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Book Excoriates Nigerian Leaders
By Yomi Gidado* Posted Sat Dec 17,2011
A new book, Time to Reclaim Nigeria, presented to the public
Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria, has blamed corruption and
ineffective leadership for the woes of Africa’s most populous
nation.
Nigeria produces about three million barrels of oil a day, yet
majority of its citizens live on about a dollar a day.
Functional public infrastructure across the country remains a
major issue with wealthy and not-so-wealthy citizens sending
their children to schools overseas, including to Ghana, a
country which was the butt of joke for many Nigerians years ago.
Public officers, including successive presidents and state
governors seeking
medical care overseas is a common phenomenon.
The book, a collection of essays written in the last ten years
by Chido Onumah, a Nigerian journalist and rights activist, was
presented to a gathering of civil society and political
activists, students, academics, and labour leaders. The book
notes that corruption remains the bane of the Nigerian society.
Just last week, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, attributed the country’s high overhead to the
presence of ghost workers on the Federal Government’s payroll.
She noted that the police pension scheme alone was paying over
N1 billion ($6.6 million) to ghost pensioners yearly. This is
just a window into the monumental graft in the country.
The book, published by the African Centre for Media &
Information Literacy, showcases incidences of alleged
impropriety by top government officials. One particular case
fingers President Goodluck Jonathan, the Attorney General of the
Federation, Mohammed Adoke, and the Governor of the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in a land buy back scam
in which the CBN
paid almost N20 billion ($133 million) for a piece of land,
originally owned by a government agency, NITEL, to build “a
world class conference centre.
The book lampoons the transformation agenda of President
Jonathan. It argues forcefully that the government’s
anti-corruption posturing is meaningless and that the president
can’t be trusted considering that he has refused to declare his
assets, a constitutional requirement for public officers.
The book presentation was an opportunity to draw attention to
the parlous state of the Nigerian economy and reiterate the
vehement opposition to the government’s plan to remove subsidy
on petrol products planned for January 2012. Nigeria is a major
oil producer. Even though the country has four refineries, it
exports crude oil and imports finished petroleum products. The
consensus of speakers at the event
which included Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former chairman of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Buba Galadima,
National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC),
Dr. Hussaini Abdu, country director, Nigeria of ActionAid, Denja
Yakub, representative of comrade Owei Lakemfa, general secretary
of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Idiat Babalola, representative
of the Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, and Dr. S.I.J.
Onwusonye, representative of Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie,
president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU),
was that the government should invest on making the country’s
refineries functional to forestall the importation of petroleum
products on which hinges the issue of subsidy.
The book presenter, governor of Nasarawa State, Umaru
Tanko-Almakura, who was represented by Professor Muhammad
Mainoma, the commissioner for finance, said the book was a
welcome development. “No matter the time, no matter the
circumstance, books are essentials, Gov. Tanko-Almakura noted.
“Nigeria of today requires books more than ever before,
particularly a book like this that attempts to establish the
core principles that we need to return to. Our children and
grand children must see documentary evidence that our current
state is not desirable and that we should rise as a people to
reclaim our ideal Nigeria.”
Onumah’s book comes at a time civil society, labour, students,
and university lecturers are poised for a showdown with the
Jonathan administration over insecurity in Nigeria and planned
increase of petroleum prices. Analysts are calling it the tonic
civil society needs to engage the government. Time to Reclaim
Nigeria talks about the inept leadership that has unleashed
untold hardship on Nigerians since the return to democratic rule
in 1999. It shows how Nigeria has been largely mismanaged by a
bankrupt and unpatriotic politico-military parasitic class.
Two instructive lessons emerged from the book presentation: the
first lesson speaks to the character of Nigerians who only
attend public forum that enjoys the support of the President or
state officials, and the second lesson also speaks to the
character of civil society that hardly makes use of public space
to speak to or on issues that affect the country, especially at
a time when the government has taken a conscious decision to
embark on anti-people policies.
The lesson to learn from Chido Onumah’s book presentation is
that the rentier nature of the Nigerian state presents a
critical and daunting challenge to alternative voices to be
heard. Even the media coverage of the important issues that were
discussed at the book presentation got a poor coverage from both
the print and the electronic media at a point in time the media
ought to have used such forum to impress on the government that
its policies are not going down well with Nigerians.
There is no doubt
that if Nigeria is to be rescued from the forces that represent
external interest and promote their selfish interest,
progressive forces really need to be back to the trenches.
*Yomi Gidado is Director of Research of the African Centre for
Media & Information Literacy
Related:
FG must respect States –Gov
Aregbesola’s speech at the presentation of Chido Onuma’s
book
A Chronicle And A Clarion Call - A
Review Of Time To Reclaim Nigeria By Abdul Mahmud
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
COK.2”
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