May 30, 2016

Nigeria, a Heavy Burden for One Man, II



As said in part one of this write up the Nigerian rot has become deeply entrenched due many years of its being and has become a culture. In order words, illegalities have gone unchecked for so long that they have lost their semblance of illegality. There are so many persons reaping bountifully from the filthy practice and have constituted themselves into cabals to ensure they fight anything that tries to stop them from enjoying what has made them first class citizens over the decades; what has helped them to ensure their children are born in Western hospitals thereby guaranteeing citizenship of those nations for the newborns, what has helped them to raise those kids in those nations so that when they return there is really nothing Nigerians about them. This, to me, is the highest point of treason.

The first visible cabal is the Nigerian Senate. Today, the Senate has proved that whatever is spent so sustain it actually goes down the drain. It has failed in its role of checking the excesses of the Executive. As a matter of fact they go hand-in-hand with the most notorious executive and sabotage the aims of a popular executive.
The cabal (in Nigeria) are people who have defrauded the nation so  much or have so much political power that they have become nations in themselves, deploying such wealth or powers to fight anybody who tries to take what they have acquired or what they wish to acquire. 

The Senate, as everyone knows, has the constitutional responsibility of legislating for the purpose of ensuring the prosperity of the nation. The Buhari administration came at a time when oil revenues (the backbone of the Nigerian economy) are the worst in so many decades. There is the need to embark on austerity measures but the Senators of the Federal Republic insisted on the purchase of 108 official SUV Toyota vehicles at the rate of about N 36 million each. To add insult to injury, this price is actually two times the actual price.

The governors of the 36 states are also among the powers in the country that have chosen to abuse political power against people who stood in the full glare of the sun to vote them. Currently, it is said that 26 of the 36 governors owe unpaid salaries, the least of which is four months. This is despite the bailout given the states by the Buhari administration to settle inherited salary arrears.  Some governors claim the crashing oil revenues are responsible for the accumulation. In the last four years of the Jonathan administration there weren’t enough issues bordering on poor oil revenues as to warrant the accumulation of the salaries. This lends credence to the general truth that this habit of holding back salaries is a tradition of the Nigeria governors which often the result of fraudulently managed reserves. 

While the governors point fingers at dwindling revenues as the cause of their inability to pay salaries, the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, a former labor leader, on 2016 Workers’ Day, announced a increase of the minimum wage in his state by 39%. This is despite the fact that Edo State is one of the poorest in the Niger Delta. What about wealthier states like Lagos, Kano, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Delta, etc? 

States in Nigeria are places where corruption is conceived and bred at an alarming rate. A larger number of the governors come from the All Progressive Party, APC, which is a coalition of political parties that brought Mr. President to power. It is expected that they should have a common ideology and, hence, should be seen replicating the ideology of Mr. President. Sadly, there is hardly any meaningful anticorruption at the state tiers of the government. Could it be that corruption is nonexistent at the states? I don’t think so, and a lot of Nigerians will agree with me. 

It was obvious to politicians with the intention of becoming governors that the bus conveying Mr. President seemed strong, with the promise of taking the presidential aspirant to his political destination, beyond all doubts. They took advantage of the opportunity, despite knowing that their intending for the country and that of the presidential aspirant are divergent. The governors are expected to share the burden of the nation with Mr. President as he alone would not be able to carry it most favorably.

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