Obasanjo and the illusion of democracy
Unfortunately, but surprisingly, his beautiful inaugural speech and subsequent national budgets by his administration were mere empty promises. By the time he left office in May 2007, Nigeria was not remarkably better than what he met in 1999. In fact, the previous military regimes, especially General Abacha’s performed much better through the Petroleum Trust Fund […]
Unfortunately, but surprisingly, his beautiful inaugural speech and subsequent national budgets by his administration were mere empty promises. By the time he left office in May 2007, Nigeria was not remarkably better than what he met in 1999. In fact, the previous military regimes, especially General Abacha’s performed much better through the Petroleum Trust Fund Intervention Agency.
Rather than achieving his so-called 10,000 megawatts power generation, the Obasanjo administration left office without attaining even 4,000 megawatts. He set two targets in this regard but none was achieved. Instead, corruption and greed were the main notorious features of the so-called power contracts. With Obasanjo’s unenviable record of epic non-performance, despite huge resources, Nigerians are now openly expressing disgust at how bad leadership has given democracy unfashionable name.
In a recent interview with the press in Lagos, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the defunct Triax Airline, Chief Arthur Eze, described the late General Sani Abacha administration as the best Nigeria ever had. According to him, most of the roads Nigerians are enjoying today were the outcome of General Abacha’s aggressive efforts to improve national infrastructure through the former PTF, which former President Obasanjo destroyed out of sheer malice without providing viable alternatives of his own to development. He went on record as saying that he was ashamed of the condition of roads. And with such admission, many Nigerians wondered why Obasanjo went ahead to seek a second term. His second term ambition was not better than his awful performance during his first term.
Chief Eze regretted that, rather than working selflessly and honestly, the politicians of today are “busy sharing money while the people are dying”. He recalled that for the past 10 years of democracy, the Enugu/Onitsha expressway could not be rehabilitated by the so-called government of the people. In fact, millions of Nigerians share similar sentiments with Chief Eze but don’t have the medium to express those strong feeling of revulsion against the massive failures of our so-called political leaders. For example while the National Assembly budgeted 115 billion for itself in 2009, about 80 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, earning less than one dollar a day. But this figure is an understatement in the context of every day realities.
Chief Eze was particularly disturbed by the fact that corruption has sunk deeper into contract awards under our so-called democracy during Obasanjo and even after. This was a sharp contrast to the case with the former PTF where transparency was the watchword. Close monitoring of the projects executed and rigid insistence on standard had made the PTF achieve better quality and greater results. According to record, the former PTF was given N30 billion throughout its existence but achieved more results than the Federal Ministry of Works under Obasanjo which in 2001 was allocated N350 billion but has nothing to show for it.
No matter how Abacha’s opponents hate the late military ruler, nobody can honestly dispute the enviable record he had set towards the improvement of national infrastructure. In fact, the failure of the present Yar’adua administration to meet the December, 2009 6,000 megawatts power generation target didn’t come as a surprise.
Building on the ruins of Obasanjo’s failures is no easy task. Nobody has accounted for the five billion dollars the former Obasanjo administration purportedly spent on the controversial National Integrated Power Projects. Despite the fact that President Yar’adua is trying to salvage something out of a bad situation, the decay in national infrastructure gives no indication of going away any time soon.
Despite repeated efforts to vilify the memory of the late General Sani Abacha, his record of performance has become a constant reference point for Nigerians in making comparisons. The sorry state of our roads, hospitals, schools, electric power refineries and other components of national infrastructure is an indictment of the former Objasanjo administration, which left the country worse off in every aspect of development. The fact that Nigerians are now openly condemning the performance of their leaders under a democratic dispensation is a food for thought. Tellingly, when a military government’s performance record is perceived better than a civilian administration under Obasanjo, then our leaders must do a soul searching. Democracy will mean nothing if leaders are alienated from the people because of non-performance and their inability to identify with the aspirations of the voters. Strangely, however, the same Obasanjo is today desperate to remain relevant despite exhausting his good will and squandering national resources without good results to justify the expenditure.
Comrade Obinna writes from B16, Blantyre Street, Wuse II, Abuja