2013: The Way Forward

This brings to mind a very startling and an incisively exploratory book on the endemic corruption in Kenya and African societies. Written by an exceptionally gifted writer, Michael Wrong, it is tellingly titled It’s Our Turn to Eat. It graphically narrates and depicts the ‘cultural and historical factors at the heart of the continent’s crisis’ […]

This brings to mind a very startling and an incisively exploratory book on the endemic corruption in Kenya and African societies. Written by an exceptionally gifted writer, Michael Wrong, it is tellingly titled It’s Our Turn to Eat. It graphically narrates and depicts the ‘cultural and historical factors at the heart of the continent’s crisis’ with regard to its failure of becoming, catalyzed by the endemic corruption of the governing elite. It paints the picture of the inextricability of corruption from mass poverty in the State of Kenya- from Arap Moi to Kibaki- a microscopic depiction of the African cesspit of grand corruption thus; ‘As sleaze has flourished, Kenya’s poverty has deepened and the slums near the stadium have spread, along with the mounds of rotting rubbish on which the storks depend’ Now, the volume of corruption in Kenya is a tip of the iceberg placed beside the situation in Nigeria. Michael Wrong or any African fiction writer from out of Nigeria will lose the power of creativity, reading the sordid and bizarre story of the magnitude of corruption in Nigeria; what fiction can transcend the   reality of EFCC seizing forty-eight mansions and misappropriation of N6.46 billion of state funds by the former Governor of a tiny state like Bayelsa, Mr. Timpre Sylva, or the looting of N80 billion Council money in Imo State. Stories of looted pension funds recovered worth over N200 billion, some of which were imaginatively hidden in bedrooms of top civil servants will induce heart-attack in non-Nigerian imaginative creators!

So, where do we go from here, even with the renewed promise of a vigorous and heroic pursuit of the transformation agenda by President Goodluck Jonathan? Will solution to our national socio-economic malaise come from the raging constitutional amendment by the National Assembly with creation of state peaking the exercise?

I have deposed earlier on this page that as the States are presently composed, they cannot work. They are created largely based on political expediencies.  Let me give an example. Only about a third of the states created for us today can provide the basic tools, resources and capacities for self-sustenance, if their shares of the crude from the federated accounts are unavailable. There are states that will be unable to run their bureaucracies, not to talk of running schools, hospitals, health care and even paying salaries unless money comes from the centre. There are states in Nigeria today that have not been able to work our strategies for running effective and effective taxation regimes or generating revenue from internal sources. Their creativity has been numbed or killed by easy money being shared from crude oil, which is a perishable extractive resource.

To move forward in 2013, the nation’s economic and political structures must be radically overhauled. Many discernible minds have parroted President Barack Obama’s oft-quoted notion of strong institutions being the panacea for the present growth without development in developing nations. No question. Strong institutions are inexorable in the project of evolving national development of any nations. But we often forget that strong institutions alone cannot work the magic without strong individuals; visionary leaders who can bring functional and purposeful implementation strategies to operate whatever strong institutions that are fashioned. If strong individuals are not required, there will not be any need to draw or even perceive leadership differences between the Presidents of the United States. Similarly, the near-miraculous transformation of Singapore at the head of the Asian economic boom is a combination of the invention of a strong national institution and the visionary, committed and dynamic operational strategies by Lee Kuan Yew. This great man of vision and one of the ‘seminal figures of Asia’ almost single-handedly transformed a poor, deprived and decrepit colony into a success story of a ‘shining, rich and modern metropolis, driving a wretched third world nation into a first, industrial world.

In Africa itself, the visionary and exemplary leadership provided by Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela instructs us of the essentiality of strong, charismatic and patriotic leaders, not only to invent strong institutions but also to work them into successful thriving and developed nations. This is a sure model for Nigeria of the future, beginning from the year 2013.

The sharing mentality of a consumption- driven economy operated by its dimmed governing elite, producing our present unproductive and uncreative economy must yield space for a people-oriented, dynamic, growing and economy under an accountable leadership with demonstrable transparency and integrity in power. True, as Merie Heese aptly quipped in her award-winning biography of Theodora, Empress of Byzantium, The Colour of Power, ‘red is the true colour of power, though it wears a purple robe’. But with men of vision and compassion at the driver’s seat of governance, power can wear the white and blue colours of love and peace. This is our optimistic wish for our country in the year 2013 and beyond.