These piece was written at the monument
of Abdurauf Aliyu Otaru,after receiving knowladge from it,then decided to post
it here.from on-going analysis of Nigerian polity,observers has noted Nigeria
as a failed state!What sweet me much is the tittled of the piece,because i
really like watching vampire movies not because of there cannibalization
attitude but because of there rational power of doing such.
Our country’s elites have continues to perpetuation themselves in power in order to achieve their nefarious objectives of self-aggrandizement by subverting every key institution of government: the civil service, judiciary, military, media, and banking. They even control commissions with lofty ideals that are supposed to be non-partisan and neutral, including the anti-corruption commission, human rights commission, and commission on civic education. As a result, state institutions and commissions have become paralyzed, whilst laxity, ineptitude, indiscipline and unprofessionalism flourish in the public sector.
As an economist, I strongly believe that investment -- both domestic and foreign – can greatly assist Nigeria’s move out of its present economic miasma. But our present environment of chaos, social disorder, poor leadership, bad governance, corruption and collapsed infrastructure repels investment. This is the reason why Nigeria has remained so unattractive to foreign investors that, over the decades, official development assistance (or foreign aid) has replaced private capital as the primary source of development funding.
In Nigeria, the richest persons are
those who accumulate their wealth by raking it off the backs of suffering
citizens. Quite often, the chief bandits are the crooked politicians and
corrupt civil servants. These groups of people merely siphon the nation’s
common wealth by redistributing it among themselves. In fact they discourage
investments in entrepreneurial activity by encouraging investments in
‘rent-seeking’ activities– where political entrepreneurs expend resources
attempting to capture the state’s largesse.
Consequently, the peculiar system of
governance is so entrenched into our society and pervades all aspects of our
social relations. Citizens are forced to live with high levels of
primordial instinct of the ruling elite who continuously loot our national treasury,
perpetuate themselves in power and brutally suppress all dissent and
opposition. Worse, the booty is not invested in Nigeria but in foreign
countries. According to a United Nation’s estimate, in 1991 alone, more
than $200 billion in capital was siphoned out of Africa, (a large chunk of it
from Nigeria) by the ruling elite –that is equivalent to more than half
of Africa’s total foreign debt (which stood at $320 billion in 1991). In
fact, every year, capital flight from Nigeria exceeds incoming foreign aid (the
more reason I am so pleased with the recent World Bank decision to delist
Nigeria from among nations to benefit from development aid in coming years).
Our country’s elites have continues to perpetuation themselves in power in order to achieve their nefarious objectives of self-aggrandizement by subverting every key institution of government: the civil service, judiciary, military, media, and banking. They even control commissions with lofty ideals that are supposed to be non-partisan and neutral, including the anti-corruption commission, human rights commission, and commission on civic education. As a result, state institutions and commissions have become paralyzed, whilst laxity, ineptitude, indiscipline and unprofessionalism flourish in the public sector.
Even though we have a police force and
judiciary systems, but in many cases the police are themselves highway robbers
and the judges crooks. According to The Post Express, late Nigerian dictator
General Sani Abacha “is believed to have siphoned more than $8 billion of
Nigeria’s foreign exchange into fictitious accounts in Europe, Asia, America,
Caribbean and Arab countries.” When Olusegun Obasanjo was elected
president in 1999, he launched a highly public campaign against corruption and
vowed to recover the loot. By March 2000, government officials declared that
$709 million and another £144 million had been recovered from the Abacha family
and other top officials of his regime. But this recovered loot was itself
quickly re-looted. When the then Senate Public Accounts Committee looked more
closely, it found only $6.8 million and £2.8 million in the Central Bank of
Nigeria. What baffles me like any other concerned Nigeria is that even the
money recovered from the Abacha family was also stolen. If you recover money
from a thief and you go back and steal the money, it means you are worse than
the thief. We pray that similar fate will not befall the loot recently
recovered from James Ibori the erstwhile governor of Delta state.
Obviously, we now live in a vampire
state that needs to be reformed. Power needs to be taken out of the hands of
the thieving elite and given to the people where it belongs. This means that we
must urgently begin the process of democratization, market liberalization, decentralization
or diffusion of power, and also adopt power-sharing arrangements. The existing
politics of exclusion must also be replaced by the politics of inclusion. In
addition, state institutions must be reformed so that transparency,
accountability and professionalism prevail. These reforms if well implemented
will help establish an environment conductive to investment and economic
activity in the country.
As an economist, I strongly believe that investment -- both domestic and foreign – can greatly assist Nigeria’s move out of its present economic miasma. But our present environment of chaos, social disorder, poor leadership, bad governance, corruption and collapsed infrastructure repels investment. This is the reason why Nigeria has remained so unattractive to foreign investors that, over the decades, official development assistance (or foreign aid) has replaced private capital as the primary source of development funding.
We also need to dismantle the abominable
political and economic systems established by our greedy postcolonial elites
and replace them with systems based on a market economy and the politics of
inclusion. Moreover, our traditional system of governance seems to be more of a
participatory democracy than what we practice now. Hence, it is important that
we return to and build upon our own institutions which have over the years been
subsumed in the new mantra “modernization.”
SOURCE: DAILY TRUST
SOURCE: DAILY TRUST
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