By The Qoheleth
Most Nigerians talk as if they didn’t know where the rain started beating us. They pretend as if they are not aware of the genesis of the Nigeria situation of lawlessness, greed, avarice and hypocrisy. If you don’t, The Qoheleth will tell you.
In the first republic, the politicians were respected even though some of them were corrupt. They showed some elements of patriotic zeal. During the second republic, the politicians introduced some elements of embezzlement of public funds but were doing so out of the fear of the military that had intervened once or twice to bring discipline and sanity into the system.
The administration of Babangida which was a combination of military and civilian laid the foundation for corruption, lawlessness and non-accountability of public funds. People with questionable characters were introduced into political leadership. These people did not waste any time in wiping away the virtues in the system. Their first port of call was the Nigerian military. They politicized the positions for the armed forces and weakened their structures. In doing this, the military was no longer feared by these politicians. They designed a slogan; “the worst democracy is better than the best military government.” This was mere deception because the military would have disciplined many Nigerians at that point in time. Those fighting the military were said to be heroes of democracy, meanwhile, they were laying foundations to take over Nigeria at the long run.
After conquering the army, the police and the other security agencies by planting their stooges into the system, they attacked the civil service structure. They demolished the existing structure that had very effective standard and set up one that is directly under their control. You could remember that the civil service was and is still structured with due diligence and process for any activity. It was watertight then. These set of politicians destroyed the permanent civil service structure and replaced them with a temporary political structure aimed at lasting for four years term. They duplicated every function and ran them parallel with political appointees until it grew to a point when they totally overtook the running of the ministries. At that point, they introduced all manners of corrupt practices into the system. The willing civil servants collaborated, compromised and assisted in perfecting the process and subsequently started stealing more that the politicians.
After conquering the civil service, these set of politicians created laws to protect their nefarious activities. In the second republic, the immunity law was created to protect the president and governors from civil litigations that distracted them from core developmental activities. They metamorphosed the law to include even criminal litigations. The immunity clause or whatever they call it prevents them from being prosecuted till they are out of political offices. They rose above the law. Not only them, many of their cronies also. This led to almost all government officials becoming lawless in all their activities. The governors make arbitrary appointments and spend public money without accounting it to anybody. They even use public money for personal political campaigns.
These few political leaders created an institution out of political parties. Political parties are supposed to be platforms through which political leaders are produced. Once a leader is elected, he/she becomes accountable, not to the political party but to Nigerians. In that case, there shouldn’t be any party president or governor but a national president and state governor. But they introduced a system where people who were elected sponsored their party activities and even shared positions among themselves, not minding the quality of such appointees and their performances.
After appointment, these party members went ahead to steal as much money as they could before the expiration of their tenure. They took over the functions of the civil servants that should have been permanent. So, people go into power, not to serve but as an opportunity to have a share of the national cake as they called it.
This brought tribal and religious politics. There were strong agitations for power sharing, regional sharing and zoning of offices. These had negative impacts on the society. At a point, they started creating regional ministries to accommodate these interests. Sectional groups started springing up here and there. Many Nigerians began to see political leadership from the tribal and religious perspective instead of national interest.
Governors and presidents started using public money to sponsor individual political campaigns. When nobody questioned this, it became normal. That was what they referred to as power of incumbency. Meanwhile, the political parties are expected to sponsor their candidates to run for public offices. On the contrary, armed with public money, the presidents and governors used public money in their custody, not only to patronize their individual interests but also influence the success of the legislative arms as well as the third tier of government.
In so doing, they controlled the legislative arm of government and the local governments been the 3rd tier of government. It became pretty difficult for genuine, efficient candidates who had good ideas and visions to take opportunities to contest because political campaign became very expensive. With strong war chest, they suppressed all other interest groups and all other oppositions. They made laws to protect these practices either at the state level or at the party levels.
For over the years, these few politicians recycled themselves and their cronies in power. They made politics a cult and referred to it as a dirty game to scare decent citizens from full participation. They lived above the law and used every public money stolen to oppress the people and subject them to perpetual unemployment and poverty despite the wealth of the nation.
They also went ahead to cow various institutions out of action. These include the media, pressure groups, traditional institutions, religious groups and youth organizations. The Qoheleth discovered in its study that the most effective method of resolving this and bringing Nigeria to the right path is through social reorientation and intellectual revolution. This may take a long time but is achievable.
