By Reno Omokri
Nigerians always blame the government in
power for the problems of the nation even
though many of these preceded the government
in power. Why do we always do this?
For instance, ask any Nigerian what the problem
is with Nigeria and they will say like, Chinua
Achebe, that it is leadership, forgetting that
Nigeria’s leaders come from amongst us; and if
we are saying that our problem is leadership, we
are invariably supporting the racist Rhodesian
doctrine that a black man would thrive best
under white rule.
So if our problem is not leadership, what then is
it?
I propose that our problem in Nigeria is that we
lack a sense of history and we live only in the
present moment which means that we are always
reacting and hardly ever pro-acting.
If my five year old son comes to me and tells me
that he has lost his toy, I will ask him to think
back to the last time that he saw it and begin the
search from there.
Nigeria has seen phenomenal growth in the last
three years with our Gross Domestic Product,
GDP, growing at a rate of over 6% per annum
making us one of the world’s 10 fastest growing
economies.
Yet, we still have areas of Nigeria where
population growth is higher than the growth rate
of our GDP; and it is only common sense that
where population outpaces production, there
will be crisis. This is a theory that Reverend
Malthus propounded and which has stood the
test of time.
Between 1960 when Nigeria got independence
and 1966 when we experienced the first military
intervention in governance, Nigeria experienced
phenomenal growth – a feat that has evaded us
since, except for the growth we have had in the
last three years. Almost all of the national
institutions that were responsible for our
growth pre-1999, were products of that first
golden era before the first coup, such as the four
great universities, (Lagos, Ife, Nsukka and Zaria),
Kainji Dam, Nigeria Airways etc.
Also, in the same time period, we had some of
the best civil servants in the world and our
public service was very functional. There were
reports from that era that some of our
politicians were corrupt, but it is universally
acknowledged that our civil servants of those
times were above board.
Our hospitals were renowned worldwide and it
will surprise some to note that the Saudi Royal
family received treatment at the University
College Hospital, Ibadan, in the early 60s.
At that time we did not have oil in the quantum
that we have today, yet, the nation was thriving,
we had little or no foreign debt and we were first
amongst equals in the council of emerging
nations that included Indonesia, Brazil and
Egypt.
But all these changed after 1966. So, as I would
say to my five year old, if you are looking for a
thing, go back to the last place where you saw it.
That place is 1966!
Pre-1966, admission into primary and secondary
schools was purely on merit. The same was the
case for universities as well as the federal civil
service. After 1966 when the military intervened
and ended the First Republic all that changed and
has remained the same till today.
A child could no longer bank on academic
prowess as the yardstick for his gaining entry
into primary and secondary schools. Children at
their most tender years, when they were being
emotionally scripted were told that even though
they passed and passed well, they were not good
enough for government funded schools because
of where they came from.
With the Quota system of entrance into public
schools introduced after 1966 and enshrined by
the military into our body polity extant laws,
children as young as nine got to understand that
in Nigeria, where you come from is more
important than how intelligent and hardworking
you are.
Now, the sad thing about the policy of quota
systems is that geneticists in the very best
universities of the world have established that
some races and tribes are not more intelligent
than others and as such you can find intelligence
in almost equal measure wherever you use it as a
yard stick. In fact, many, including the Harvard
Medical Journal, have reported that culture is
more to blame than intelligence for the reason
why some peoples are backward while others
are progressive.
And our culture has been that children who are
more endowed intellectually are held back and
children who could grow their intellectual
capacity are prevented from doing so because
there was no need to challenge them
intellectually. Come as you are, the system says.
This system would probably have brought
minimal damage if it was limited to secondary
schools, but it is not.
After completing secondary school, post 1966
Nigerian youths faced the same issues in gaining
admission to Nigerian universities. Cut off marks
and catchment areas were discriminately
apportioned using region as a yard stick. So,
after being told at age nine that were you came
from was more important than your intelligence
or your academic hard work, the message is
reinforced at age 16-17 when you are still in your
formative years.
At 16, you enter university and study for four or
five years (ASUU permitting) and then graduate
and go through your National Youth Service (one
of the best policies the military bequeathed to
Nigeria) and then you start to look for a job.
The largest employer of labour is the
government, so naturally you start there. And
what do you find? At age 24, just as when you
were nine and sixteen, you are now faced with a
policy that says where you are from is more
important than what you can bring into the
system. You are told that although you are
qualified, the system must take people who are
less qualified than you because of where you are
from and where they are from.
So, between the ages of nine and 24, your psyche
has been reinforced and scripted with the
message that where you are from is more
important than what you bring to the table.
Why wouldn’t a post 1966 civil servant face
temptation to steal when merit is not the order
of the day and you are forced to serve under
someone who did not get his placement by merit
- who enjoys perks and privileges far in excess of
you? How can such a system promote morale
and how can you have efficiency where morale is
low?
Prior to 1966, an Nnamdi Azikiwe could win
election in Ibadan and an Umoru Altine could
win election as the first mayor of Enugu, but how
can we replicate that ideal when, in every form
you have filled since the age of 6, your ethnicity,
state of origin and religion has mattered more
than your Nigerianness. But whenever you
watch television in the 1980s you see the
MAMSER directorate showing you clips of your
leaders telling you that where you come from
does not matter and what matters is that “we are
all MAMSER people who want the basic things of
life”.
It is not until you get to your 30s and you watch
as those same leaders that sold you and your
parents that line form themselves into Northern
and Southern Political Leaders Forum that you
realized that you have been had!
And then young people who through no fault of
their own have been conditioned to only live in
the moment are then manipulated by these same
set of leaders to begin to blame the government
of the day for crumbling infrastructure that has
been neglected for years and is only now being
addressed after decades of neglect for the simple
reason that we now have a leader who emerged
not through the establishment but through
events that could only be described as divine.
And then you wonder, do they know their
friends from their enemies?
I mentioned Kainji Dam earlier but young people
would be surprised to note that between 1979
and 1999 no new power plants were initiated and
the one commissioned in 1982 was initiated in
1978! Yet, these same young people egged on by
those who have milked the system in that time
frame point accusing fingers at the man who is
making a difference.
Take something as universal as power. In
Nigeria, history has been made as the power
sector has just been privatized by President
Goodluck Jonathan in fulfillment of the promises
he made to Nigerians when he launched the
Roadmap to Power Sector Reforms on August
26th 2010. But before then, Nigeria has and is still
suffering from chronic power shortages.
Now, power is one of those industries that rely
strictly on efficient manpower in order to
function properly. But power has been
exclusively managed and operated by the
government. Now who would the government
hire to run our power plants, transmission grids
and their commercial offices? Of course it would
be Nigerian citizens.
Now, are those citizens the very best Nigeria
has? No! These are citizens employed as part of
the federal civil service that depends not on
merit but on ethnicity for its hiring. So what then
do Nigerians expect from such a venture?
You can repeat this for our refineries, airports,
railways, sea ports, and other vital national
institutions.
It is a notorious fact (yes, that phrase again) that
you are only as strong as your weakest link.
Therefore where you have not taken in the best
right from secondary up to university and up to
the civil service, your system is only as strong as
the least endowed person.
To put this into perspective, if you have a school
entry system that gives someone who scored 2
admission, and stops someone who scored 290
from getting admitted, your system is only as
strong as a 2.
The saddest thing is that if that 2 knew that he
would only get in if he had a 290 and nothing else
would ensure he gets in, he would be forced to
build his capacity to at least a 290. It is called
competition and that is what existed between
1960 and 1966.
That, my people, is the problem with Nigeria.
President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership
he offers to Nigeria is not our problem. As a
matter of fact it is part of our solutions. Why do I
say this? Because this is a man who has seen that
even though we have made phenomenal
progress in the last three years such as we have
never witnessed between 1966 till date, yet we
can do better.
And speaking as a private citizen, it is my hope
that the coming national conference would look
into these issues and go back in time to the place
where we lost it.
Reno Omokri is Special Assistant (New Media) to
the President.

Do you agree with his observation above?

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Crap!

A certain tribal leader introduced tribalism into our body polity 1957 to 1960, even when he was warned that politics that whips up ethnic sentiment to get votes was a dangerous brand of politics, he dismissed the those concerns with a wave of the hand.Now that tribal politics has been adopted by every Nigerian, this writer wants to blame Nigerians for it.

If he cannot be candid enough to point out who and when led Nigerians astray into this brand of regional politics, he shouldn't insult our sensibility by writing this long crap just to play dumb as to how we got here.

Late Pres. Yar'Adua who was rigged into office and admitted his election was seriously flawed, was accepted wholesale by his region because at least he is their tribes man.Those who oppose President Jonathan do so not because they don't know he has achieved great things for Nigeria, but because he is Ijaw. PERIOD! They want their own tribesman,even if he were a known thief and was going to loot Nigeria blind or a tactless fellow that may start a civil war! That is why GEJ must adopt the Obasanjo way of doing what he feels is right and not what newspapers and faceless opposition tribalists write on the internet.

Where are those that post those pictures of Obama laughing?
This deserve one of those