Senator Nwaebonyi’s controversial motion and Nigeria’s political philosophy

Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi has hit the limelight twice within the year. On both occasions, he didn’t cover himself in glory. A few months ago, he publicly verbally assaulted a distinguished Nigerian, Obi Ezekwesili, in an incident that left a bitter taste in the mouth. Today, Nwaebonyi is in the news for moving a badly thought-out […]

Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi has hit the limelight twice within the year. On both occasions, he didn’t cover himself in glory. A few months ago, he publicly verbally assaulted a distinguished Nigerian, Obi Ezekwesili, in an incident that left a bitter taste in the mouth. Today, Nwaebonyi is in the news for moving a badly thought-out motion in the Senate demanding the relocation of some indigenous communities around the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, because he considers them an “eyesore”.

Nwaebonyi argued that the communities, being one of the first sights visitors flying into Nigeria’s capital see, do not “represent a good image of Nigeria.”

Incidentally, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, was quick to shut down this motion and remind the Ebonyi senator that those settlements are the ancestral villages of the people whose lands were taken away to make Nigeria’s capital. Shutting down that motion is a commendable gesture from the Senate President. There is, however, more to be considered about this issue.

This is not the first time these communities have come under focus for the wrong reasons. In 2000, when US President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria, the federal government was so ashamed of the communities that it lined the expressway with shipping containers to keep the communities out of the fleeting view of Clinton’s convoy. Even though Clinton was ushered through a carefully curated visit to Ushafa village on the outskirts of the FCT, the conversation at the time was not about the village the government showcased but the ones it chose to hide.

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Nwaebonyi’s discarded motion itself spotlights a major problem—the systemic preference to hide away problems instead of addressing them. Nwaebonyi did not see it that way, as he believes that his motion was an “important bill that will transform the country.”

Nigeria sure needs a major transformation, and God knows these slums need it as well. What is in greater need of transformation, though, is the life of the people in the country. What the long-exploited FCT indigenes have required are the provision of basic amenities and employment opportunities. They need good schools and quality education that can help them take economic advantage of their proximity to the airport. With these human capital assets, they can better shape their lives and communities.

Relocating such communities would not transform their lives but would only move their poverty and governmental neglect out of sight, just as we did when we hid them behind those containers when Clinton came.

In most cases, visitors to the FCT who fly in through the airport often have no business with these communities. For them, those communities are a transient distraction—a collection of roofs in the dust beneath them as they fly into the capital, one that they quickly forget about as they drive into the fancy parts of Abuja. And it would seem that this is also true for the government, which only remembers they exist when officials like Nwaebonyi feel irritated enough to voice their displeasure at the sight of them.

What stands out for me, though, is that Nwaebonyi does not call for an improvement in the lives and living conditions of these people but rather for swatting them away for better-looking people and infrastructure. This kind of thinking, coming from a young senator who is only 43 years old, is very unsettling because it indicates that the new generation of politicians he represents is coming with a flawed approach to development.

With time, there is hope that we can grow and learn the lessons of history and from the experiences of other countries. In the 1970s, South Korea was emerging from the ruins of the Korean War. Without natural resources to trade off, the Koreans relied on foreign aid that poured into the country and decided to impact the lives of its people by transforming the infrastructure.

The government did not relocate its people but transformed their villages, built better housing, provided roads, hospitals, schools, and made it possible for the people to establish businesses and grow financially. That country is one of the most developed in the world today, while Nigeria focuses on hiding our “eyesores” and not actually solving the problems. Perhaps Nwaebonyi needs to be reminded that the real eyesore is not the indigent indigenous people scraping a living in their small slums, but the impressions that our government agencies and public employees give the country.

The cultivated culture of chaos that we have engendered at the airports should be more concerning to us if we are serious about the image of the country that we portray. In all my travels, it is only in Nigeria that customs and immigration officials have made it a habit to solicit from passengers. That anything-for-the-boys attitude has become so endemic that some officials feel entitled to demand and receive gratification. Once, when I was traveling abroad, after having checked in, cleared the immigration desk, and was heading to the airplane, an immigration officer popped up suddenly and asked to see my passport. He asked me what I was going to do at my destination and promptly lost interest in the answer.

“What do you have for me?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

He shoved my passport under his desk and said, “When you are serious, you will do something.”

I blatantly refused to be extorted. Realising I wasn’t going to budge, he grudgingly handed back my passport, grumbling all the time like a petulant child. This entitlement to gratification from travellers has become so pervasive that it is the first thing foreigners arriving in Nigeria are accosted with. It is so bad that even using public restrooms at the airports, one is confronted by cleaners who hold on to tissue papers and hand soaps and offer them up with expectations of some “compensation” from the user. When you make it past this, you have to rent a trolley for your luggage. I have never seen that anywhere else in the world where trolleys are available in abundance for the use of travellers. In this country, you have to pay, and then pay the attendants who insist on helping you retrieve your luggage and push it for you. Travellers who refuse this bizarre service have to contend with these hustlers for their luggage at the crowded carousels, in scenes that are reminiscent of flea market shuffles rather than the international airports of serious countries. We can’t be concerned about the first impression we make on people when we run our airports like chaotic bus stations, where touts have a field day.

Both Nigerians and foreigners have been complaining about this culture. Influencers are making videos about it. Yet how this is not considered an eyesore damaging the image of the country enough that we want to focus on people living their lives in their ancestral villages, where the airport came to meet them, is baffling.

The respect any country has is not determined by the size and types of houses that neighbour its airports, or the eye service that we want to put up, but by the actual quality of lives that people live and the culture of hospitality—not the entitled extortion that greets you at your first point of contact with the country.

Senator Nwaebonyi’s zeal to transform the country is good, but his approach is clearly misguided. We don’t solve any problem by hiding away our blemishes, our failure to care for our people, and their consequent poverty, but by actually addressing them. Governance by relocation should not be a political ideology to be championed by a young senator with his political life ahead of him. We know what needs fixing. It is not the poor people but the poverty in the land.