What is the cost of Nigeria’s uncommon transformation?

Perhaps that explains why he always advertises his work with the title “uncommon transformation”.  Looking back to the works of a visionary leader like Obafemi Awolowo, who built the magnificent Liberty Stadium Ibadan as far back as 1960, can we earnestly describe any stadium thereafter as uncommon?  May be what makes the Akwa Ibom Stadium […]

Perhaps that explains why he always advertises his work with the title “uncommon transformation”.  Looking back to the works of a visionary leader like Obafemi Awolowo, who built the magnificent Liberty Stadium Ibadan as far back as 1960, can we earnestly describe any stadium thereafter as uncommon?  May be what makes the Akwa Ibom Stadium uncommon rests is the belief that in the part of the nation where it is located, the people were like Stone Age inhabitants before Akpabio. Painfully, no one has bothered to find out the cost of any of his acclaimed uncommon projects
The Akwa Ibom Stadium website suggests $96 million as the cost of the project meaning that the value of the stadium is a far cry from that of the over $400 million ‘Allianz Arena’ in Germany after which it was modelled. Could it be that Akpabio “judiciously” spent one quarter of what the Germans squandered on their stadium to build his? If so, then his qualifies as uncommon.
But is that grandiose stadium what the Ibom people desire at this point of their development?  If not, the uncommon transformer has failed to appreciate the difference between the needs and the wants of his people. Akwa Ibom leaders particularly the successors of Akpabio must go back to the old philosophy of the famous scholar, Abraham Maslow who argued that basic needs should first be met before higher needs. Akwa Ibom people will do better with food, clothing and shelter before stadium. They may not be able to speak out on the subject but they are not fools.
This point reminds me of an encounter I had many years back with some friends who at a social spot showed so much vehemence over a project introduced to their town by one of their leading stars in faraway Abuja. The bigman had used his office to influence the project- a teaching hospital to his provincial town. Luckily for him, it was during the military era; otherwise it would have been treated as an impeachable offence for which the Taraba State House of Assembly impeached their Deputy Governor.
The teaching hospital was unacceptable to the people because they understood that if they had had pipe borne water which they didn’t; recourse to any hospital would be little. Similarly, how to get to the stadium and watch star footballers and how to get back home is probably a more basic problem for Akwa Ibom people.  Spending what is needed to provide thousands of housing units for the people to prosecute the commissioning of the stadium is obviously a worse uncommon expenditure.
Other states are not better than Akwa Ibom when it comes to egoistic projects that have little to do with the people; it is just that other self-acclaimed transformers do not describe what everyone does as uncommon.  Many of our states squander millions of naira daily on frivolous projects.  Only a few days ago, some Osun opposition politicians accused their governor, Rauf Aregbesola of planning to spend as much as N700 million on his 2nd inauguration as governor of the state last Thursday.  Although the governor’s aides countered the allegation, we are free to believe it because those who made the allegation are known for doing same when the roles are reversed.  At the same time, such bogus expenditures are not new in Nigeria.
It would be recalled that before Governor Segun Mimiko decamped to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Ondo State branch of the party had accused him of spending over N1 billion for his second term inauguration. In a statement in Akure by the party’s Director of Publicity, Ayo Fadaka, the PDP questioned why such an amount was spent on such an event at a time when Mimiko’s election was still being challenged at the Election Petitions Tribunal.
The nation is not likely to hear any such negative remarks now that the Governor has returned to the PDP and no one including the fiery civil society groups and the media would follow-up on the subject. The truth however is that inauguration/commissioning activities in Nigeria are so elaborate that speculated expenditures on them may not be far from the truth. For example it was fun some three weeks ago when two of my friends questioned each other’s sincerity to one another.
The bone of contention was; who of the two had been more favoured? One had just returned from what the other regarded as a juicy assignment and had expected some gifts from the so called favoured one. The latter insisted that the allowance he got from the assignment was too meagre to be talked about. When the rest of us insisted on knowing the assignment, we gathered that the aggrieved friend was talking about a special committee to which his friend had been appointed- a committee set up to arrange the President’s declaration of intention to contest the 2015 election.
Our friend belonged to the medical sub-committee! Haba, did our ruling party envisage the need to attend to anyone what might faint during the declaration? Of course, there must have been several committees set up just to appease the crowd of supporters looking for a piece of the “uncommon” action.
Anyone who travels regularly like this writer must have observed a new trend in government expenditures on travels. Originally, it used to be several vehicles, plenty of fuel money and a quantum of night allowances. That has changed to air travels which have also changed to chartered flights. Somebody needs to tell us if they are all expenditures on uncommon projects and how much they amount to.