NIGERIA’S leadership failure came forcefully to the fore again this month when the 2013 edition of the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance delivered another damning verdict on the state of governance on the continent. No African leader – Nigerian inclusive – was adjudged worthy of winning this year’s Mo Ibrahim Excellence in Government Prize. This is the second year in a row that the $5 million leadership prize has gone unclaimed because of poor performance by the continent’s leaders. This verdict should make the incumbent Nigerian leader do a serious reassessment of his tenure so far, as no Nigerian has claimed the honour since it started 10 years ago. Although the IIAG said, “Nigeria’s overall governance score has improved since 2000,” of more serious concern is the organisation’s submission that the country’s “ranking has fallen by eight places.” This means that out of 52 countries rated in Africa, Nigeria dropped to the 41st position in terms of human rights, and rule of law, among other indices. For a country with rich human and natural resources, this is unjustifiable. With a poverty rate of 62.6 per cent (World Bank 2012 report) in a population estimated at 160 million, it is not surprising that Nigeria’s leaders have failed the stern assessment provided by the IIAG. Add the fact that Nigeria has one of the highest global infant and maternal mortality rates, and the highest out-of-school children in the world, put at 10.5 million, the picture becomes clear why Nigeria is in such dire straits. More than ever before, the leadership has become degenerate and deficient in all areas. The happiness of society, the second President of the United States, John Adams, once said, is the end of government. Though our Constitution states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government,” governance in Nigeria is defined by public corruption and inept leadership. A glaring example of the corrupt leadership bogging down Nigeria is Stella Oduah, the incumbent Aviation Minister. It was recently discovered that she has two bulletproof BMW cars for official uses purchased at the cost of $1.6 million (about N255 million). This is coming at a time public university lecturers have been on strike nationwide for four months over a pay and funding dispute. The other statistics on the performance in health, the economy and security are equally depressing. Corruption is getting worse. According to Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog, Nigeria ranked 139 out of 176 countries in its 2012 Corruption Perception Index. Although it was discovered that oil marketers stole about N2 trillion of subsidy funds in 2011 alone, nobody has been successfully brought to book almost two years after the discovery. While the political class luxuriates in Abuja, Nigeria’s unemployment situation has become worrisome. The latest figure from the National Bureau of Statistics puts unemployment at 23.9 per cent, while it is as high as 50 per cent among the youths who graduate from various educational institutions with no hopes of getting employed for years on end. The country lacks viable institutions: the Presidency and the National Assembly are shamelessly inefficient, corrupt and obscenely overpaid. The same trend is fast creeping into the judiciary. In spite of the huge resources flowing into the national treasury (the Federal Government expects over N11.34 trillion in revenues in 2013), the current leaders have not shown that they can deliver on their promise to make the country work. Elections have been shambolic at best. This dysfunctional process ends up producing inept administrators, who look only after their own pockets. This in turn has made Nigeria’s rich diversity in nationalities and cultures to promote disunity. With Boko Haram militants killing innocent people senselessly in the North in the name of religion, and kidnappers and other felons wreaking similar havoc on oil interests in the Niger Delta and in other Southern states, the signs point to an imminent conflagration. As the Fund for Peace, an NGO, reported, Nigeria is worse than Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Zimbabwe, and is the 14th nation most likely to fail out of 177 countries ranked in the 2012 Failed States Index. With a defining general election imminent in 2015, the warning by a United States think tank that Nigeria could break up that year cannot be far wide of the mark. Though political leaders are supposed to enhance development, in Nigeria they have become inordinately selfish. To correct the anomalies in the system, the political class has to reorder its priorities. Corruption must be tamed; and must be seen to be tamed. All those suspected of fraud must be properly prosecuted and punished. The government must also be accountable, cutting down on recurrent expenditure that stands unjustifiably at about 70 per cent of the national budget. The government must build infrastructure that directly improve on the conditions of living, while making sure that agriculture, which can reduce unemployment significantly, is given a special focus. But more than all this, the Nigerian people have a great role to play by holding the political class accountable. The people must jettison their docile attitude to governance. This is what the political class is exploiting to perpetuate corrupt practices. The people must queue behind the civil society groups in pressurising government and demanding performance and accountability from public office holders.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 07:49:03 +0000
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