In Nigeria, The Math Does Not Add Up – by Prince Charles Dickson

The owner of the body does not say
that he is in no pain, while we insist
on commiserating with him for his
sleeplessness and his restlessness.
(One does not commiserate with a
person who does not admit his/her
misfortune).
In Nigeria, it is not just about the
more you look the less you see, the
fact is that you rarely see much or
see nothing. The system, if indeed
we have any seems to defy all odds
and logical reasoning. When you
expect it to falter, fall and fail, it
takes a curve and strangely comes
on strong on the rebound. The only
question is for how long do we have
to rely on auto-piloting the ship of
governance.
We are taught in primary school
math that one plus one would equal
two, however in these climes it
could equal three, four, seven, and
ten or even be zero. Every
concerted effort at getting it right
meets with unexplainable
capitulation–It never adds up, when
Larmode the EFCC chair tells you
that there is corruption in the
Commission.
In January we were almost certain
that some form of change was on
the horizon, that it won’t be
business as usual, but with each
passing day we see our sensibilities
continually abused by just a few.
Little has changed, with three high
profile ‘entertaining’ probes by the
National Assembly–Subsidy,
Pension and SEC, what we see
exposed is a generally mute public,
outrage without action.
Three months into the new year and
still counting Civil servants are
being owed and still surviving
simply because the math do not
add up, in the Northern parts the
BH war keeps changing colors as
more join the fray and the death toll
rises and attacks raises more
questions, fact is the math does not
add up.
In a strange twist typical of Nigeria,
while poverty ravishes the land the
National Bureau For Statistics
Figures show that some over 100
million are poor, yet luxury car
markers Porsche is interested in the
few rich and opens shop in Lagos for
them, it does not add up,
millionaires are created everyday
out of the system, few by dint of
hard work, others by sheer Nigerian
mathematics, it just happens for
them it never adds up, they are
poor in the morning and for doing
next to nothing are rich in the
evening.
Just be at the right place at the
right time, know the right person
and he better be ready to act right
there for you and you are made–
Just a supply of PDP wrapper for its
convention or the supply of the new
police man-o-war uniform, get a
contract for borehole in a
community that has four non-
functional boreholes…
An alarming size of the population
have no access to quality
education, some 1.5million
Nigerians write the JAMB exams for
less than 500,000 admission
spaces, strange figures. We cry that
there is a dwindling fortune in
public schools, yet fraudulent
private schools litter everywhere
and almost quarterly the FEC
approves a maximum of three new
universities, at the moment there
are over one hundred and fifty of
them. Still there are ‘unbaked
graduates’ are everywhere and
billions is spent in neighboring
Ghana to get better education. The
math does not add up…
In the last five years, the rail
system, a supposed integral part of
a new transport network remains
only in public speeches and
documents such as SURE and
unSURE. We only hear budgetary
allocations in millions and billions
and are inundated with talk of the
Lagos-Port Harcourt-Kano rail road
and Abuja Mono rail projects, we
see little or next to nothing. While
this writer appreciates the fact that
these are not three minute indomie
noodle projects, sadly we do not see
hope, it all does not add up…
After several months of committee
work at really all but nothing, the
Senate passed a budget of N4. 877
for the 2012 fiscal year. It was N4.
484 in 2011 and in 2010, N4.608
trillion, the weed did not know that
the farmer had a machete. The evil
doer does not consider the response
of the person wronged. It all does
not add up, three straight years and
budgets of 4trillion plus
consecutively and still nothing to
show for it, except for a pot-bellied
rich political class. It does not add
up, but its Nigeria, it never does
and does not need to.
A local axiom says a cripple does
not block the road with his legs.
literally meaning that a person with
a handicap should not challenge
those who are not handicapped, but
in Nigeria, a few thousands
challenge plenty millions, because it
never adds up, the
maladministration, unfocused
governance, fraud and waste
continues, for example as
symbolized by what Ojo Madueke
comically described as
“…Maturation of internal
democracy”. The maturation saw
the emergence of a much ‘matured’
Bamanga Tukur as Chairman of
PDP.
One treats a disease; one does not
treat death, my admonition every
week dwells on the importance on
us having to attend to problems
before they become unmanageable.
Indians home and abroad have
taken over our healthcare system,
in cases delivering quality and other
cases facilitating suicide because of
our failed medical health delivery
status.
In recent times we have received
without compliant the news of UK
banning our doctors from select
Universities and almost every three
months an arm of medical and
health workers are on industrial
action in one part of the nation or
the other. Yet millions are set aside
for health and nothing to show as
infant and maternal mortality rate is
on the increase unabated.
Former Lagos state governor in a
recent interview stated “…They are
liars driving the economy and
feeding the public with fake
statistics. If you have a solid
economic programme, you will be
able to articulate that for the
country and you will strengthen our
hope and determination. We are
creating an hydra-headed
accounting fraud but let’s leave
that. Where is the number coming
from; if not from somebody’s
magical thinking?” While I believe
he is equally part of the problem, I
‘ll rather look at the message than
the messenger and end by asking,
do we need all these
somersaults leading nowhere,
certainly not, but do we want to go
forward—only time will tell.