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The American
Worry on Nigeria
Howard Jeter,
out-going American Ambassador to Nigeria must have struck popular
chord when he trod on a vexed issue: American worry on Nigeria.
As we sat on the same table to devour the food and drinks provided
by organisers of Leon Sullivan Summit at a reception at the Sheraton
Hotel and Towers, Abuja, Jeter appeared ensnared in his great worry
even as he acknowledged cheers from the guests. At a recent parley
with media executives, Jeter had conveyed the widely held deep disappointment
back home in America. Why Nigeria, the big giant of Africa, has
refused to rise up and live up to its billing in spite of the human
and material resources that abound almost everywhere you turn
in the country
is still an enigma. This remains a sore point to be resolved even
by her citizens, many groaning from the weight of a poorly managed
economy, abrasive corruption, collapse of social welfare programmes
and a dilapidated social infrastructure. Growing inter and intra-ethnic
skirmishes with 500,000 dying in the process, according to Vice
President Atiku Abubakar, is threatening to put the nation asunder
while another 400,000 Nigerians are estimated to have died from
the scourge of malaria last year alone. America had conceived of
a stabilising role for Nigeria in the West African sub-region perceived
as the most dangerous region in the world because of the prevalence
of more than eight million small arms in the hands of outlaws. After
the debacle in Somalia when America lost 18 soldiers, it has looked
up to countries like Nigeria taking up the responsibility of military
intervention for peace keeping roles in Africa while limiting its
support to financial and other technical assistance. With rebel
activities engulfing most part of a continent where one in every
five is said to live in a conflict laden area, a strong and ebullient
Nigeria should be in a position to provide succour and olive branch
to the motley of guerrilla movements and other armed gangs threatening
many Africans with AK-47, Kalashnikov and other deadly weapons.
Enmeshed in
a rage on account of the intensification of conflicts, it is feared
that guns may likely be cheaper than food in the continent where
small arms may soon out-number the people. But the tragedy is that
much of the population of this largest black nation in the world
form the bulk of the 220 Africans said to be living below one dollar
a day. The recently released United Nations Development Report ranks
Nigeria 152 in terms of access to education, healthcare, housing,
life expectancy and other things that guarantee good life. Its citizens
live in a state where governance has virtually disappeared in the
lives of its people. It is almost back to Hobbesian state of nature
where life was brutish, solitary and short. Gangsterism and armed
violence have been elevated to state policy as its citizens grope
under the air of insecurity. The reasons why Nigeria, the sixth
largest oil producing country in the world, almost provides no shield
for her people and its just big for nothing may not be farfetched.
Only a pitiable fraction of the monies claimed to have been spent
by government annually in supporting poverty eradication, education,
health care, electricity, housing, roads and other social infrastructure
actually trickle down to the people.
The larger fraction
end up as pay off, over invoicing and other under hand business
in a well neat corrupt network that guarantees sop for the highly
parasitic ruling elite. The audit report recently released by the
former acting Auditor General, Vincent Azie revealed that more than
N23 billion was lost in 10 ministries in 2001, casting a slur on
the anti-corruption stance of the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The amount represents financial frauds ranging from embezzlement,
payment for jobs not done, over invoicing, double debiting, inflation
of contract figures to release of money without the consent of the
approving authority. This is said to be the biggest reap off in
the nation’s history. This Day of February 10, 2001 had earlier
reported that Nigeria loses N8.379billion to corruption in six months.
Nigeria is also said to have lost $42billion to capital flight between
1971 to 2001 according to The Punch of February 19, 2003. The information
is contained in a comprehensive study on Capital Flight and Macroeconomic
Growth in Four African Countries-Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Morocco
and Ghana by the Debt Management Office. According to the report,
the highest level of capital flight occurred in 2000 when $11.84billion
was repatriated from the country. The highest level of average capital
flight of $4.663billion also took place under the Obasanjo regime
between 1999 to 2001. The General Ibrahim Babangida period of 1985
to 1993 recorded $2.287billion, that of General Muhammed Buhari
who was in charge between 1984 to 1985 was $1.978billion while Obasanjo’s
first coming as a military leader, between 1976 to 1979 recorded
the least amount of capital flight-$926million.
Reeling through
these figures in a paper delivered at a training workshop organised
by the Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation (CENCOD)
in Port Harcourt last February, this writer concluded that if this
process of corruption is unchecked, the country may soon go to the
dogs and acquire the status of a banana island. For instance how
can we honestly claim to have spent N1,02 trillion on poverty eradication
programmes in the last four years when poverty still walks tall
on the streets of many of our cities and villages? How can we claim
to have genuinely signed a N350 billion road contract with craters
all over the place? Almost everywhere you turn in the country, the
road is impassable. We have spent N220 billion on NEPA without any
regular electricity, a thing that the tiniest of our neighbours
in Africa has long taken for granted. We have spent $700 million
(N94.5 billion) on repairing the refineries in the last four years
which have refused to work, leading us to shamelessly import fuel.
A sum of N30 billion is also said to have been spent by the NDDC,
which is yet to put youth restiveness in the Niger Delta in abeyance.
So we all tend to ask like the Yankees are doing: What went wrong?
One seems to
take solace in the optimism shared by of one of my friends and respected
colleague, Edwin Baiye who recently got elevated to the enviable
position of managing director of the Daily Times, the country’s
oldest newspaper. At a recent AIT’s Kakaaki programme that featured
both of us, he said Nigeria in spite of its problems would not go
to shreds like many countries in Africa torn apart by civil strife
but would arise from its doldrums and match to greatness. But time
will tell.
First published
the Sunday Punch on July 20, 2003.
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