THE LONDON JAMBOREE

Friday, 09 July 2010

A Nigeria at 50 Summit and Gala Night recently took place at a posh hotel in London. According to reports, 18 state governors, a sizeable number of ministers and officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) attended the two-day event which was said to have been sponsored by the Federal Government. Commentators and other well-meaning Nigerians were still reacting to the planned expenditure of N10 billion on the forthcoming 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence when the press got wind of the London summit.

AN association of Nigerians in diaspora known as the Nigeria Liberty Forum was said to have organised a protest by telephone calls against the summit. The protest, which reportedly resulted in the jamming of the hotel’s switchboard by telephone calls from different parts of the world, was organised to show the forum’s displeasure with the culture of waste of the Nigerian government. Earlier at home, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had described the conference as a national disgrace. The congress said it was inconceivable that the government could take a conference on Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary to the United Kingdom and wondered why the items on its agenda could not be discussed in Nigeria. It counselled President Goodluck Jonathan to devote his energies to the entrenchment of democratic governance in the country instead of wasting time and resources on sheer frivolities. The opposition Action Congress (AC) expressed dismay that a conference on Nigeria’s independence anniversary had to be taken to London at a huge cost to Nigerian taxpayers.

THE Federal Government’s intention to fork out the huge sum of N10 billion on Nigeria’s 50th anniversary has not been well received by the Nigerian public. The general expectation is that the Jonathan administration is going to learn from errors of the past and focus its attention on clearly defined essentials in a country where virtually nothing works. The so-called London Summit and Gala Night has no doubt aggravated a situation that was already bad.

WHEN he mounted the saddle, Jonathan through his public pronouncements and even body language, gave the impression that he was going to make a difference. Not a few believed him, not because they were that credulous but because of the view that the frustrations he experienced during the period of his late boss’s undeclared incapacitation would instill in him the determination to succeed where others had failed. This explains the deluge of unsolicited advice offered him when he assumed office as president. While Nigerians are however looking forward to decisive steps that would enable the President to make the promised difference, he appears to be toeing the line of his predecessors.

WHAT is expected of the leadership of a country that is faced with numerous challenges is a noticeable evidence of discipline and the will to succeed. Here is a government that cannot fund the current year’s budget, and has, as a consequence, been compelled to effect a cut in it. The same government has a supplementary budget from which it is taking N10 billion to celebrate 50 years of accelerated decline. The government certainly needs the services of a sophisticated sophist to explain away this contradiction.

THE government cannot maintain the roads. It has made a shambles of education. Transportation by road or by air is risky. The rail system has collapsed while inland waterways is virtually non-existent. Unemployment figures keep soaring as more and more enterprises close shop or relocate to other countries because basic requirements are not available. The entire situation is compounded by the fact that security is not guaranteed. The constant refrain is that government cannot provide everything. What it can provide is yet to be seen. It can, however, leave the treasury open to political office holders whose pockets are apparently bottomless.

IT is amazing that while the criticism of its planned expenditure on the country’s golden jubilee was raging, the government could dispatch a contingent of political office holders, party officials and hangers-on to London for a conference that was not intended to serve the people’s interest. Resources that are badly needed to solve pressing problems are being expended on a sheer jamboree. The argument has been advanced that a country that fought a 30-month civil war and remains a single political entity should celebrate its continued existence. The simple response to this is that the civil war ended 40 years ago, in 1970. Such a lavish celebration should, therefore, have taken place immediately after the war when the country’s problem was not money but how to spend it. Life in Nigeria today is comparable to what obtains in Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature — miserable, laborious and short. Nigeria today is cash-strapped. Available resources should therefore be channelled into productive ventures and not expended on jamborees.

EVERY naira spent on the London Summit and Gala Night is money down the drain. It is unthinkable that this could be done by the leaders of a country that is in need of every kobo for its economic survival. We, therefore, urge President Jonathan to make the expenses on the London summit the last of such wastage. He should scale down the planned lavish golden jubilee celebrations to a very modest event which will reflect the parlous state of the economy.

http://www.tribune.com.ng/index.php/editorial/7978-the-london-jamboree


Sad! don't you think?