As I sat down thinking of what to wear in attending a dinner tomorrow in honour of my beloved country, I was knocked over by a news item in the Punch Newspaper which read: 
“Sallah: Group berates N3m bonus for each Rep”
The news piece by one Bisi Olaniyi also claimed that the Senators were taking home 20 million and the Reps were taking home about 12 million naira monthly. If these claims are through, then I am utterly shocked at the impunity with which our elected officials are un-authoritatively allocating scarce resources to themselves as the epitomes of the wellbeing of their constituencies. You mean these things are happening under our very noses and no one is rising up to challenge the status quo? What is the basis for giving such largess to Assembly members? Are they all Muslims who require such motivations to celebrate the season as a prerequisite for acute judgment in dealing with the complex issues of the country? Or maybe the non-Muslims collected this as a symbol of one Nigeria: “what they get we get”? I mean can someone please tell me what is the justification for these monies transferring from public ownership to private pockets? Or can someone explain to me where these resources where taken from?

It seems to me that there is a deliberate conspiracy by leadership against the entire country. I say this because no where else in the world does this happen in a professed democracy. It may be condoned in a monarchy, since the king in that case is the sovereign, but even the Queen of England cannot call the House of Common and the House of Lords and show them her appreciation by doling out from the Royal treasury about 13,000 Pounds for each to celebrate Christmas with. Nigeria always seems to blaze the trail with dangerous traditions and precedence and we always seem to have an explanation for every brutal policy meted out against the Nigerian people. Someone indeed had identified this as a “Rogue Republic” and I differed on the basis that it was an extreme characterization of the Nigerian polity. But now I am already slanting the seesaw of my opinion in that direction because I cannot seem to understand how our leaders think.

How can leadership, in whatever capacity bold-facedly use public funds to rub the backs of our servants? Don’t we pay them salaries more than we pay ourselves? Don’t we already furnish them apartments in the capital city and give them cars and all kinds of allowances to ensure they focus on policy making? What else should we do as a people that we haven’t done already? When we sent them there, if at all we did, we looked forward to an assurance that our collective interests were being catered for and that they will prevail on leadership to open up opportunities for us and our children. So just like that almost a billion naira was spent securing the few days of Sallah holidays for these legislators? Does anyone know that that amount alone can successfully create a huge plantain plantation somewhere in the country that can secure our local consumption and expand the export frontiers for the product? I am really upset right now because a sensible mind would assess the situation in terms of the opportunity forgone to better the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Give me that money and I can get 10 health centers in 10 rural communities, or provide a 100 boreholes in the rural areas of Northern Nigeria, or build 5 Secondary and 5 Primary schools, or establish a good science laboratory for 10 schools, or………………

Now I am, beginning to see how revolutions starts in societies. If I can feel this way, I can begin to imagine how many more people are getting frustrated by the kind of men who lead us. The day that the streets are covered with people whose endurance has thinned out, then that day will be that of judgment; when everyone that has robbed us and conspired against our existence will be made to pay for what they have done. As we say in politics: “Time does not run against the state.” Even if they die, time will stand on our side and exhume their actions for appropriate measures. See what they do… see them frolicking around with wealth gathered by squeezing the sweat off the labouring man and then making them pay again to sustain his irresponsibility. They are bold to speak now, and are bold to splatter their flamboyance on the pages of glossy opulent magazines……. Let somebody warn them please. The monkey is not assured of retuning from the market square, thus it should find alternate routes to do so. 

Let me at this point give an advice to our legislators who may not have those they are accountable to. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew: “Leaders must have a sense of trusteeship that they are only temporarily in charge of the destinies of their people, and that their duty is not only to discharge that trust, but also to pass it on to equally trustworthy and competent hands.” They shouldn’t forget that our destinies are tied to their performance during their tenures. If they fail, we have have failed, and if they succeed we have succeeded. However, I am sure these men already know right from wrong, but something else guides them other than servant-hood. With time we will discover and know who the axe will fall upon.

As we celebrate a country at 48, I thought foolishness drops from the pocket of a forty year old. But it seems to me we still carry a couple of them; not in pockets this time, but within our national structures. As for this kind of foolishness…..we need badly A ‘ROD’ OF CORRECTION!!!

I am one of those who think the West has actually demonized Robert Mugabe. As one of Africa’s renown freedom fighters and opposer of colonial exploitation, I had his fury etched on my breastplate and registered with the fathers of the liberation movement. Whether we like it or not Mugabe will continue to remain in the hall of fame of those who gave Africa a voice when it was mostly oppressed.

But you know, if you don’t leave the stage when the ovation is loudest, you end up dancing to a strange song and the people cannot figure out the rhythm. Now our man is misbehaving so badly that he acts like a badly brought up child. In the face of blatant truth, this man is hijacking an entire nation for his personal agenda, while unwriting the beautiful history of The Struggle. Now a whole country is stranded because of a blind ambition and an evil desire that impoverishes his people the more.

Zimbabwe which once was a hub for the food industry is now begging for food. A land blessed with so much natural resource and human resource, is now wriggling in the wallows of a stifled hope and a bleak future. Who will deliver the nation from this man? Who will set free again a people that have enjoyed liberty and tasted of the satisfying wine of self reliance? I put it to you Robert Mugabe that you are a disgrace to the African personhood. You have lost your sense of value for the humans you claim to lead and you are blinded by you obsolete thoughts.

I have now come to the point where I am courting a military intervention in Zimbabwe to forestall a human catastrophe. If the CIA could assassinate Patrice Lumumba those days, then technology has made it even easier to, as we say in Nigeria, ‘kpafucate’ this man before the entire nation is plunged into the 16th century. All other African governments must prevail on him to step down and vanish from that country. Although Zimbabwe is a sovereign nation, what is this political concept in the face of a decimated population? Throw away sovereignty please and save lives at what ever expense.

Please can someone stop Robert Mugabe before he stops time in Zimbabwe?

Three issues first. First, a blog is meant to be a sort of precis of ones thoughts on any matter. I pratically always struggle to summarize my thought in such a way that people will be adequately informed of my position without any misconceptions. So I end up leaving much to say out of my discusson. But thankfully, others usually cover up such yawning gaps by their intelligent contributions to the discourse. Second, I usually feel incompetent to write on issues that I have not been an inside player. This is a valid stance because experience can not be traded for something else. Third, I hate being emotional in my discussions, because it numbs the senses and walks the path of darkness when seeking to address crucial points of human interests. However, despite these cautionary dispositions of mine, something does overrule them and behoves upon me the urgent responsibility to act or at least make my voice heard. Commonsense is what casts aside any inadequacies we feel about making a contribution in whatever capacity we can. It is out of this self same “uncommon” commonsense that I will try to highlight my arguments on the evil relationship between money and politics in the Nigerian context.

If indeed money answers all things, there is one thing it will always fail to buy, and that is credibility. The credibility of Nigerian politics has been absolutely mired by the role money plays. Not that money is evil in itself, but its use in the pursue of power has broken the fragile conscience of even the youngest breed of the Nigerian citizen. Prior to an era of wanton and reckless showmanship of mammonism, politics was about a good and revered name. I remember the Aikiwes, the Awolowos, the Eyo Itas, the Enahoros, the Margaret Ekpos, and those in their exclusive class. These men were not fabulously rich, but with a good name and an undying passion to deliver their people from the shackles of colonialism and imperialism they fought their way up, and cast a spell on the British oadministrators with their fine rhetoric and sound arguments. Oh that we should regain the virtues of these children of our land, when the even air produced an innocence that created a desire for mutual benefit accross the land.

But from the adventure of the military into our civility, we have only witnessed a gradual putrefaction of our patriotism and the seeds of corruption being sown in the soil of a strong emotional attachment to money. money became the only way men could secure their living and how to get this was the predominace of thought. The lives of mere men became stepping stones and ladders for devilish souls to climb to the ungodly heights of plucking public wealth while their commodious appetite became insatiable. Yes, in certainty, many were drawn into this fallen nature and the society suffered for it. A necessary trajectory which events took was the subsequent urgency for men to secure their territory, and political power was the only way people could afford to either enhance their aquisitions or protect their purchases from the malls of corruption.

Today, what we witness is the blatant hijacking of the Nigerian politics by self serving money bags, who wield their lilliputian intellect to swindle Nigerians of their right to decent living. They spray their ill-gotten wealth on the political terrain to lumber their way into political office and commit more offense against Nigeria. What can be done? Nothing. As long as INEC places a heavy price tag on those seeking public office, money will always mes the process up. As long as the regulation requires a huge monetary commitment by those who want to serve, our system will hardly be rid of dubious men. All that this has produced is more and more business politicians, who invest money to gain power and reap a harvest of funds for the public good. Did I hear someone just remind me of the concept of god-fatherism played out by Chris Uba and Dr. Ngige? That was the messiest evidence of politics of trade by barter going o in Nigeria. Chris Uba even had the effontery to declare war on the Ngige government because his monetary investments were being threatened. What insult on the Nigerian people. Nothing was done and these men stil walk the streets of the nations as though they owe us no explanation.

Oh…c’mon!!! $16 Billion for the power sector mismanaged? I can hardly breathe! Siemens bribed our government officials?? What’s happening here?? Iyabo Obasanjo did what???? You mean almost all the governors paid their way in there??? NOw I need a gas tank to breathe!! I am a Nigerian and our politics is choking me!!! Who will rescue us and divorce our politics from money. It is impossible to marry the two and not expect the twin children of corruption and poverty. We will not be delivered from this imbroglio and uncanny men will continue to dominate our politics and jump on tables to trade punches in place of decent positive argument communication. I am raising this discussion not because I intend to provide answers by myself, for that would be sheer mockery on my part. But I do this to stimulate a viable discussion that an generate the necessary consensus to press hard upon our leaders to absolutely regulate if not remove enirely the element of money from our politics. Like I said earlier, I still want to pour out, but I must cease here to make the rest of this discussion possible.