Pendulum: Who Says Nigeria is Too Tough to Govern By Dele Momodu

Fellow Nigerians, are you one of those who buy into the fake
narrative that our dear beloved country is too difficult to handle;
that the different ethnic groups hate one another to the point of
death; that Nigeria can never know peace; that all Nigerians are
corrupt and fraudulent; that religious fanaticism is our problem;
that all hope is lost and we should go our separate ways, and so
on, I have good news for you today. I’m willing to risk some
measure of boundless optimism rather than my usual pessimism. There
is no doubt that Nigeria can frustrate any soul. It is indeed very
easy to give up on the possibility of Nigeria ever getting out of
the woods. But trust me, there is always light at the end of the
tunnel, if we do the right things, and navigate and meander our
way, the way we should.

I doubt if the Buhari government would ever change it’s style. I
really don’t care any longer. I have moved on, peacefully, and
looking forward to the next four years or so. From experience, I
know this controversial second term will soon evaporate like the
ones before it. Who would have thought 20 years have vamoosed in a
jiffy since our return to Democratic rule in 1999? If we could
survive those years of hocus-pocus, why can’t we endure the next
four years of higgledy-piggleddy!

My sermon is going to be simple and straightforward. Let me
quickly tell you when and how we got it all wrong. We lost our
paradise in 1966 when the military struck and sacked the most
cerebral set of politicians we ever had or assembled. Not just
that, we killed the regionalism that made it possible for our major
ethnic groups to develop independent of one another and at their
own self-determined pace. From that moment on, one military
government after the other continued to exchange the baton of
foolishness, backwardness and ultimately destruction. They began to
ride roughshod on us, pretending to be holier-than-though, while
leading us to Golgotha, the place of perdition. Though we claim we
now have a civilian administration, it is obvious to discerning
minds that we are living in fools’ paradise.

Once we’ve accepted the fact that we are definitely in
servitude, the next point is to determine and decide the way out of
this quagmire. My proposition is easy. We must search urgently for
a good leader while we manage the ones we have now and hope for
miracles. I don’t really care where he or she will come from, as
long as that person is a Nigerian by birth. I also do not worry
about his religious beliefs. All our past leaders had claimed one
of the mainstream religions and they have mostly exhibited traits
of Lucifer than that of God or Allah. So, let no one come to preach
to me about the need to find a suitable Christian or Muslim. Same
on the matter of ethnicity, none of our past and current leaders
has ever succeeded in turning their parts of Nigeria into anything
spectacularly remarkable. Rather they’ve neglected and abandoned
their unfortunate places to eternal squalor and majority of their
people to subhuman degradation. If anything, perhaps, they created
a few emergency entrepreneurs and billionaires. No more.

Now, fast forward. In another two years, the race for the 2023
general elections would have started in full swing. Some have
already begun their clandestine moves, leaving nothing to chance.
The first mistakes we must never make again is to think a third
force can achieve much in the next elections. I’m more interested
in who becomes our next President. I have many friends who think
I’m obsessed with Presidential election. Sure, I do, because
Nigeria operates a Presidential system, which confers humongous
power in the hands of the President. We only need that one man to
change Nigeria into one of the greatest nations on earth. Try and
picture the monstrosity the President controls today. It is
unparalleled anywhere in the world. I make bold to say there is no
President of a large country as Nigeria as powerful as Muhammadu
Buhari. You may be tempted to mention the leaders of USA, Russia
and China but, believe me, Buhari has more power than all of them
combined. Buhari is in total control of all apparatus of governance
in Nigeria. But the power is nothing short of personal
aggrandizement, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Thus, what we then need, urgently, is a leader who can
crystallize that enormous power into greatness for our
long-suffering country. The new leader must worry less about the
alluring aura and the appurtenances of power. The extravagance of
public office holders is too bizarre for this time and age. By the
lifestyle of the presidency, a dangerous signal is by happenstance
sent to the subordinates that governance is a jamboree. It is
almost impossible to find a Nigerian politician without the swag of
a peacock. There is no such word as service in their lexicon. We
need a President who can demystify this outlandish proclivity for
profligacy.

The new leader must have a career, investment portfolio, or
business. It won’t be too healthy if his life totally depends on
proceeds and dividends of politics. He must have sufficient
education and must have managed people and resources in his private
life. I’m not saying the person must be a graduate, but, really,
why not? A country littered with some of the most educated and
sophisticated human beings on planet earth should never end up in
the hands of near-illiterates and antiquated leaders. A leader is
not expected to just govern at home like an Emperor, he would be
needed on International scenes and engagements and must be able to
represent us well on such occasions. Each of the two leading
parties must do a critical search before arriving at their
candidates. And where they take it for granted that any unserious
candidate they field can win, we the people should punish them at
the polls for taking us for granted.

Please, let me say and emphasize this before it escapes me.
Nigeria should stop looking for a saint to govern us, but we should
also not choose obvious rogues as leaders. We should avoid a
witchhunt that is usually based on character assassination. We’ve
wasted a lot of far better and much intelligent leaders because of
our preference for fake idols of the market place. There is no
saint to be found anywhere but nations are governed by performers.
Stronger institutions will take care of whatever foibles and
idiosyncrasies he may harbour.

We need a leader who is detribalised and who sees every Nigerian
as his kinsman. A good President must visibly show love to all and
demonstrate it in words and in deeds. He should never fan embers of
ethnicity or religion. Our leaders must learn to assemble the best
teams regardless of where they come from, the way we select our
football players. No leader should waste our scarce resources on
sponsoring religious trips abroad. Religion should be a personal
relationship between you and your God. Our secularist Constitution
should be protected and enforced. Anyone wanting to go to Mecca or
Jerusalem is very welcome, but it should be at their own
expense.

Let’s now move to what Nigeria needs do to be much greater.
Truth is, we all know what to do but none of our leaders is able,
or willing, to bell the cat. This is the main tragedy of Nigeria.
How can a patient know the prescription for his chronic ailment and
yet refuse to buy and take it as regularly as recommended. It is as
if our country is on a suicide mission as no one has been able to
arrest and reverse the perfidious drift. Our kamikaze attitude
calls for serious and divine intervention but from my reading of
world history and religious studies, I’m reasonably convinced that
“heaven helps only those who help themselves.”

I know the usual excuse in Nigeria is always about lack of
funding but I wish to disagree. If we manage the little we have
well, we can do so much with it but none of our politicians is
ready to reduce his personal comfort. Our leaders live
ostentatiously like Royals and not as servants of the people.
Nigeria will never make progress unless our leaders consciously
decide to have pity and mercy on the country. Even our current
President has caught the bug of ceremonial and grandiloquent
Presidency. Anyone going through what Nigeria is suffering and sees
our annual budget would readily conclude that ours is a cursed
nation. And it all begins in Aso Rock Presidential villa where
money is wasted like rain water. I have seen no evidence that our
economy is a source of worry as leaders continue on their
binge.

Education must be the priority of any smart leader. My
interactions on global campuses have revealed to me the secrets of
all great nations. None of them ever became great without investing
substantially in quality education. We are more than double the
size of Great Britain which parades about 10 of the top hundred
universities in the world. Not just that, practically all these
universities are dominated with citizens of China, India and North
America. The greatness of those countries are well secured for the
future.

I know the next question will be what would I do as President to
resurrect our dying education. I think it is not too hard. I will
be very practical. It is impossible to build our own Oxford or
Cambridge or Harvard or Yale or Stanford in four years but we can
start by upgrading a few of our existent institutions of higher
learning after doing same at the lower levels. First there must be
a clear selection process to determine which schools can be
rehabilitated first and fast. Education starts from providing
habitable environments. No private investor must be allowed to
operate mushroom schools to start with. They must comply with
stringent laws and requirements. After the environment is the
content or curricular. Teachers must be well trained and adequately
remunerated. We should no longer allow teachers’ rewards to wait
for them in heaven. Those students who can afford it should be
encouraged to go private. Government schools must not be for dregs
of society but also for serious minded students in search of robust
knowledge.

A good leader must declare states of emergency in several
sectors. Each must have a carefully selected, meticulously screened
and delicately approved committees of experts. Next to education is
power. They almost run neck to neck. No country living in raven
darkness can ever prosper. A leader who wants to fix electricity in
Nigeria must never worry much about being re-elected into office.
He would have to step on some powerful toes. Too many people are
benefiting from the current malaise and would not want it to end.
This lack of patriotism is largely responsible for the unending
embarrassment we suffer over electricity.

The government must be ready to go all out like President John
Dramani Mahama of Ghana, who was able to inject over 800 megawatts
in under two years, after Ghana suffered it’s most outrageous power
outages. First, he analysed the situation. He identified foreign
companies that can deliver in record time. He confirmed their
terms. He came back to his people and gave them the options
available to them. The news was not very palatable but he told them
the honest truth. I will deliver electricity to every home and even
double our requirements and probably sell some to other
neighbouring countries but you have to pay commercial tariffs. Many
hated him for it but he delivered his own side in record time. This
is the only way for Nigeria to go.

President Buhari is on his final lap in power, hopefully, if he
is not tempted by the demons of democracy to try a third term, so
he has nothing to fear about ending the jinx of power failures in
Nigeria. If he and his team are willing to do that which is
necessary, there will be light in Nigeria. If that’s all he
achieves, God bless him forever.

Nearly all our other challenges require similar templates.
Health is wealth. There is no reason why each of the six
geo-political regions should not have one world class hospital in
the next four years. Again, before our very eyes, Mahama made this
happen in Ghana. Wherever there is a will, there is a way. Mahama
was ready to sacrifice himself for the good of his country. Many of
his fellow citizens felt he was inflicting hardship and pains on
them but he pursued his developmental agenda without minding the
repercussions or backing down because he kept his eyes on the ball
and ultimately on the goal post. He paid dearly for it. He was
sacked from office but today Ghana is a proud recipient of brand
new airports, sea ports, massive hospitals of international
standards, beautiful institutions of learning, new stadiums, new
markets, good roads, much improved power stations, modern
agriculture, cleaner water systems, beautiful and affordable
houses, rural internet connections, better trained artisans, and so
on.

We don’t have to re-invent the wheels. I know the political
climate in Ghana is not of the same tempo and temperature as that
of Nigeria. But a determined leader, and a powerful one at that,
like President Buhari can take on the system and do the needful.
Unlike Mahama, he no longer has any more election to worry about
but only a worthy legacy. I know for a fact, Mahama has so much
respect and admiration for Buhari. Our President may wish to reach
out to his brother next door (they seem to bond well whenever they
meet) to ask him the secrets of sidelining those too selfish to
wish their country well in order to deliver monumentally in record
time. Humility to learn what we don’t know will take us far but are
we ready?

Time is ticking, at supersonic speed.

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