Why Being A Nigerian Is So Hard

I culled this article from The Guardian Newspapers (Nigeria). The article actually came out a few weeks ago. I had to write the author for permission to publish the article. I think the article is remarkable because it gives a wonderful backdrop for the situation Nigerians and Obasanjo, the outgoing president, now find ourselves. It explains why, for the temperate ones amongst us, disappointment is more prevalent than anger over the last elections.

The author recently suffered a personal misfortune caused by the sometimes unpredictable weather overseas. Loss, inevitable as it is, always remains hard to bear. And so, I sympathize with him.

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Why Being A Nigerian Is So Hard
By Sonala Olumhense
sonala.olumhense@gmail.com

It is safe to say that Africa is awash with poor countries. Africa literally defines poverty. We are first in line when development is the subject because when they flip the coin, the terms that emerge: "poverty, ignorance and disease." Actually, this ought not to be so. Not for Nigeria anyway.

Nigeria is known to the world to have great promise, a quantity (or quality, if you please) that is evident when you look at the resources available to Nigeria. We have hundreds of miles of fertile land, should we wish to grow food. We have water, should we choose to develop fishery or champion swimmers. We have forests, should we wish to hunt, or on the contrary, to develop reserves for the preservation of any form of nature.

We have trained manpower stretching from the southern Australian coast to the northeastern fringes of Canada; from tiny hamlets in Argentina to China. You walk into the most elaborate office or business overseas and there is a Nigerian there trying to hide behind a funny accent or the most sophisticated couture. We try to demonstrate what competent professionals in the hope they will forgive our nationality.

We have money, because we are raising great taxes from everything from retail sale to middle class incomes. Should we wish, we can shake down the thieves in our midst who have raided the public till for many years. In any case, we have petroleum profits falling off our bodies wherever we turn.

This is why 1998 was such a momentous year. Sani Abacha, who had appeared to be taking Nigeria to hell, left for hell first. Poor Moshood Abiola also died. He had won the 1993 presidential election, but was denied. Thereafter, the gates of Nigeria's prisons were flung open. Out emerged Olusegun Obasanjo, understandably Abacha's enemy for here and hereafter. ''Abacha was more than evil, more than sadistic, he was actually mad,'' he angrily told the New York Times at the Murtala Muhammad Airport weeks after his release in 1998. ''Look at what he did to the nation's oil industry. He closed down our four refineries so that Nigeria would have to import refined fuel and he could make a fortune on those import deals. As a result we are paralyzed because we have no fuel.'' He was sitting in the presidential wing of the airport, waiting for a plane out of the country to meet with Mr. Nelson Mandela in South Africa. ''We are one of the world's biggest producers of oil," he reminded the reporter, "(but) we have no fuel. We have more power stations than we need, and no electricity. Madness.'' Of his perception of his role in Nigera as he resumed his celebrity, he said, ''Perhaps I can be a stabilizing influence, a conscience for our nation.''

Nigerians listened to him, and to all those men in Nigerian prisons who spoke of how humble and humane Obasanjo had been as one of them. When we looked up, we saw a man who could do better than being simply a "conscience." Within months, we voted him president. It is understandable that Obasanjo was never able to hide his hatred for Abacha, and he would go on to exact his pound of flesh-or pound sterling of vengeance. He followed the smell of every penning Abacha ever stole. As a Nigerian, I am grateful for this, choosing to believe he did it for Nigeria, rather than self. In the larger scheme of things, it does not seem Obasanjo needed Abacha's loot to make a difference. After one sorry term of office that ended in 2003, the elements were in alignment with him as he began his second. In the West, a United States-led effort in the Middle East saw war breaking out in Iraq.

War is always an ugly response, and it was no less so in Iraq early that year. For Nigeria, however, it engendered an avalanche of revenues from petroleum. They were revenues that were begging to be poured into the conquest of poverty and ignorance; into the revival of Nigerian industry and housing; into the rebuilding of our infrastructure and morale; into the re-engineering of the Niger Delta and our agriculture; into investment in education and education in investment.

This is always when being a Nigerian is so exciting, so challenging. In Obasanjo's hands in 2003 was the chance of a millennium. He could prove Abacha wrong; in fact, this was far more important than Abacha: he could right the wrongs of a generation of rulers and adventurers. To accomplish that, Obasanjo needed to do only one thing, not two. He needed to halt corruption. Everything in Nigeria is a function of corruption, and he knew it. He needed to declare corruption banned, and then stand up like a man to the vested interests that would resist him.

He knew also, that there could be no talk of development or good governance-he had said similar things for two decades-unless he "manhandled" corruption. And he knew that most of the vested interests involved members of the party in power, the one of which he was national leader, the PDP.

In few countries and few situations can the risk/reward picture be any clearer than this. Obasanjo knew it too. In his second term, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), would shoot out of the gates following the appointment of its chairman, Nuhu Ribadu. Any progress on the corruption front in the past few years is owed to this man. Obasanjo's plan then, was to go forward by preaching reform, not performing one. The formal plan saw him in most of 2003 and 2004 launching "reform" programmes, but one rarely hears of them anymore. He does not mention his flagship scheme, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, anymore. He speaks neither of its progress nor its prospects, obviously because it has none.

But back in 1998, as he sweated in that airport that could not give him airconditioning, he identified everything that was wrong, and what needed to be done. He then got an unusual second opportunity in office, accompanied by worldwide acclaim and support. Everywhere he looked, he had skilled Nigerians waiting to make a contribution. Everywhere he looked, he had resources with which to make Nigeria work again. He could give us electricity, drinking water and jobs. He could build roads. He could keep us safe. He could open the door into Nigeria for tourists and the door of opportunity to foreign investors. He could set high standards. He could show the world he was for real.

For eight years, Obasanjo had it all in his hands, but his prevarication, double-talk and insincerity saw it all collapse. Now the world knows the real Obasanjo. Today, he has only one month left in office; he has expended seven years and eleven months extracting failure from the claws of success.

This is why it is so hard to be a Nigerian: to be so near yet so far away. As a Nigerian, I have experienced great lows and highs when there was a chance to vote, or when there was a coup d'etat. I have clapped to lines of cheerful voters on Election Day, and danced to martial music on a coup morning. I have listened to great inauguration speeches and read promising development and reform programmes. I have celebrated every new beginning, each one, but none arrived with as much promise as what we had in 1999.

As Obasanjo prepares to live office without leaving Nigeria alone, we must be careful about people who claim to be the messiah. That was what Obasanjo thinks he is, and he is wearing criticism of his colossal collapse as proof of that status. Instead of humbly accepting his humanity, he says Jesus Christ was crucified, after all. Here, however, is the best part: we can start all over again. Freedom Day is May 29, 2007.


Pasted from <http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/editorial_opinion/article03>