How Endangered Are We?

Sam Nda-Isaiah’s family, friends, and LEADERSHIP staff mark his posthumous 63rd birthday anniversary today. His legacy inspires us, and his memory lingers on in our minds. As we remember him today, we share with our readers a slightly edited version of one of his numerous commentaries on Nigeria published in his column, The Last Word, in August 2008.

In a recent United States intelligence report, the authors feared for the continuous existence of Nigeria as we know it today in the coming years.

The sombre report was based on estimates that could be gleaned from raw facts today.

The analysis considered the numerous and disparate centrifugal forces badgering the nation. It examined the ever-booming corruption business that has only blossomed from regime to regime and has defied reason. It mulled over the inexplicable crass irresponsibility of the nation’s elite class and also pondered the Niger Delta imbroglio.

Then, the Foreign Policy magazine, in its current issue, lists Nigeria among the very top in its Failed States Index 2008. Foreign Policy is an authoritative publication published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. According to its analysis, which considered demographic pressures, human flight, economy, uneven development, public services, and factionalised elites, Nigeria is listed only slightly more stable than Somalia, Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Chad and Congo.

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Countries like Burundi, Niger, Cameroun, Yemen, and even Liberia and Sierra Leone which we recently bailed out of a crippling civil war and helped restore democracy are listed as faring far better than Nigeria. And even much better than Nigeria still are Eritrea, Angola, Bosnia and Rwanda, which emerged from their wars. According to the well-regarded magazine, Nigeria is unstable and wobbly and only a stone’s throw away from becoming a failed state.

In its report, Freedom House, another United States-based organisation that is a well-respected voice for freedom and democracy worldwide, did not classify Nigeria as one of the world’s free countries. Botswana, Ghana, and many more indigent countries of Africa, Asia and South America were placed higher than Nigeria in its democracy pecking order.

So, unless we want to continue burying our heads in the sand, as we are generally wont to, Nigeria’s present and future are far from bright.

But I do not share the concern that Nigeria will break up. No, Nigeria will not break up. It may even suffer a worse fate than breaking up, but breaking it won’t. I do not claim to have the prognosis except that I know we will get over our current crisis as a nation, though only after passing through fire and brimstone. We are never going to come out of our present quandary unhurt. We will come out nonetheless.

My reasoning, even if unscientific, is grounded on my belief that something must give at the end of the day. Either Yar’Adua would have to wake up from his deep sleep and know that he is now the president of Nigeria, and not the governor of Katsina State, where the emir is sometimes more important to the people than the governor, and take us through the fire himself, or someone else would have to do it.
We are today a total mess. I still stand by the claim I made immediately after the Obasanjo-led 2003 elections: democratic elections will never hold in Nigeria again until the system Obasanjo put in place and left behind is upturned and overthrown. Yar’Adua, who gave us hope initially, has shown that he would rather benefit from the profligate electoral system left behind than destroy it.

When he initially spoke about electoral reforms and the rule of law, we believed him, until we discovered he was half-joking. All the elections held under Yar’Adua’s watch have proved that Obasanjo’s successor is more advanced in the science and technology of election rigging. He doesn’t fuss around, he doesn’t even talk. No threats, no tantrums. Only a tactful show of power at the highest level. Today’s rigging is usually carried out according to “the rule of law and due process”. And so far, it has worked perfectly in all the election reruns and local government elections. Obasanjo, with all his swagger and loud mouth, could not, in the final analysis, convert Nigeria to the one-party state of his dream. Yar’Adua is going to achieve that feat without firing a shot.

Depending on what the nation’s elite decides to do, we may finally become another Angola, where Jonas Savimbi controlled large chunks of the country, controlling their resources. In our case, the Niger Delta may turn us to a Somalia where several warlords take charge. But we shall not break up. And the only reason why we shall not break up is that all the crooks that are sucking this country are interested in the nation remaining one. It keeps the loot bigger for them. Even though some people may dismiss this as wishful thinking, I believe that, someday, we will get out of the current situation one way or the other.

A time will come, and I hope this will be very soon, when there will be a consensus among the nation’s elite groups that it would be in their enlightened self-interest to reverse the trend. As we also approach that critical mass, it will also become clear to our president that, for him to survive, he must change style and tempo. There are already loud whispers about an interim government. This is evidence of the strain which the president can ill-afford to snub.

The polity is currently unwell, and the leadership failure we see today is unsustainable. Security of life and property continues to be threatened. The Niger Delta crisis is obviously beyond the métier of Nigeria’s current leaders. The power supply situation appears irredeemable; the government does not even talk about the deplorable state of Nigerian roads anymore. Democracy is dead, and corruption remains alive and well. Whoever thinks there will be no end to this must have their head examined.