Those who hurt us are among us

Fola Ojo

Not one person we know can ascertain its veracity. None among millions who read the word as noised by the media around the world is cocksure of its verity. In April of this year, the US President, Donald J. Trump, and his Nigerian counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari, met for the first time in a lovey-dovey meeting in Washington DC. Trump publicly spoke loftily of Buhari and admirably about Nigeria. He referred to Nigeria and Nigerians as “beautiful”, promising a presidential visit to the country someday. This is the memorable image of the April meeting.

But a few days ago, it was pirouetted via the wheels of gossipy social media that Trump regretted ever meeting the man he glowingly spoke about to the world about four months ago. According to unconfirmed media reports, Trump referred to our President as ‘lifeless’, and he hopes never to meet him again. In different forms and versions, tub-thumpers of the President drew out their swords and swung hard in response at an imaginary hater of the man they love. They boxed and wrestled Trump’s shadows whose loose lips many times slide him into a deluge of unnecessary wrestling matches with those who feel offended by his shibboleth.  But, did the American President say those words? We don’t know, and I don’t care. I am, however, delighted that the President himself offered no response. After all, you are not whatever name anybody calls you; you are only what you answer to.

But what really does it matter if the US President or any world leader speaks ill of Nigeria’s leaders behind closed doors of their exclusive and seclusive chateau? Do foul words reduce Nigeria’s daily production of barrels of crude oil? Do they deplete our foreign reserves or increase our national debt?  Do toxic words destroy the new monorail projects or dwindle the megawatts gain in electricity supply? Do they return to thieves the seized billions of dollars in funny money purloined and assets illegally amassed by corrupt elements among us?

I am more bothered by the behaviours destroying the fabric of the nation and throwing us back into the stone age. In action and inaction, some Nigerians do more damage to Nigeria much more than a thousand toxic tongues of foreign leaders. As a people, our energies should be expended, and anger vented on endlessly crude ways that our elected officials have done government business for decades. Nigeria has one of the fastest growing economies in the world; the sixth largest producer of petroleum in the world; the eighth largest exporter; and the 10th largest proven reserves. There is enough wealth buried under the earth and in banks all around the world to go round the entire citizenry. Wealth is locked up in bitumen, gold, coal, diamond, and other mineral resources that ignorance has made us disregard.

A report by the International Poverty alleviation body, Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (otherwise known as OXFAM), noted that between 1960 and 2005, $20tn was stolen by Nigerian public office holders, and multinational companies received tax incentives of $2.9bn a year.  In another recent finding by BudgIT, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation claims it lost N111.42bn worth of crude oil and products in its custody between 2015 and 2017. This is separate from the N427bn it claims as financial losses incurred at its corporate headquarters alone, within the same period. Those who oppress the people are not from distant lands; those who hurt us are among us.

Nigeria’s democracy splurges N290m annually to succour up each member of our National Assembly. In the same country, 75 per cent of her population attempt to survive on about $1 per day. The one-day working wage of a Nigerian senator is more than the earning of a medical doctor who sacrificed in school for seven years or more. The senators’ daily remuneration will offset the salaries of 45 Army generals, and 48 university professors.  Illegal backdoor business is a priority to an average lawmaker; the nation’s development and progress is secondary.

The executive branch of our government also brings us hurt. The monthly executive Security Vote in Nigeria is a monthly allowance that is allocated states for the sole purpose of funding security services within such states.  In every annual budget, appropriation is readily and steadily made for the security arms of the law which includes the military, the DSS, army intelligence, and for the police intelligence, among others. Why then do we still set aside humongous amounts of money for security at the state level? This monthly maddening exercise is a foul freebie to guzzling and gobbling politicians, it’s a smooching smokescreen that regularly smokes out our hard earned commonwealth, and the only ‘legalised’ conduit of corruption I have ever seen in the whole world.

The idea of security vote was the brainchild of the military boys who needed to shield their juntas from insurrections. The illegality also gave soldiers in charge of governments the liberty to launder money and pillage the nation’s treasury at will. Heads of government collect billions from the treasury monthly and no human being can ask how the funds are expended. How can anyone be a custodian of the people’s money and yet remain unanswerable to the people and unaccountable for his deeds or misdeeds while he leads? Military dictatorship ended in 1999. And almost 20 years after, it is beyond anyone’s ken that none of the civilian administrations we’ve had to date has moved to make changes to the unwritten lawlessness. The government’s refusal to address these anomalies puts the nation’s progress in a bind.

From the security votes and sundry funds, state governors lavish billions of naira on bulletproof cars for themselves, deputies, and their wives? The number of bulletproof vehicles in the convoys of at least 16 state governors, their deputies and wives is close to 120! The average cost of one armoured vehicle is about N100m.  For example, 2018 Armoured Lexus LX 570 costs about $200,000 (about N70m). 2018 Armoured Toyota Prado costs about $150,00 (N52m). 2018 Armoured Toyota Land Cruiser about the same. An oil-producing South-South state governor who owes workers’ salaries up to 17 months has at least four armoured vehicles in his convoy. According to a few US experts, armoured vehicles needed in Nigeria adopt the T6 protection level because of the nature of the high-powered rifles used by criminals and vicious political opponents.

I am not bothered about what Trump or anybody else tongues loosely in their bedrooms; I am worried about Nigeria’s poverty rate pegged at 33.1 per cent by the World Bank which now classifies Nigeria as one of the five extremely poor nations of the world. My heart is troubled about the statistic of stagnation and retrogression that reports 61 per cent of the population live on less than $1 a day, and 92 per cent on less than $2 a day. That should be our worries; not what Trump said about anybody.

• Follow me on Twitter @folaojotweet

Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: theeditor@punchng.com