Perceived Dangerous Drift Of The Ship Of Nation: A Call On All Nigerians To Defend Her Unity And Uphold Her Integrity

Fifty-one (51) years down the road
of independence that I decided once
again to address the nation
Fellow citizens, it is therefore with
bleeding heart and concern for the
innocent lives that are being lost
daily and our beloved country that
seems to be manifesting symptoms
of a potentially failed state, through
you today.
Our founding fathers at
independence in 1960, with all
enthusiasm and determination,
worked and hoped for a great
Nigeria nation that will be a bulwark
of Liberty, Freedom and Democracy,
not only to her own citizenry but to
all Africans and the black race the
world over. Today, all they worked
and hoped for, with attendant
sacrifices and labour seems to be
going down the drain. Leadership
failure and ineptitude, gross
indiscipline in political leadership,
outrageous corruption and naked
plundering of national resources,
politically orchestrated religious and
ethnic intolerance are all combining
to threaten our corporate existence
as a nation, almost rendering our
past hapless and our present
helpless and our future daily
becoming bleaked. What a self
inflicted tragedy!
In 1999, when we returned to
democracy, our hope for a better
order that will lead us to our
envisioned manifest destiny of
Nigeria was rekindled. The
expectations and goodwill from all
Nigerians and the international
community was very high.
Regrettably and painfully, we seems
to have bungled the opportunity
again. Instead, we are confronted
with intolerable national insecurity,
outrageous poverty and
unemployment particularly among
our youths and attendant
aggravated anger which is now
tearing us apart due largely to
promises unfilled, hope constantly
repudiated and prospects of
glooming future as a result of lost of
confidence in the system.
It is in the light of the above and the
necessity to ensure that the labour
and sacrifices of our past heroes
and contemporary martyrs do not
go in vain, that I as a responsible,
patriotic and God fearing Nigerian
wish to remind our government at
all levels of authority, particularly
the federal government of their
social, economic, political and
constitutional responsibilities and
duties to Nigerians.
The social factors especially, which
constitutes the bedrock of political
practices, administration and good
governance, is visibly a factor of life,
of decent living and survival of man
in a secured and conducive
environment that support
sustainable development and
human dignity. It is upon these
social factors that the politicians run
their electoral promises and
campaign towards becoming an
elected government.
Constitutionally, it is the basis of the
social contract with the people, thus
a yardstick for determination of
failure or success and performance
of government.
The 1999 Constitution as amended
in Chapter 2, Article 14, Sub Section
1 and 2 is unambiguous about this
social contract under the caption:
“FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVES AND
DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE
POLICY” as follows:
1. The Federal Republic of Nigeria
shall be a state based on principles
of democracy and social justice
2. It is hereby accordingly
declared that:
a. Sovereignty belongs to the
people of Nigeria from whom
government through this
Constitution derives all its power
and authority
b. The security and welfare of the
people shall be the primary purpose
of government
Subsequently in Article 15; 1 and 2,
it further stated as follows:
1. The motto of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria shall
be “Unity and Faith, Peace and
Progress.”
2. Accordingly, national
integration shall be actively
encouraged, whilst discrimination
on the ground of place of origin,
sex, religion, status, ethnic or
linguistic associations or ties shall
be prohibited.
Taking into consideration the above
quoted Article of our Constitution, it
follows, that any government that
demonstrates gross incompetence
in handling perceived or actual
threats to national security,
protection of lives and properties,
failure in the provision of
infrastructures in quantum that
justifies expended national
resources, unable to guarantee jobs
and food security and decent living,
engages in divide and rule antics
and corrupt practices, has
contravened these established
constitutional order and
automatically strip itself of its
legitimacy and essence of
governance. Hence, such
government must quickly call itself
to order or risk rejection by the
people to whom sovereignty lawfully
belong. It is based on the
aforementioned and perceived
dangerous drift of the ship of nation
that we decided to address some of
these challenges facing our country
today.
SECURITY
The sophisticated levels of the
prevailing bomb attacks, the
frequency of occurrences, the
invincibility of the perpetrators, the
impunity and audacity at which it is
being carried out and the seemed
helplessness of our government and
the security agents left one with
more questions than answers. You
may recall that some few years ago,
a certain foreign power intelligence
report had predicted 2015 as the
year that Nigeria will likely
disintegrate, we had hoped that
with such report in view, our
government and the security
agencies would have worked
proactively to stem such prediction
from coming true. Much as we are
concerned about the perceived
negligence and insensitivity of the
government regarding these
reports, we are more shocked by
the open confession of our own
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
at a Church service in Abuja that
the alleged members of the Boko
Haram have infiltrated his
government and even could be
dining with him. The questions
therefore will be: how safe is Mr.
President as the Chief Security
Officer of the nation? Could it be
that some fifth columnist in
government are fronting for foreign
powers to fast-track the prediction
of Nigeria’s disintegration? How can
we trust some of the foreign power
alliances that are promising to help
us fight the terror group? Why this
level of helplessness on the part of
our government, security agencies
and
intelligence community? Candidly,
with the last spate of bombing on
Friday 20th of January, 2012 in
Kano State and the proficient
manner it was carried out, we do
not really know whom to trust any
longer as we have all become
suspects, even government.
In view of these, we strongly advise
that the government should look
inward critically among the Nigerian
security agencies and the
intelligence community and take
drastic measures that will weed out
the compromised and bad eggs
among them, as well as overhauling
of the security apparatus.
Furthermore, we advise that our
government should avoid the
unnecessary security risk of
contracting foreign power security
assistance to fight the terror group
as this may be counter productive.
Lastly, the government should with
all sincerity of purpose seek to
identify the genuine fronts of the
Boko Haram if they still exist and
dialogue with them as we are
convinced that they are not
invisible. They must be sons, and if
there are females among them,
then daughters of Nigerians who
live among us. I condemn in strong
terms this dastard acts of
unnecessary bloodletting in our
dear motherland, just as I, sincerely
condole those that lost their loved
ones.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
A country is like a corporate
enterprise, the citizens are the
stakeholders, while the government
is the board of directors. The
greatest concern and duty of the
board is the effective and prudent
management of the stakeholders’
share as to produce beneficial result
and profits and dividends that will
enhance happiness and justify their
continuous faith in the
establishment and management of
the corporate enterprise. In this
case, the board will be referred to as
successful. Relatively, government
will be described as good, when its
social, economic and political
obligations to the people are
adequately met in judicious
quantum to available resources.
These include jobs and food
security, shelter, empowerment
through qualitative education that
are tailored towards national
development needs, provision of
roads, electricity, portable drinking
water and most importantly, the
security of lives and properties.
These are the basic measurement of
good governance.
Unfortunately for Nigerians, the
opposite of these aforementioned is
what inept political leadership,
official corruption and perennial bad
governance has unleashed on the
people, resulting to abject poverty,
misery, desperation and anger that
are beyond containable human
experiences, culminating into these
various flash point of youth
restiveness, arms insurgency and
embarrassing national insecurity.
That is why the provision of about
one (1) trillion Naira in the budget
for security vote is absurd and sign-
posts unrepentant governmental
corruption and attempt to escape
probity because money meant for
security vote are not traceable. You
do not shoot poverty with guns and
armored tanks; let us invest that
money on capital projects that will
have positive impact on our people.
THE ONE LEGGED PETROL–DOLLAR
ECONOMYAS OUR UNDOING
Before the discovery of crude oil in
Nigeria in commercial quantity,
agricultural produce and mining
were the major source of funding
our budget as government. The
discovery of crude oil brought with
its untoward attitude of
governmental laziness and get-rich-
quick which trickled down to our
people. The government recklessly
abandoned all other economic
sectors and refused to develop
others. Our governors were thus
reduced to almajiris flooding Abuja
to share petrol-dollar which are
spent in most cases on white
elephant projects instead of
building factories, industries and
investment in agriculture and the
real sectors that can generate
employment and impact positively
on the living standards of people.
Poverty is a despicable destroyer of
social fabric of a nation. It distorts
one’s thought, impairs creative and
innovative ability, inhibit
productivity, tears marriages apart,
make parents loose control over
their children and because society
and nation emerge from families,
poverty thus destroys a nation
through social malice and resultant
insecurity, that is unfortunately
where Nigeria is at the moment.
Relatively, we strongly advise our
government to work harder to
increase our Gross National Product
(GNP) and Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) through capital investment
that will maximize productivity. Our
government at all levels should
partner themselves in a conscious
effort to re-embrace agriculture as
the bedrock of our industrialization
strategy. The federal government
and the state should work our
implementable policy that will
engage the states on their
respective areas of comparative
advantages in produce and
products through counterpart
funding. The economy should be
effectively diversified indeed and
not in talk shows. We also advise
the Nigerian people to consciously
organize themselves to hold their
leaders and government
accountable at all levels of
governance in order to stop
plundering of nation’s resources. In
an unjust society, silence is a crime.
NIGERIA’S ECONOMY, POVERTYAND
UNEMPLOYMENT
When the economy of a nation is
surrendered to the wholesome
manipulation of multi-national,
trans- national, international and
pseudo- national corporations,
contending for the control of the
heart of a nation for self-profiteering
and capitalist greed, the political
leadership of such a country as in
the case of Nigeria becomes willing
victims of such manipulations; in
most cases, subservient to the
corporations. In the day, the
President of such a country
becomes their Excellency and
revered Lord, in the night he is the
servant of the corporation. The
hallmark of such economy is the
declaration of externally induced
falsified growth percentage rate that
runs contrary to the reality of
poverty, unemployment and penury
on ground.
The political leadership operating
under these described order are
usually ruthless, corrupt and
insensitive to the yearnings, needs
and aspirations of the people. With
their outrageous salaries,
emolument and allowances as well
as expensive and inflated running
cost of governance, they impose on
the people outrageous and
intolerable burden of their special
privileges which manifest in
poverty, gross unemployment and
dearth of infrastructures that can
support development.
Many countries such as Brazil,
Indonesia, Iran, Venezuela and India
to mention but a few were once
under this bracket but have today
liberated themselves through
conscious efforts and determination
leading to their current admirable
development status. Nigeria must
do same and look inward to achieve
genuine transformational
development.
FUEL SUBSIDY
The truth of the last petrol hike in
the name of subsidy removal is that
the government unlawfully in
absolute corruption, through the
NNPC has been feeding some fat
cats in the system that eventually
are the greatest patrons and fund
raiser for government electoral
malpractices and manipulation as
donors. The government realized
that they can no longer finance
these fat cats and looked for an
alternative way to fund them more
dangerously – funding by helpless
Nigerian people who are already
over burdened with poverty.
We thus affirm our stand that the
people should not be made to pay
for the sins of government created
cabal. We advise that they should
build refineries for us, the model
type that we can operate and
manage by our own expertise. The
Republic of Cuba is not an oil
producing country, yet it has three
refineries that are functional to full
capacity for the last fifty (50) years,
while Nigeria, the sixth (6) largest
world oil producer has four
dysfunctional refineries. It is a
satanic act of disservice to
motherland. To stem the trend of
bad governance in Nigeria, the
following must be addressed.
CONSTITUTIONALAMENDMENT
I call for constitutional amendment
that will address such issues as
removal of the immunity clause to
enable public office holders to face
trials on matters relating to criminal
betrayal of trust and corruption,
granting of financial autonomy to
the Local Government Area
Councils, empowering the National
Wages and Salaries Commission to
carry out its duty in such manner
that enables it to penalize any
institution or public officer that runs
excessive allowances and cost
beyond the commission’s fixed rate.
Lastly, the appointment of heads of
institutions such as Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC)
, Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission (ICPC), Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
should be by the National Judicial
Council (NJC) in line with the
recommendations of the Justice
Mohammed Uwais Committee.
ELECTORAL UMPIRE AND ELECTIONS
Most of the discontents and
dissatisfactions in our system which
contributed to prevailing national
insecurity, resulted from electoral
malpractices and judicial judgments
seen largely by Nigerians to be
political than serving the purpose of
justice. Conscious and patriotic
efforts devoid of manipulations and
self-preservation must be made to
overhaul the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC),
ensuring that people of absolute
proven integrity, with upright moral
standing and capacity to defy
manipulation are made to occupy
various sensitive positions in (INEC).
Elections must be conducted in a
conspicuously transparent, free, fair
and credible manner. The National
Assembly should hasten up the Bill
on Electoral Offences Commission
that will ensure adequate
deterrence and punitive measures
against electoral offenders. A
corrupt and manipulated electoral
system will always produce
mediocre, inept and corrupt leaders
who in turn visit the people with
calamity. Victory through balance of
terror is not an electoral victory. We
must strive to do better. Forensic
testing of electoral materials should
be embedded in our Electoral Act as
fraud proof so that once and for all,
we solve the problem of credibility.
JUDICIARY
Some of the practices within the
judiciary lately raises more
questions than answers and went
too far to cast aspersions on the
nobility of the noble profession. The
judiciary that will guarantee justice
and sustainable democracy must be
seen by all to be true, judicious and
transparently honest to its duty. If
the judiciary allows itself to be
manipulated by the Executive, it will
spell doom and anarchy for the
country because people will loose
confidence and take laws into their
hands. Unfortunately too, that is
where we are today.
THE SECURITYAGENT ROLE IN
ELECTION
The Nigerian security agents must
attune to the tenets of democracy
and ensure that their loyalty is to
the Nigerian Constitution and not to
leadership that personalize
governance. They must totally rid
themselves of involvement in
electoral manipulation and ensure
that they confine themselves to
their basic role of security. They
should see themselves as people’s
police and people’s army.
Thank you.

Dino Melaye is the currently
Executive Secretary of Abuja-
based Anti Corruption League.