The country of Nigeria suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.
O
On 31 Aug 2013 22:03, <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com> wrote:
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From: OluwayomiATTE <david_atte@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 21:07:56 +0100
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Subject: Re: Professor Olukotun's column
NIGERIANS AND LEADERSHIP
Prof. Olukotun has done a great job in his piece. I am not commenting on it yet. I want to broaden the debate by adding other aspects when we look at the issue of leadership and their performance in Nigeria. A.lot of the time we concentrate on the leadership at governmental level. However, leadership seems problematic at all levels. Nigerians approach leadership in a very peculiar way. My submission for Nigeria is that the head is sick. But so is the body, and the feet. Many In academia do not really interact with the grassroots to know what is happening. I have been unable to graduate to the bourgeois class so I can talk about what happens at the 'ordinary' rung level of the society.
Look at leadership in a taxi driver's union in a motor park, or among traders in a market, or the union of carpenters, sellers of pepper, or operators of grinding machines in the market, timber dealers or even agberos in the garage .....ad Infinitum... In every case, the leadership is a dictatorship, it is corrupt and the positions are used for personal advantage. To get this advantage, there are wars in which many lose their lives, limbs or property. These "presidents" or "chairmen" are treated as demi-gods and greatly feared. Many use marabouts and witch doctors too to fight for and retain the posts. I have not done any direct research but I have no doubt that there are at least 10,000 of those associations and unions in EVERY part of the country even at village level. They become power blocks wherever they are. Politicians seek their support. in many cases they are the ones who go to political aspirants to introduce themselves, set their fee including materials needed (weapons inclusive in some cases, at times the weapon angle is introduced by the politician) and go to the field when they are settled.
Our Presidents, Ministers, Senators, Ho(dis)norable Members at Federal and State Houses, Commissioners, Executive Secretaries and Executive Directors of Agencies and Parastatals etc come from the society where this "concept" of leadership pervades even the the most remote communities. Any yet we expect them to behave differently when they get into office. How?
Have we asked ourselves this question? : Why have we not produced a good set of leaders since independence?. When we get a set of leaders, we judge them bad, condemn them and throw them away. We then get a new set from the same society and get the same result. We have repeated that cycle over and over since independence and everyone is frustrated. If the water in a pot is bad, it doesn't matter how many times you dip a cup into it the water in the cup will be bad. How many Nigerians will find themselves in a position to dip their hands in Government money without being caught who will say, 'this is wrong, I will not do it'. The answer is possibly less than a thousand out of a population of 150 million! In what we do, how many Nigerians ask the two questions: "Is this right? Is this fair?" Students, lecturers, petrol attendants, taxi drivers, traders, men, women, drivers (not just public transport drivers) etc etc do not ask these questions anymore. In a society where these questions are no longer asked as part of the value system, then morals are dead. Can such a society produce good leaders?
Take this experience I had on Friday 30 August. I sent my driver to buy something after which he was to drop a neighbour's Ward in town. He did but when he dropped the boy on top of Berger bridge in Abuja two men jumped into the car and demanded for the car keys. When he refused, the one who sat on the back seat held him by the neck while the one in front seized the car key. His offense? He was accused of using a private car for car hire. Nothing he said would persuade them that he was on an errand and was to drop the boy there. They asked him to pay N700 to register his car as a car hire car and pay N20,000 as fine for operating illegally. This outfit was no government outfit. They were private agberos or touts operating on a Federal Highway. When he refused to pay as he didn't have such money, they dragged him out of the driver's seat, bundled him into the back and pinned him down. They had called for reinforcement and were now four. They drove my car and driver to a plaza opposite Jabi Motor Park, held on to the key, registered the car in their logbook and asked him to go look for the money. Then he called me and in 30 minutes I was there to prove ownership of the car and that the man was running an errand. What I met there was an empire with a yorubaman wielding power as an Emperor, two of them were Ebira, one Igala (all three from my state). The four who did the arrest on the road were from the north and one was from Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State, the same with my Driver. Despite my full introduction, and proof of ownership of the car and responsibility that I sent my Driver, they said I must pay N15,500 since the case had got to their "Hq". Meanwhile there were seven other hapless people who had been "arrested" and had come to pay up in order to collect their vehicles. They paid anything from N8 - 15,000 while I waited. I witnessed a quarrel over the sharing of the money just paid. At last the man they called "Chairman" appeared. All of them jumped up and saluted vigorously. He now wanted to show me 'mercy' since he had listened to what I said and saw me as a 'big' man. He asked them to release my car key but I should first find something for the boys, like N5,000. He was emphatic that even if I reported to the police I would not get my car since the police gave them cover and share the money collected. I refused and told them if I didn't get my key in 5 minutes I would call in the army. That is what they listened to and released the car. All this took over one hour! The matter has been reported to appropriate authorities. I am waiting for action. I can confirm that this kind of band of 'local ' leaders operate in all the major towns of Nigeria.
To my mind, the big question is " How do we purify the water in this pot?" "Who will do it? I have given it a lot of thought. I have vowed personally to be different as my own contribution. Can we devise a way to help individuals make this decision. Majority of pastors and mallams cannot help us since they are simply using a different method to achieve the same thing as the other 'leaders'. Pray, what can we do?
Oluwayomi David Atte, PhD, MNIM, JP
Participatory Development Consult
Plot X2B, Patrick Fleuret Street
Sunnyvale Homes
Dakwo District
Abuja - Nigeria
Mob. 234 803 506 3846
234 807 650 4947
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Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.From: Tope Olaiya <estyyolly@yahoo.com>Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 04:12:50 -0700 (PDT)ReplyTo: Tope Olaiya <estyyolly@yahoo.com>Subject: Professor Olukotun's columnTHE STRANGE DEATH OF THE ANTI-CORRUPTION PROGRAMMEAyo Olukotun"The leadership we have pledged is decidedly transformative … we will fight corruption regardless of the position of the person involved". President Goodluck Jonathan, 2011A fortnight ago, the Guardian on Sunday did a report concerning a number of corruption cases involving former state officials which after an initial show of enthusiasm by state authorities have remained in the cooler for several years. Some of those involved are former federal ministers and former state governors. The report conveys and I believe accurately the impression that the wheels of justice grind extremely slowly, if they grind at all.Ordinarily, the infrastructure of human rights encompassing the right to fair hearing and adherence to the rule of law are meant to establish guilt as well as innocence and ensure that the guilty are brought to book. In Nigeria, however, due process has been turned into an obstacle course which ensures that the accused are never brought to justice except in those instances where current officeholders may for political reasons take an interest in the conviction of former high state officials accused of corruption. By the same token, the legislative houses frequently embark on investigations which proceedings stretch into several months. Almost invariably, there are no follow-ups to these; nobody is punished and business goes on as usual. Infact, the dizzying regularity of probes which come to naught have made some to wonder aloud whether the probes are little more than elaborate theatrical performances designed to amuse or titillate onlookers and perhaps convey the impression that something is being done about corruption.It is difficult however to laugh at these expensive diversions considering the havoc that corruption has wrought and continues to wrought on Nigeria's huge development potential. A recent article by Michael Burleigh widely circulated in the international media describes Nigeria as a country so corrupt that it will be better for Britain and presumably other western countries to burn its aid money or flush it down the toilet than to put it into the bottomless pit which the Nigerian political environment has become. Burleigh asserts that 80% of the country's revenues remain in the hands of the narrow political elite who recycle most of it into bank accounts in Channel Islands or Switzerland. Indeed, the lure for public office is fed by the desire to have a piece of the action in a country where legislators earn double the salaries of British members of parliaments.It should be noted that many cases of corruption are not documented but are recycled in often verifiable oral narratives. Recently, an international development expert told the story concerning how he labored for two years to secure a hefty grant for Nigeria's health sector only to abandon the effort because some Nigerian technocrats insisted that the only condition in which they would buy into the deal is for a substantial amount of the grant to be paid into their private accounts. Considering that such a recourse runs against the governance conditionalities of such facilities, the development expert a Nigerian employed by an international agency had to ruefully abandon the effort. Of course, even where demands for bribes or wholesale diversions of monies meant for development are not so blatant several other stratagems are deployed to deprive the public of the benefits of foreign aid or national resources earmarked for projects.To be sure, much of this is not fresh news in a country where before you can take in the latest shocking revelation of corruption; a more staggering one unfolds. For example, two weeks after the allegation published in one of our newspapers concerning a minister in the current cabinet who has drawn up a bill of two billion naira by travelling very expensively in chartered jets, no official action or even explanation has followed the widely publicized allegations. True, in Nigeria as elsewhere around the globe, allegations of corruption are employed as cudgels in political warfare. The only way to separate genuine allegations from fictional ones however is to speedily investigate them while maintaining the culture whereby public officials whose integrity has been badly called into question resign their offices in order to defend themselves rather than sit in judgment over their own trials. The impression that is being created is that anyone who is politically connected enough can get away with just about anything.Interestingly, each time that I have had occasion to draw attention to lacuna in the governance profile of the Jonathan government I get responses from a clutch of Jonathan's sympathizers reminding me that these problems have been with us since the birth of the Nigerian nation state. I find this argument specious, even dangerous to the extent that it seeks to rationalize if not justify serious anomalies some of which have made Nigeria the laughing stock of the world and turned it into a hell hole for its citizens. As the opening quote demonstrates, Jonathan's campaign manifesto as well as inauguration address promised striking departures both in the tempo of governance and in the war against corruption. We have a right as citizens to hold him up to the words and ideals which he espoused in order to win the last election and at the outset of his administration especially so in the context of his not fully declared intention to seek re-election. Sad to say that there is little proof of commitment at the highest level of government to rolling back the tide of corruption.Rather, in what would appear to be a backsliding, Jonathan on one occasion said something to the effect that most of what we call corruption are infact not corruption without making clear his own definition of corruption. He also went on to say that corruption is not our problem but the need for Nigerians to change our attitude, in effect, downgrading the fight against corruption in the national agenda. In the same connection and whatever the merits of the presidential pardon to former Bayelsa state governor Diepreye Alamieshegha who had been declared wanted in some powerful countries around the world, such actions send signals that there is no need for elected officials who are currently serving their term and for those seeking office to worry about corruption.The reason corruption had become pervasive and endemic is because no serious actions are taken against it. Nigeria, as several Asian countries discovered cannot attain greatness or perhaps even survive if corruption and criminality become in effect directive principles of state polity. It is not too late for this administration to reverse its current lukewarm posture to fighting corruption as pledged by President Jonathan and to begin the necessary task of rescuing Nigeria from the stranglehold of kleptocracy i.e. government by thieves.
Olukotun is Professor of Political Science and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies, Lead City University, Ibadan
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