Few diplomats dispute that Nigeria is generally seen in a poor light by outsiders. It is a leader in advance-fee fraud over internet, known globally as “419” after the relevant (and rarely enforced) section of the Nigeria’s criminal code. Corruption is so endemic that many visitors pay their first bribe before they have even left the airport. Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist group, has kidnapped and killed numerous foreigners and has bombed the UN office in Abuja. Most of its victims are ordinary Nigerians, but other groups have kidnapped foreign oil men. One former British government minister estimated that 70% of all Nigerian visa applications are fraudulent. Nigerian peacekeepers on UN missions are often known for the efficiency with which they loot the places they are supposed to protect.
Reactions in the rest of Africa to Mr Jonathan’s exhortation to foreign diplomats were predictably hostile. One caller on a Kenyan radio talk show called Nigerians “wordy, needy and domineering”. That seems unfair. As Africa’s most populous country, and arguably its most dynamic, Nigeria is bound to upset others. Its businessmen compete fiercely across the continent. Its “Nollywood” film industry swamps neighbours with cheap but popular fare. Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian often Africa’s richest man, dominates the cement business. South Africa, long the continent’s economic and political powerhouse, is in danger of losing that to Nigeria, thanks in part to the West African country’s ebullient energy.
Many Nigerians swat away criticism as misinterpretation. Their government vigorously objected to a negative portrayal in the 2009 sci-fi film “district 9”, which showed a Nigerian resident in Johannesburg selling weapons to invading aliens and offering them prostitutes. Ministers in Abuja were so upset that they hired a public relations firm to “undo the damage”.
The best way to do that is surely for Mr Jonathan and his government to tackle their country’s manifold real-life problems. Last year the central bank’s well regarded governor, Lamido Sanusi, told the president that $20 billion was missing from the account of oil ministry — this in a country where most of its 170 million citizens live on less than $2 a day. MrJonathan called the claim “spurious” and sacked the governor.
Corruption poisons almost all institutions capable of making Nigeria work well.
The World Bank has estimated that since independence, half a century ago, at least $400 billion has gone missing from government coffers. How is no great secret. Many examples are well known. Princess Stella Oduah, the former aviation minister, used official funds to buy armoured BMWs for $1.4m – small beer by the standards of other ministers after a public outcry; she was sacked on February 12. Such retribution in Nigerian politics is still most unusual.
Another serious issue facing Nigeria today is the case of missing school children: while, visibly, the government was at first in denial, the leader of the Boko Haram sect embarrassed the country’s leadership by provokingly accepting responsibility for the abduction of the girls.
The most appalling aspect lies with the utterances of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president, Pastor Ayooritsejafor, who lamented that more Christian girls were taken away, as opposed to just 15 Muslim students. It is absolutely irritating that such a careless statement would be the mindset of the CAN leader. Christian or Muslim, Nigerian girls were abducted from schools, and that should be the main concern, not religious affiliation.
When Kema Chikwe, a former minister of aviation, tasked the affected parents to produce the list of those abducted, it was evident that Nigeria’s federal government was equally in doubt of the reality, until Boko Haram openly came out.
Politics diluted in religion has set Nigeria far away from a viable future. Nigeria’s leaders are unsure of what is rational, realistic and possible. In the name of politics, decorated with religious undertone, the porous and polarized nature of Nigeria’s true image appears when there is an abnormal situation.
If Nigeria spends N1.1 trillion on security every year, for the past three years, and the country is still submerged in insecurity, the future of the polity remains precarious.
Of late, the ever vocal, self-proclaimed leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Asari Dokubo, has been making negative and inflammable remarks about the Hausa-Fulani of the north without retribution from the law enforcement agencies in the country. With assumed presidential backing, Alhaji Dokubo is free to insult anyone from the north with impunity. This is not only dangerous and unnecessary. Mr Jonathan should try to assume leadership of a free society, where every Nigerian matters, but his silence could work against him in the election.
Terrorism must be denounced at every level; for Mr Jonathan to indirectly praise MEND members as freedom fighters, or a terror group with a cause, is not only insane but counterproductive in the fight to unite the country.
In a country where the electorate decides the outcome of the elections, the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has done very little for re-election; but Nigeria is a different and abnormal country on planet earth — the president has absolute powers.
Source: The Economist
REF http://leadership.ng/columns/370178/big-country-thin-skin
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