SYMPTOMS OF A FAILED NATION-STATE

The symptoms of a failed Nation-State are quite evident in Nigeria. The Nigeria Airways Corporation died about 20 years ago. The Nigeria Railway Corporation is dead .The Nigeria National Shipping Line have had all its vessels seized abroad and so, is dead. The government or public universities are dead, what with entrenched quota system of admission based on differential cut off marks, giving rise to inequality, occultism, indiscipline, empty libraries and laboratories. The education system is obviously dead.

Electricity is worse. Public power supply has since given way to private generator cartel, crippling factories and supplying only black-out to the suffering masses. Public highways and major roads are in deplorable condition all the year round, making movement of people and goods a nightmare. Banks are there, not to grant credit and loans to hard working entrepreneurs, but to keep stolen money from public treasury. Nigeria ranks among the first ten oil producing countries in the world but to remain one of the poorest countries. Nigeria Port Authority is about the most inefficient in Africa, rotten by corruption and underhand practices. No general election has ever been free and fair since the military seized power, the worst being the 2007 general election that ushered in the administration of President Umaru(Turai) Yar’Adua.

Health-care delivery is a pipe dream as public hospitals have degenerated below consulting clinics into stinking morgues. Public libraries have no books and the National Archives has since stopped being the resipotary of important public records as if to completely erase history and reference.

AN ARMY OF OCCUPATION
National security is narrowed to the safety of the individual office holders. The armed forces are trained and given the orientation which makes them to see the civil populace as a threat to their own privileges. To all intents and purposes, they behave all the time as an army of occupation in an unfriendly territory. Like a colonial force, they are above the law and makes a show of it by brutalizing civilians, driving against traffic and disobeying every known law of the land. Someone said some time ago that Bakasssi was given to Cameroon not because the World Court says so, but because government was sure we cannot face Cameroon in a shooting war as we largely have a ceremonial army. But why then do Nigerian soldiers excel in peace keeping operations across Africa? Again, it is said that their motivation is the high allowances they get in hard currencies and the opportunity such operations offered in diamond deals and sundry looting.

Ati Zakki-Biam in Benue, Odi in Rivers (or is it Bayelsa State) and Ijaw in Delta, Bauchi and Maiduguri, the Nigeria Armed forces have demonstrated their prowess and speciality in suppressing brutally, every little dissent and genuine protest. Referring to the suppression in the West during ‘operation we tie‘ or the Tiv riot both of the First Republic is considered old-fashioned, but they represent the signpost of the nature and use of the Nigeria Army to kill and maim their own people for the comfort and safety of autocratic leaders. As coup detat specialists, they throw over and over-throw their own governments at will and when coup became unpopular, they help rig elections at polling stations in favour of their civilian counterparts- the mainstreamers. No wonder the Defense Industry Corporation specialize in producing furniture rather than military hardware.

PHYSICAL SECURITY-AN APOLOGY
Policing in the civilized world is first and foremast a local affair. It is about the physical security of the persons and the properties of the community. The duty and responsibility of the police is that of the local authority which is why the County council, the municipality and all tiers and levels of government maintain their police services. It was so in Nigeria from Independence in 1960 up to 1976 when the Generals Murtala Muhammed/ Obasanjo government foisted a central police force on the country.

The basic duty of the police is to prevent, detect, arrest and prosecute criminals and curtail their activities. The so-called Nigeria Police can hardly prevent the most petty of all crimes. They hardly know the terrain or territory they are posted for duty. They have no stake in the peace of the community since they are strangers there. Any financial provision made to equip the police is easily embezzled by their officers, thus the force either has obsolete or no equipment at all. Vehicles are hardly serviced and fueling is taken care of by motorists who are forced to pay a bribe-for merely passing the roads. There is hardly any difference between the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria armed robbers, because they are believed to exchange information, intelligence and weapons for their various operations. The hired assassin and the police are two sides of the same coin.

Which is why assassinations are so rampant and yet, never detected. No one is ever innocent with the Nigeria Police.The complainant and the accused are treated the same until one offers a bigger bribe-that determines who is really guilty or innocent. Corruption is the inspector general of the police in Nigeria.

ADMISSION OF A FAILED STATE
Alh. Balarabe Musa, Second Republic governor of old Kaduna State has asserted that Nigeria is a failed State.

In an interview with the Punch Newspaper published on November 20,2009, Alh. Musa said that every aspect of the country’s national life was negative, adding that “America will not allow the situation in Somalia to happen because it will be at their own expense”, and this is because “Nigeria is very strategic in many respects, in Africa and even in the world in terms of the size of the population, the size of the geographical area, the endowment in the country’s natural resources, in particular the oil and gas.” However , Alh. Balarabe Musa blamed the social economic system for the woes of the county. Said he:”We have a social economic system controlling all developments in Nigeria, which is based on narrow self interest. It is this system that is directly responsible for the disabling level of corruption, stealing and waste of public resources.”

“It is this system that is responsible for the fact that we have thieves running the affairs of this country. The only thing we can do to change the negative state of the Nation for good is to change the social economic system.” Well said! But is the social economic system the main cause of corruption in Nigeria?

In assessing the state of the nation at the 49th Independence anniversary, a retired civil servant, Alh. Muhammadu Uba Adamu in a press interview also asserted that public servants of this generation are thieves. Said he: “The southerners, in terms of patriotism are far better than the northerners because, when the Southerners steel money from the public funds, they go back to their communities and invest it so that their people will benefit but here in the North, when they steal the money, they would buy cars, continue marrying, build houses, go to Mecca for Hajj and the lesser Hajj every year hopping that he will die there. “ Thus, there is a general perception that corruption is endemic in public service, the difference being in the use to which stolen funds are appropriated. While one blame the social economic system, the other blame selfishness for corruption.

Isn’t there a cause, a root-cause for this corruption? Corruption appears to be a fall-out and one of the several symptoms of a wrong geopolitical structure and administrative system foisted on the country. What of the administrators who arrogated to themselves the sole knowledge of what political administration is all about? Now let us allow Alh. Muhammadu Uba Adamu answer a fundamental question: why did the Europeans choose to hand over power to Northerners? “Because they were the people who were groomed in administration for decades. They had been in administration before the British came, and when the British came, they saw the organization of government, they compared their running of government with that of Northern Nigeria and they found that the only difference was the integration or development of democracy and that was the only difference but all the rest were the same, the ability and everything.”

And from Independence in 1960, there had been 13 Heads of State or government out of which 9 had been Northerners! Out of 50 years of independence, Northerners ruled for 38 years. All these meant that if we are to accept the assertion of Alh. Adamu, the administration of the country has been in the hands of naturally talented and experienced people all this while. If so, then why the rot? Why has the nation failed or failing?

If blame is to be apportioned as to the failure of Nigeria, who takes the lion share? Even before answer is sought to this question, it is necessary that another question be posed and who will answer this question but Alh. Muhammadu Uba Adamu. The question? “But southerners then saw themselves as the most educated?.” “Well, education is a big name. When you talk about education, people will look at you as an enlightened person but if you go through its meaning, especially its practical application you will see the difference. Someone may go to school and get a certificate, he is educated but when it comes to test where he will apply what he has learnt, you will see the difference. That is why we have difference between the academics and intellectuals. The academic person is the person who, when taught, can even swallow, he may able to memorize Shakespeare and when he is blowing English, one might think he was not only taught but he even know Shakespeare practically, but he cannot use that knowledge to manage situation in terms of planning, execution, and especially in ability to propose how to solve a problem; because he is not an intellectual and that is why these people (the northerners) have wide horizon because they learnt from their parents, heard from their ancestors and travelled wide, unlike the southerners. So how can you measure the experience of such people that are widely travelled with the ones limited to their immediate environment? The northerners had about 1000 years administrative and political experience ahead of the southerners, so how can you even compare them?” Sunday Trust, Sept.27, 2009 pages 11 & 12. Based on the above claims, who then should be blamed for incompetence, maladministration, ineptitude-all of which have brought Nigeria to her knees? If it took 38 years to ruin a country by people with 1000 years experience in administration and it took some others only 12 years to do the same , who is more experienced?

Without much ado, Alh. Muhammadu Uba Adamu’s claims could be dismissed as baseless and of little value. Why? Because if after ten centuries of administrative experience , Northerners have failed to turn the North into an earlier or later Dubai, Doha or Riyad, then Alh.Adamu stands accused of making false claims. When the views of the two elder statesmen are taken and viewed dispassionately, what emerges as the main reason for Nigeria’s stagnation, corruption and near collapse is the absence of oneness, the prevalence of mutual distrust and the apparent hostilities or hatred between the so-called Northerners and the so-called Southerners. In fact, describing the people or any people with geographical tag alone is a sign of deep seated dichotomy that appears to be beyond redemption. With such rooted animosity, there can be no unity which is needed in managing common needs and services, and when forced to unite they do so for the wrong reason: to steal from the public purse for personal or selfish purpose!

In summary, if everyone is not paying lip service to Nigeria’s development, and if we have wasted 1000 years experience in public administration, is it not time to start all over again? This time, the best option is to allow the North run its affairs and the South run its affairs – all by themselves , except for common services. The North and South here is a cover-up for hundreds of ethnic nationalities many of which can exist as independent countries, but which needs only self determination or self rule within the confines of Nigeria. Can’t Nigeria be saved from collapse through geo-political and ethnic restructuring? No one was born a Northerner or Southerner, but people were born into ethnic groups with specific name identification. Why bury these names under the phony tags of Northerner or Southerners? Is it to cheat or to save some from themselves? Who is saving who, and who saves the Saviour? Who is cheating who and where are the gains of the cheat? Whatever is done for 1000 years without profit to anyone must be jettisoned for another way, method or means of doing things- by living beings!