TheCable

Leaders speak, not because they have to speak; they speak because they have something meaningful and transformational to say. Our political leaders speak because they have to speak, playing politics, not because they have anything tangle to say that will further better the life of the common man. Infact, they are never committed to what they say. Furthermore, it is where they are found per time that determines what they say. And they have been vainly speaking since the birth of the nation that was once called—“giant of Africa”—Nigeria.

In recent times, I was at a leadership-meeting, where one of the speakers did say that the rest of the continent of Africa cannot move forward without Nigeria. I guess he said that to make happy people within his earshot. When I heard what he said, I laughed, because our other African brothers truly do not need us to move on in life. Has Rwanda not moved on as a nation? Has Ghana not moved on? Our unseriousness cannot stop other serious African nations from soaring in the midst of the earth. Some African nations are already lifting their people out of poverty, but we keep making poor ones out of ours. The rate at which our intelligent-folks are running out of Nigeria calls for a serious national concern.

This is where I am coming: Before the last ignominious and discomfiting presidential election, it was palpably denied by transactional politicians that Nigerians are both—poor and extremely poor, but after the election that opened the door of Aso Rock to PMB for the second time as an accustomed-politician, the ruling political party now agrees that more than 100million Nigerians are living in abject poverty! Today, the whole world knows that more 93million Nigerians are swimming in the pool of dearth and poverty!

For the umpteenth time, in our clime, truths are usually very scarce as a diamond—during political-campaigns. Backtracking a little to the days when late General Abacha was in calling the shots, the work of vision 2010; a 250-member committee of private sector representatives, government ministers, academics, journalists, traditional leaders, trade union leaders and foreign businessmen, amongst others, inaugurated on November 27, 1996. The committee was chaired by Chief Ernest Shonekan, who headed a short-lived Interim National Government (ING) in 1993 before Abacha seized power. This is one of the many fluid, vague, unstructured and shapeless terms of 2010: “To forge a plan which will ensure that Nigeria is en-route by year 2010, to becoming a developed nation in terms of economic prosperity, political stability and social harmony…” 2010 came and nothing happened! This is 2019 and nothing is yet to happen. And when 2029 comes, nothing is surely going to happen, because ours is a nation—without a true vision that we all can believe in. What changes a nation is not a mere political-slogan, what changes a nation is a vision that is clear as water.

This is 2019 and many States in Nigeria are still struggling to pay their workers. Instead of our people to enjoy economic-prosperity, they are now very poor, not because we are not rich as a nation, but because we are being led by horrific and selfish managers of national-resources. Furthermore, this is 2019 and we are more divided now than we were during the civil war.

On the condition that we are serious as a nation, we do not need another economic-blueprint to become thriftily strong apart from the one that late Abacha (and the economic committee that was chaired by chief Shonekan) gave birth to. I have gone through the document and the truth is, it is rock-solid, but we are not ready yet to build a nation that flies as other serious nations. Successive governments after Abacha were to stick with same economic-plan, adding flesh to it, but our bane as a people is discontinuity. Each new president comes up with its own selfish-agenda, rubbishing what those who were before him started, especially when he is from a different political party. Until we can ad infinitum stick with a singular economic-plan for like fifty (50) years, we aren’t going anywhere as a people.

PMB said and I quote: “…if countries such as China, India and Indonesia have been able to lift millions of their citizens out of poverty, then Nigeria can do the same with purposeful leadership.” The major reason it would be totally impossible to lift anyone out of poverty (as we were unable to realize Abacha’s economic-blueprint) is because we are deprived and bereft of purposeful leadership. In Nigeria, we are only having transactional-leaders, not visionary-leaders. And transactional leaders only churn out poor citizens; they do not have the capability to lift citizens out of poverty!

Lastly, show me one political leader—who is in power, because of the common man? All of them are in power for—themselves; their children, and their wives. Without having selfless leaders in the corridors of power in Nigeria, we can call it vision 2080; it would forever remain as a desert mirage. Selfish-leaders cannot lift anyone out of poverty!