By
Jaye Gaskia
This nation has been ‘independent’ for
more than 52 years (some will say ‘gained flag independence’), yet as of today
the promise of independence has become a mirage and the immense potential at
the ‘birth’ of our independent nation recklessly frittered away. The focus and
pre-occupation of the ruling elites throughout these 52 years has been largely
around the organised, conscious, systematic and unrestrained looting of the
national treasury and pillage of our collective wealth!
From these concerted gang rape of our
country’s resources have emerged stupendous concentration of ill-gotten wealth
in a few hands, and the mass impoverisation of the overwhelming majority of our
peoples. A situation that is manifested in the immense gap between the rich and
the poor, with the top 10% richest Nigerians owning 41% of national wealth,
while the bottom 20% of poorest Nigerians own a mere 4.1% of national wealth! A
staggering scale of injustice indeed!
To understand and underscore the scale,
as well as the impact of this rot let us take a cursory look at what can only
be the tip of the iceberg!
In the period between July 2010 and June 2012, a period of 2 years, according to investigations by a team at Punch Newspapers, this country lost over 5 trillion naira to budgetary and extra-budgetary fraud and corruption, an amount roughly equivalent to the size of the 2013 appropriation bill/federal budget!
Through the petroleum subsidy regime
alone, between 1.7 Trillion (more than the capital vote proposed in the 2013
appropriation bill) and 3 trillion naira (more than half the 2013 appropriation bill) has been lost to fraud and corruption since 2010!
Similarly in the 10 years between 2001
and 2010 (a period spanning the regimes of both ‘yesterday’s and today’s men
and women of power), according to investigations of the Senate committee, the
country is littered with approximately 12,000 abandoned infrastructural
projects, costing 7.7 Trillion Naira, and for which 2.2 trillion naira
had already been paid in mobilisation fees!
And as if this is not enough from the
Fika committee set up by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), we now know that
this nation expends 1.3 trillion naira annually on the salaries and allowances
of just 18,000 top federal functionaries and senior civil servants alone!
18,000 public servants gulping away 1.3 trillion naira annually, an amount more
than the annual capital vote for any year since the return to civil rule in
1999.
Yet this grand piracy is compounded by
the inhumane treatment that is meted out to the poor, whose poverty is a direct
result of the light fingered treasury looting greed and gross incompetence of
this shameless ruling elite! The poor are condemned to live in slums, which
these brigands then turn around to demolish without remorse, forcefully
evicting millions of citizens across the country and rendering homeless. A
ruling elite that will not facilitate access to affordable housing for the poor
turns round to contemptuously demolish the homes they have provided for
themselves!
It is not just the dwelling places of
the poor that this elite attacks, it is also their means of livelihoods! The
poor forced to erk out meager existence on the fringe of the economy are then
attacked at the source of their income! Okada riders are banned and harassed;
bus drivers are chased out of city centers to make way for elite owned and
operated subsidised luxury buses; street vendors and small kiosk operators are
harassed, brutalized, their wares seized and small structures destroyed as
illegal structures, all over the country! And all of these is done without
provision of any alternatives accessible to the poor in the process of their
being dispossessed of their meager properties!
And in this race of primitive
accumulation through treasury looting, unmerited state patronage and the
dispossession of the poor, it does not matter what wing of the ruling elite is
in and exercising power! So-called progresthieves and Conservathieves alike
have been involved in this audacious mis-governance and atrocious pillage and
looting of the treasury!
The result of the callous rule of these
thieving elite over the past 52 years is very glaringly displayed for all to
see! The parlous and prostrate nature of basic infrastructures and services:
impassable trunk roads and un-motorable rural feeder roads (despite the
investment of more than 500 billion naira since 1999 alone – take for instance
the East-West road under construction for more than 20 years, with tens, if not
hundreds of billions of naira already spent; only for the sitting Niger Delta
Minister to inform us that we require additional 189 Billion naira to complete
the road, an amount that is more than the annual budgets of at 18 of the 36
states of the federation).
What about electricity? Generation (not
distribution) capacity still hovers around 4,300 MWs after 52 years of
independence, and after more than $27bn investment since 1999 alone! And
Education and health? The mere fact that these shameless elite cannot dare
treat themselves for even the most basic of ailments in our hospitals, nor will
trust the education of their children to our public education system speaks
volume for the current state of the provision of these basic services.
They then aggravate the consequences of
their ineptitude and thievery with their inability to combat crime and
insecurity. Under their thieving and callous watch, our nation has been wracked
by various types and levels of armed insurgencies across almost every corner of
the country. The waterways and coastlines are infested by pirates and oil
thieves! In-land, the highways and bush paths, include neighbourhoods are
overrun by armed robbers and kidnappers!
It seems like unlike the fabled Midas,
everything these thieving elites touch is converted to their personal use,
appropriated for themselves; while every life of citizens they are supposed to
touch is consequently devastated!
This is why the euphoria greeting the announcement of the merger of the opposition parties among sections of particularly the newly active youth is perplexing and misplaced! These ruling elites have been tested over the past 52 years and they have failed!
No amount of remixing or rejigging of
their platforms can represent any hope for our country; for the liberation of
our nation and the social emancipation of her peoples! Amongst them are tired
and recycled hands in the ruling and opposition parties! What manner of hope
can be put in this lot?
What manner of miracle can they wrought? What are they
doing with the power entrusted to them now? What did they do with the power
entrusted to them previously? What have they done with the power they hijacked
and have monopolised in their many incarnations in the corridors of power as
well as in its inner chambers?
Across the world today, in many climes,
a younger generation [young not only in age but also in the freshness of their
ideas and approaches to governance] are coming forth to the center of politics,
and even taking over the governance of their countries! Men and women in their
30s and 40s, who were born in the turbulence of the 60s and 70s of the last
century, have moved or are moving to the fore.
However here, concerned Nigerian
citizens, the age mates of those now governing across Europe, America,
and other parts, are still looking up to spent and tired hands, who have spent
a life time trudging the corridors and inner chambers of power, to help us
organise and lead the process of emancipating ourselves and our country from
their own death grip! How can this be possible?
There is surely a different path that
can be taken towards achieving our freedom, redeeming our society and
transforming our country to the benefit of the overwhelming majority of her
citizens now locked out.
This is a challenge to all of us who are the victims of the misrule and grand theft of this inept treasury looting ruling elite; this is a challenge and a clarion call for us to work together to organise the political platform and party, independent of these treacherous ruling elites, with which to battle with and wrest political power from them.
I am part of such a process, one of
several, all of which must at some point merge their different tributaries into
a mighty stream, whose tidal waves alone can be strong enough to precipitate
the deluge that will flush out these looters.
Come join with us as we build an alternative platform: the Democratic Party for Socialist Reconstruction (DPSR) to take back Nigeria.
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