Leaders are Nigeria’s worst enemies

Do we call it positive impact when all the promises made by President Jonathan to justify the withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products in January 2012 turned out to be a conspiracy to further impoverish Nigerians by stealing oil revenues meant to be remitted to Federation Account? Do we describe Jonathan as an inspiring leader […]

Do we call it positive impact when all the promises made by President Jonathan to justify the withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products in January 2012 turned out to be a conspiracy to further impoverish Nigerians by stealing oil revenues meant to be remitted to Federation Account? Do we describe Jonathan as an inspiring leader by his refusal to implement recommendations of the presidential committee on insurgency in the northeast and indeed the recommendations of all other panels set up to probe corrupt allegations leveled against public officers? Could Jonathan be called as a sensitive leader by his lackadaisical handling of the critical issues of poverty and employment?
Last Sunday saw the end of the year-long fun-fair of centenary celebration. Beyond all the fuss and hype of the celebration is the interrogation by patriotic Nigerians of the rationale behind the merriment. All the reasons advanced by government officials to justify the jamboree of resource squandering called centenary ultimately failed to convince the Nigerian public. The explanation by government that ‘the celebration was not going to involve use of public funds’ is considered by many as no more than a cock and bull story. Is government still saying that the heads of states that graced the celebration lodged in Abuja and fed themselves (including members of their entourage) at their own expense?
The impression also given by the SGF Anyim Pius Anyim that the private sector organizations that commit billions of naira to the Centenary City project were not going to get their money back through funny contract deals and dubious patronage from government was an assertion that sounded stranger than fiction. Many Nigerians think we do not need a multi-billion naira centenary celebration to create the 5,000 jobs which government claimed would be provided for the unemployed. In practical terms, jobs are better created through production that is sustainable.
Although the celebration is over, having made planners of the event and their collaborators richer in hundreds of millions of naira; the ordinary Nigerians are left to become poorer. The irrelevance of centenary to the probable solutions needed to alleviate the basic challenges confronting Nigerians makes the celebration a waste of huge resources. The celebration actually lacked any concrete benefits for the ordinary citizen. How could a common man on the street of Nigeria be said to have benefitted from the event when he was not even adequately informed of what the celebration was about? From the centenary activities that took place in Abuja, it was obvious that President Jonathan and not Nigerians was the celebrant.
The traffic gridlock created in the Central Area of Abuja down to the National Stadium on Thursday February 27, 2014 from which commuters suffered long hours of hold-up showed how insensitive the organizers of the centenary celebration were; depicting the extent to which the current ruling class of Nigerian elite alienate citizens from the crucial question of good governance. In other places, alternative routes were usually mapped out for ease of movement on such occasions. Here in Nigeria, nobody cares!
I found the painting in national colours (green-white-green) of the reinforced long concrete blocks along Zuba-Madalla highway as ridiculous of Jonathan and his administration. What has the painting of a structure that is partly broken and generally defaced got to do with centenary celebration for Allah’s sake? It is simply a waste of the country’s resources that could have been used to reduce poverty and unemployment. A leader who allows this is better described as Nigeria’s worst enemy. Since ‘hired-crowd’ is one of the major hall marks of Jonathan’s administration, it was not surprising that civil servants on GL 12 and above working under the FCTA were officially asked to report at the National Stadium to, of course, cheer Mr. President. What an irony!
Government actions and inactions portray Jonathan as a leader disconnected from the living conditions of Nigerians. If he claims to be in touch, then his actions could be termed deliberate; which also depicts him as the worst enemy of a developed and self-reliant Nigeria. Rather than embark on policies that would check wastages or leakages in government expenditure, President Jonathan is only empowering corruption by sacking public officers who exposed corrupt practices; thereby anointing those implicated in financial and economic crimes. Rather than think out initiatives that would bring about better healthcare delivery system, good roads, improved power supply, functional education system, and increased access to clean water; a national conference was instead imposed on Nigerians.
The Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, couldn’t have been more apt in his remarks about the N7billion earmarked for the proposed National Conference; describing it as a waste of resources; insisting also that the exercise would not result in any fundamental difference in the prevailing conditions in the country. Bishop Kukah, who was the Secretary of the National Reform Conference in 2005, described the planned National Conference as another forum for political noise-making.
I cannot agree more with Bishop Kukah because the solutions to the critical challenges confronting Nigeria do not actually lie in any national conference. Is it the conference, if we may ask, that will provide Nigerians with stable electricity supply or good roads? Is it the noise-making at the national conference that will reduce the very alarming rate of poverty and unemployment? A leader who finds pleasure in diverting public attention from critical issues of peace, security, accountability and development is indeed the country’s worst enemy. May Allah (SWT) give Nigerians good leaders who would put the country first before themselves, their families or ethnic groups; amin.