To Reclaim Nigeria
E aster, the Christian observance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ which falls on this day this year, is a joyous annual celebration among Nigerian Christians. Not this year, the coronavirus pandemic having delivered a government shutdown that has millions restricted to their homes. But there are lockdowns, and then there is the Nigerian lockdown, […]
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aster, the Christian observance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ which falls on this day this year, is a joyous annual celebration among Nigerian Christians.
Not this year, the coronavirus pandemic having delivered a government shutdown that has millions restricted to their homes.
But there are lockdowns, and then there is the Nigerian lockdown, slammed down in circumstances of no food, no electricity, and sometimes, no water.
It is not difficult to see why a lockdown was a necessity. It is a measure that quickly became the first response of many countries in the effort to keep the virus from spreading. The problem is that, slammed down in Nigeria’s vastly-crowded urban centres, it is quickly unveiling the social and economic rot of the past half-century.
It is also doing something else: it is advertising a poverty of governance that has lasted for too long.
A pandemic such as coronavirus is the worst fear of thinking governments with a grasp of democracy and workable structures. The United States is in trouble only because of the shallowness of motive and mission by its current leadership; its two preceding leaderships had been conscious of, and made structural preparations for, just such a development.
On the contrary, Nigeria last week unveiled just how hopeless the national situation is.
Boss Mustapha, who leads Nigeria’s Presidential Taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19, shamelessly lamented the state of the country’s health sector, declaring to the National Assembly a certain surprise as to just how sordid it is.
Anywhere else in the world, Mustapha would have been fired either for lying, for his ignorance, or for such a poor grasp of his full role.
Consider that in his day job, Mr. Mustapha serves as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), a role in which he sits on President Muhammadu Buhari’s right hand. Nobody in the country has more privileged access to every federal policy and document.
Even if he were a foreigner who was merely drafted into that seat, not having known anything about Nigeria before then, he would certainly have learned, and very quickly, that Nigeria has no health infrastructure. Powerful people go abroad.
He would have learned, and very quickly, that Nigeria budgets as cynically for health as it does for education, but also that when the nation budgets, that money goes into sharing, not spending.
He would have learned at close-up, for instance, and very quickly, that the State House Medical Centre next door—to which he and his family have access—is not for health. For that, powerful people go abroad.
Mustapha saw Buhari fly to London again and again to treat an “ear infection” rather than go to the SHMC but never thought that was odd?
Of course he lied! “I can tell you for sure, I never knew that our entire healthcare infrastructure was in the state in which it is. Until I was appointed to [lead the PTF].”
The SGF, in line with the existing template, then spoke of “plans,” presumably by the same administration, to lay a legacy foundation for the “immediate, medium and long-term development of the health system” in the country.
That was the fattest yarn of all, to which I will return in a moment.
First, notice how much twisting and turning members of the administration have resorted to in the past two weeks.
Finding a new excuse, the government said it had obtained a loan from the World Bank—again without going through the legislature—allegedly to advance new Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) payments to Nigeria’s poorest.
Sadiyat Farouq, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, who made sure she was seen on video somewhere in the Abuja area rowdily disbursing money to a few people, told the NASS her new Ministry has a “Social Register” to identify the beneficiaries.
In her money-sharing adventures, she claimed her ministry gave away N5 billion in just days, including in Abuja during the lockdown.
But she could not have been telling more than a fraction of the truth, as the CCT payments originated in the 2017 MoU between Nigeria and Switzerland at the Global Forum on Asset Recovery over using the $322.5m Abacha loot, with an additional 20% World Bank loan. Hopefully, Ms. Farouq’s social register is more reliable than her knowledge of the funds.
I am on record in December 2017 as advocating that the $322.5m, given what we had learned of these disappearing funds, be spent on “specific, identifiable” capital projects.
“If not, it will disappear, and within 15 months,” I predicted.
Such projects might have included a few decent hospitals. But there is none. In the end, all Nigerians are poorer.
And did you see the show of shame on television by Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika? Yes: the same man who made his stripes in the Buhari administration two years ago at a London airshow when he launched a fake Nigeria Air he said would commence operations within months!
Speaking as a member of the PTF last Tuesday, Sirika dispensed with niceties and spoke in Hausa! What lingua franca when you are in the heart of the presidency?
This is why Nigerians must do more than keep an eye on the long tales emanating from the government and focus on what they are doing.
SGF Mustapha is saying the right things, but the history of the administration warns he will not do them. It is a lazy, deceitful government.
What Nigerians must do is find ways to compel that change. Likely, the funds being made available for the pandemic response will go the same way as national and state budgets, repatriated Abacha loot, and our boatload of loans and grants.
Voters must assert themselves and force their representatives in the legislatures to do the will of the people, and to force change in the executive branch.
Beginning with the legislatures, all representatives must be made to understand that Nigerians will no longer be bribed to remain in poverty. They work for you!
As for people like Mustapha, they have allegiance only to those who appoint them. Their speeches are to buy time and goodwill.
Buhari was saying many good things for decades, perhaps hoping he would be found unelectable and never be elected. Perhaps hoping to be enshrined in history as the best president Nigeria never elected.
Even at his re-election just one year ago, he might still have escaped with some sliver of respect. The pandemic proves to Nigerians that the reality is worse than they had imagined.
If Nigeria is not to perish, Nigerians must undertake an adjustment of national attitude that is far more important than restructuring. We either put Nigeria ahead of individual or sectional interest or be buried by it.
This includes using public resources in the public interest and giving pre-eminence to expertise and ability.
It means accountability. Anyone not embarrassed by Buhari’s aversion to transparency has lost both vision and a sense of smell.
Hopefully, Nigeria will avoid the worst of COVID-19. And hopefully, we are not too squeamish about reclaiming our country.
[This column welcomes rebuttals from interested government officials].
@SonalaOlumhense