issues, maybe of the crop of the crippled (Abubakar), breathless (Yar'Adua), smart-arse (Utomi) or non-charismatic (Buhari) choices we have to make, a surprise might arise before we suffer the fate of Goodluck as president - and that would a fate equal to Armageddon.