Nigeria: End of the road?

From then, Nigeria made tremendous amount of money from its sole commodity in trade, oil. Billions of United States Dollars accrued to the coffers of State but all stolen by those in positions of authority in close collusion with the parasitic business class. Serious Nigerians tried to rescue the country from these PDP vandals but […]

From then, Nigeria made tremendous amount of money from its sole commodity in trade, oil. Billions of United States Dollars accrued to the coffers of State but all stolen by those in positions of authority in close collusion with the parasitic business class.

Serious Nigerians tried to rescue the country from these PDP vandals but they couldn’t up till 2007 when a sham election was conducted and the late President Yar’adua was returned as elected even when he personally agreed that the process which brought him to power was flawed. He promised reforms in the electoral process, began but couldn’t live long to see it through though his vice president, Goodlcuk Jonathan, another major beneficiary of the nation’s fraud tried to conclude the process.

My point is that in the last twelve years, the major signal in Nigeria is poverty and backwardness. Corruption has been elevated to the highest level while public accountability is at its lowest ebb. This is why despite the huge income that the nation made, infrastructure such as electricity, schools hospitals and roads are in very bad shape. That is why wealthy citizens even go to hospitals in nearby Ghana and Benin Republic to treat simple ailments that our nation’s hospitals and laboratories are unable to diagnose.

Last week April 9th, National Assembly polls were taken and most if not all results are now released. The message is very clear, either the government in power has committed its traditional antics more sophisticatedly or that Nigerians are not yet tired of the serial failures of the PDP federal government and are ready to give it another 4-year mandate to keep doing its good works.

I feel and I see the agitation of Nigerians as far as the need for change is concerned but the result in the polls did not translate into that. The question to ask therefore is was the election truly a reflection of the views of the people or was it yet another cooked figures which is giving corruption and misrule another chance?

I do know certainly that people are under serious difficulties. Almost everything is not working in Nigeria today and if the record of last week is anything to go by, then Nigerians are warming up to give the PDP another chance to keep working for the next four years. May be after that if every other thing collapses in the country, those who will be living may begin the hectic task of serious national reconstruction.

I hope that by the time the party will run the next four years, Nigerians would place premium on important issues rather than trivialities as steps for election of representatives as leaders. As it seems now, anything but reason and rationality is informing our views and choices.

When Sule Lamido, the ‘flamboyant and rowdy talking’ governor of Jiagawa State, the poorest of the 36 states in Nigeria according to Prof. Charles Soludo and the CBN, referring to last week’s election said that the North has voted for unity against sectionalism, my simple response to that is no! The north didn’t vote for unity, they voted for corruption, insensitivity and stagnation and the vote further exposed the very negating situation of the region as the over 60% of the country’s voting force and why Jigawa will continue to remain the haven of poverty and backwardness in the country.

We were told and in fact we saw how many aspirants shared money to voters even as they queued to accredit and vote. We learnt of how state governors especially the one in Jigawa allocated hundreds of thousands to service polling stations apart from what the INEC staff and what those involved in the management of the election likely got.

Yet Gov. Lamido would face us and tell us the position of the North and why it behaved in a certain awkward way. I am ashamed of some of those who claim to be our representatives. They don’t represent us in the real sense of the word. They merely represent themselves and their selfish aspirations. No wonder Marx said, the position of the ruling class in every epoch is the ruling idea.

I want to suggest that if truly Nigerians would reelect the government of Goodluck Jonathan today, then we are doomed as a nation. The next four years will not only be hectic but insurmountable. I hope we will not wake up one day and find that there is no Nigeria because the level of decay in the system cannot be stopped or arrested by these men who are desperate on hanging on to power.

I know that if the governors will not rig the polls in the countryside as is the new strategy, then a president may not emerge after today’s vote. There may be run off. If the April 9th strategy is adopted however by our imperial majesties, then, forget it, our votes will have little or no meaning and the imposition will continue.

What this will translate to eventually is that the future is bleak. I sympathize with the younger ones. They are missing and they won’t have it as good. Beneficiaries of national benevolence have turned something else. The way to redrawing Nigeria is far off track and this is a pity.

Clearly the PDP government in Abuja in the last twelve years has failed. There is no better way to report them than this. The obvious challenges that we face as a people are ample evidences of this failure. It is a shame that they will do just anything to hold on to power. I believe that this heinous crime against humanity has a limit. The end may not be now but it will come definitely and we will keep the struggle going.