By
Emmanuel Esiemokhai
culled from GUARDIAN, November 12, 2006
The Leon Sullivan Show, with Sir Andrew Young featuring prominently, was an apt diplomatic response to the St Petersburg G-8 summit of July 2006. We should have been organising our own summits instead of waiting for white men to send disrespectful invitations which summon our leaders to far away destinations for idle talk on AIDS, hunger, and poverty, only to be served with tea and biscuits for an arduous return journey to Mother Africa. The Leon Sullivan outing received a shot in the arm after President Bill Clinton spoke on the familiar topic of Africa's under-development.
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair seem never tired of discussing African problems. Shortly before the Leon Sullivan meeting, President Olusegun Obasanjo highlighted one of the most important reasons for Nigeria's problems. He spoke about those who destroyed Nigeria. Who were they? Who are they now? Those of us who have an insurable interest in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, must continue to use strong language until those political destroyers of Nigeria take their boarding passes into political oblivion.
We have been hurt deeply by untutored praetorian guards and political under-achievers. Consequently, we have had to waltz through the nightmarish cabaret of broken dreams. What is pathetic about the whole experience is that they have been insisting on further destruction of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Those of them who have braids of Naira, pounds sterling, and dollars have been living carnival life-styles and so, they insist on playing billiards with Nigeria's well-being by bowling with our resources. They regularly meet on the golf course, and in casinos where they gamble away the surplus and drink themselves silly. Reeking of alcohol every morning, they have Aso Rock on their minds until they hear Ribadu's alarm-bell. Nigerians must prevent all destroyers of the Federal Republic from getting near to centres of power, in our own interest. The cobwebs of corruption must be cleared even if the heavens fall. We can no longer wait for a Redeemer. He came many years ago, and he is not likely to come soon unless we become worthy.
Conscientious and courageous compatriots must arise. We can do it. We also welcome decaffeinated leaders, but because witchcraft and mystical powers are part of their lives, they need exorcists. As from now, we must separate leader from dealers. The Federal Republic of Nigeria was flawed from the start when that watcher Lord Lugard lumped people with no identical national characteristics under a canopy in order to enhance colonial administration. His hare-brained project has taken root and has been sustained through tolerance and fear of the unknown. Nigerian politics, law and economics have remained products of ingenious patch- works, which tear apart shortly after they have been mended.
During military rule, measures were put in place, which have now polarized the polity. There was unequal development and neglect of the land that laid the golden eggs. Those who been cheated have now resorted to revolutionary resistance with unsettling consequences. Those who became well-to-do, were the ones who served in governments. Others were those who served foreign interests or represented foreign interests in Nigeria. Some people benefited depending on their association with or collaboration with the above personages, governments or states. The conditions of service rules, the laws, edicts, enactments and the suffocating bureaucracy put in place by Lord Lugard, his able lieutenants Sir Ralph Moore, Sir Macgregor, the Chief Executive of the Crown Colony of Lagos have remained since 1914.
Occasionally, some ingenious Nigerians in the academia, the civil service or in the private sector have initiated reforms, which are often discarded as the order returns to status quo ante. In making appointments to political, administrative and other posts, the tragedy has always been that specialists and the best do not feature in governance. Even when round pegs are in round holes, the square pegs do not fit. The result is that such people do their best but their best is simply not good for Nigeria. Please close your eyes and run through most appointments to important government posts since 1960. You will see what I mean.
Under our military governments, decisions were made in haste, decrees were promulgated in haste, and policies were implemented in haste, in tune with military marching orders and the drill system. Policies were hardly debated, since the prevailing military ethos of "command and obey" dominated the governmental system. It took a decade after the last military pullout to restore normalcy and start in the direction of democratic governance. This is why it is very painful to see those who served in military administrations insisting on coming back to repeat their drill in civilian clothes. These are those President Obasanjo called "the destroyers of Nigeria."
We have been on the wrong road and we seem to insist that we must keep running along it. Formal logic, predicate calculus, modal logic, all have taught us that we must make a clear distinction between belief and knowledge. In our case, this distinction appears blurred. Some Nigerians, whose wealth is being investigated, are the ones that believe that they will rule Nigeria again. Our people must ensure that all our political aspirants are free from fraud and have nothing in common with secular rogues and ancient thieves. If any of those get to Aso Rock, the nation will be sentenced to hard labour, kept in solitary confinement and in the Chamber of Lamentations.
We have heard a lot of cries at the Red Sea. We do not want any more lamentations. If we donot sanitize the political process before the 2007 elections, and if power does not shift to the South-South, I will repeat what Jesus, the Christ told the "Women of Jerusalem: "weep not for me but weep for yourselves and your children."
Time was in this country, when an urchin could become a millionaire by selling LPOs at rock bottom price only to collect more from the same source. Time was in this country, when a big company corrupted princes, kings, emirs, obas, obis and itinerant noblemen by just paying out money to them. Time was in this country, when civil servants who can barely spell well became "Permanent Secretaries." Time was in this nation when wayward women got contracts from military governors and administrators and became "cash madam." Ken Saro Wiwa portrayed this decadence in his satires, "It is only a matter of cash," the philandering lady would always say.
Time was not distant in this Republic when decisions that favoured parts of Nigeria and some ignoramuses were national policies. There was a time, when ministers were appointed not because of their credentials, which made them manipulable. Policies that suited a section of Nigeria were adopted as the will of God. Phenomenalism was relegated to the background since you cannot question the will of God. Unfortunately, our philosophy of religion has not successfully addressed evil mongering, injustice and wickedness. It has not helped us to overcome some people's laziness in going to the office when they like and leaving when they like. This is a nation where tribalism, irredentism, ethnic and religious affiliations make bedfellows of strange elements. This is a nation where capable persons are hunted down so that mediocrity can thrive. This is a nation where, for years, men and women have reaped where they did not sow, and in fact never cared to sow! A chaplet counted ten thousand times cannot perform the duties of a knife and a hoe. Indolence, whore-mongering, soft-living, garrulous parlour talk, have been some people's birthright until now when revolutionary resistance is questioning the concept of "monkey de work, baboon de chop."
All these and others have had the result that arrogance, power-drunkenness and I-do-not-care attitude by the privileged few has led to envy, powerlessness and despair of the majority.
The Nigerian psyche seems vehemently opposed to learning from its history. We should have by now, accepted that only the best is good enough for Nigeria. It is baffling that a nation where our citizens have played in the world's best teams academically, in sports and culture, we have only succeeded in parading half-baked, half-literate and hare-brained leaders, who see their calling as an open invitation to become wealthy. They shamelessly tell us how much of our public wealth they have embezzled directly or through proxies. The stolen wealth is displayed for our numb citizens to applaud with journalists cutting pet names for ancient thieves.
The point is that all those who have destroyed the Nigerian nation have destroyed themselves. They will be shown no mercy and if you do not join in this national war of liberation from your heart, then you are not fit to be called a Nigerian or a human being for that matter.
The days of reckoning are ahead. No leader past or present will move forward without an x-ray. There will be no more government in Nigeria, infested with Destroyers of the Republic, (DOR). The Era of the Gentiles has come. The chips are down. The Ribadu Movement for social change is on. Support all the agencies that are poised to fight for the survival of Nigeria. If you, as a result of inaction, indifference, siddon-look, hand the nation over into the hands of black magicians, ancient thieves, currency traffickers, contract inflators, over-invoicers and LPO manipulators, I will say in unison with JESUS, the CHRIST, "People of Nigeria weep not for me, weep for yourselves and your children." The seeds of the wicked who wrecked our Republic and are now eager for a repeat performance must be crushed. "For God is not mocked, whatever nations and people sow, they shall reap."
In Nigeria, the interplay between the various political parties must be based on elements of constitutionalism, on what is fair and just. Political debate must necessarily be controversial but civilized; even when political privileges are the subject of struggle. The system must have a mechanism for reconciling divergent opinion between the political parties. Criticism is not always insult. Our nation should use the "zone of twilight" between now and March next year to fashion out a durable societal arrangement before rushing into ill prepared elections and the emergence of a new "government."
Destroyers of Nigeria are not only located in the political parties, but also in the universities, in the judiciary, in the market place, in corporate entities where they front for governors who do not keep straight. As a result, "great things remain unaccomplished" as Confucius would say. The destroyers of Nigeria use clever talk, promises, proposals and pretensions. Nothing good can come out of these acts. Our "dealers" and "leaders" are enmeshed in a desperate plight of fancy; confusion has turned full circle in statecraft. A wise man learns from others. A fool has it all.
Honestly, what we have in Nigeria is more of spiritual crisis. Molock, Diabolo, and fallen angels are in full control demanding for blood each time to fuel their Luciferian power.
Our pastors, priests, spiritual overseers have long been recruited through "harmless" association into the Luciferian hierarchy in Nigeria. Tangled with the spiritual forces they were ordained to fight, their powers of exorcism have waned. So, the Luciferians are having a field day sucking blood, pelting the citizens with fear, want and desperation. In order to prevent any remedy, they influence the exclusion of people of superior capability.
*Professor Esiemokhai teaches International Law, School of Law, Shandong University of Science & Technology, Qingdao, China.