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| James Ibori; A Former Nigerian Governor Jailed For Corruption In Britain |
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 organized, 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 [more than half the 2013 appropriation bill] Naira 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 mobilization
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
1.3Trillion 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 subsidized 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
500Billion 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
monopolized 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 organize 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 organize 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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