2023 and the Call for Leadership, Justice, Equity, and Giving The Nation A Square Deal – Laying a Red Herring -By Jimi Bickersteth

“In the multitude of people is the King’s honour: but in the want of the people is of the prince“.

With a cloud covered moon spreading a faded light over the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. The smoking oil lamp and its flickering flame triggered in me the urge to take a stroll and perhaps have a pint or two of the “HONOURABLE” across the road, I stepped out to notice that a storm cloud shrouded the moon and it was dark. What can one do in this days of no light and no water, I went back in to my room for my night companion – my Torchlight.

A red neon light that spelt “Amala HEY” dominated the road that was the main broad street of Akute through to Otta via Lambe in the nation’s gateway state. Below the signage was a box-shaped, Venetian curtained clapboard building where customers could sit and drink and watch football on the many TVs and wide screens.

One of the attendants, probably twenty-sex or seven years of age
, a graduate of a university somewhere in the nation’s south-south. She said, average height but looked taller because of her build and long, tapering legs. Her hair, black as a raven’s wing reached to her shoulders and was parted in the middle, forming a frame for her face, a face that now had a wild sensual beauty. She was wearing for a uniform a scarlet halter that emphasised the fullness of her breasts and white stretch pants that set off the solid curve of her small hips and the length of her legs. Was I moved! Know what I mean? Its hard to believe how much the nation and its ruling elites broke little dreams was the thought streaming in my consciousness.

I asked what I would like to drink. She produced a bottle of beer beaded with icy condensation, snapped off the ‘cap’, poured and then pushed the glass towards me. I equally raised the glass, looking at her, I said, ‘To the light in your eyes and the sun in your smile.’ Then I drank. She blushed and her complexion turned pale under her bleached skin. I guess she liked the compliment. As she belched, “Thanks.”

I set down the glass, ran my tongue over my froth covered lips, and drew in a long, slow breath. I wondered about the service girl’s ease of manner and her apparent simplicity. Maybe, I thought, like the country, she too had problems, but was in control of herself. Everyone had problems these days: it depends on how they coped with them. Some people could manage alone: others had to talk about them: others couldn’t stop talking about them. I drank the last of the beer and headed back home.

The moon hung in the cloudless sky casting black shadows and sharply lighting the pothole infested road. The air was still and hot and frogs were croaking in the dirty gutter either side of the road. When I reached the top of the pimple in the middle of the road, the prominence of a dark and silent night revealed itself; it was a night full of soft, eerie sound of a nation whose reputation has suffered something of an eclipse in recent years, and still promises to remain in eclipse for many years, if the necessary things are not done right and or put in place.

What with the present global economic meltdown and hazards and the menaces all around. The problem of leadership and politicians in the polity and a nation that seemed to have the weight of the world pressing down on it. It got all yakking and yakking about Boko, Restructuring, Referendum, Freedom, liberty, equality, Politics and God knows what; things our generation hadn’t given a damn about when we had been their age; problems, I felt, that were spoiling lives and the nation.

I worry when things happen, not when they don’t. But in the land today so much is happening. You have four refineries with a refining capacity of 450000 barrels per day. You abandoned them to rot and approach Niger Republic with a refining capacity of 20000 barrels per day to sign an Mou of $2b to transport your own crude via pipelines from Niger Delta to Niger Republic so you can buy the refined products. What happens to Dangote’s refinery? Laughable!

I began to think about the state of the nation, about the factors of leadership, time and circumstances which determines the delicate relationship between government and society and how the trio do affect public perception of, and reactions to, such key institution of state as the presidency and the legislature in pursuance of their long established role of buttress of government.

Politicians and political leaders watching helplessly at the declining Nigeria’s competitiveness in world markets. Think about a nation with a long list of political predators and politicians bursting with good living and self-importance, without the trappings of a massive desks and battery of telephones-Portfolio Executives and merchants, and have, hence, partook of the odium the public associates with unpopular governments.

Politicians who generally have fun with life’s charmed gift, (what is as delightful as s3x, fast machines and sunshine), but are unable to proffer common practical and workable solutions, and solid bases for prophylactic action to address some of the red herrings that distract the people and government.

The ruling elites have consequently, became Nigeria’s most visible, and apart from the police, most discussed felony since 1999, infact, has been part of the ecology of crime in spite of their out of the world’s pay grade (the bras and the pants) whose cause still defy definitive analysis, fed from a variety of streams — economic, political, social, and others.

Today, the ruling elites have become the nation’s problem. So collosal, so complex. The people have become so disenchanted. The ruling elites have failed themselves and has failed the nation, its people and society. The politicians components in national development in general, that stability are essential to development is one argument many can endorse that the political class constitute a major shield in development and growth is another argument several would rarely accept. The ruling elites have become fearsome fearful menaces is another argument majority would subscribe to.

They couldn’t fashion a headway to the ever rising interest rate, the food crisis and escalating rise in cost of living, unstable and poor power supply, while the naira sinks further to #507/$ – driven principally by the impact of the Naira Technical Devaluation, while BDC remained #399/$.

For the ordinary citizens, who do not fully understand the strange chemistry that causes politics (the politicians) and power (the people) to fuse together, firewood remained the best option for cooking their meals, whenever they have the means, as Kerosene and cooking gas prices have shot up and becomes unaffordable.

The prices of goods and services have consistently and persistently been on the increase since 2015. The inflation rate, which measures rates of increases in prices rising from 9.3% in October 2015 to 18.72% in January 2017. The poor man’s staple garb – Gari, Beans, Rice, Palm oil etcetera are all on the increase as confirmed by the Consumer Prices Index report.

The National Bureau of Statistics said, prices of essential commodities remains largely volatile. With all of this recurring hourly, take- home-pay, that could no longer take people to the bus stop, not to talk of home, remained the same over the same period of time. It is only by deep sense of respect for PMB and his exemplary moral rectitude that prevent the recrudescence of civil disorder.

At this instance, a white-hot inspiration swept over me, it screamed, ‘Shove the Corn’; about the worries of the people, the fear in their hearts of a tomorrow that is unknown nor guaranteed. A fear that has kept all of us on pins and needles. In our very dysfunctional setting, with a past that cannot be changed, a present that we are not sure of, how then, do we take care of a relatively unknown future, where we can take as many millions of Nigerians out of the danger of the poverty bracket.

The persistent profusion of social and material ruin in the land of hope so appalling, money stolen from the system, are found in attic’s, soak-away pits, bras, ceilings, etc, all of which have aroused ire and draw a pouting expression of the face. The nation’s ruined economy had had scores of our compatriots trading end organs, this showcased, the ugly, deep and vast chasm separating the “haves” and “have-nots”.

The cake of maladministration in the land, has as its icing, an apparently thin glaze of arrogance by the so called leadership and their coterie of advisers covering a lava of fear of survival, shocking, as it were, that has surreptitiously become Nigerians second nature.

The high youth unemployment rate, the high inflation rate, the high costs of fuel, kerosene and cooking gas in a country with a pond of black gold in every district, so to speak, and the hiccups in PHCN, are some of the problems that seem to suggest that the nation is in the middle of nowhere. The nation will never be in short supply of spin-doctors, who, in a busyness fashion, compound the problems and their own pantomime of panic, as they are wont to, defend low or non performance as a finished work.

In our experience, this spin doctors and coteries of advisers ennobled and goad the National leadership in a strange way with the people not satisfied because nothing interesting is happening. At the end of the day, things begin to go horribly wrong and rather than making democracy a co-efficient of abundance, it is fast becoming a meaningless metaphor. With this been the case, everything is wrong, when we cannot properly interpret what democracy stood for and could not make it serve the general interest of the mass of the people-meaningless to the heart and life of the individual.

The government at the twilight of its tenure must wake up to its responsibility and end this slap approach to governance, as it has consistently exaggerated the negative in the past administration that had been laid to rest, methought, it was mere politics and a lame excuse to explain away its own spinelessness. Exaggerating  
its liabilities, which included the problems of the Niger Delta amongst so many intimidating but surmountable problems, would make the government want to overreach and overplay its hands and may sink lower than ever, live in constant fear, anxiety and insecurity.

The government must realize that questions that has not destroyed the nation for this long can only make it stronger, hence, must stop its Change and Corruption wars been run by politicians as generals who couldn’t care less how many people died as long as the battle was won. Let the war’s wear a human face and deal with the people with the milk of human kindness.

In the “change era” the government and the people should brace up, as the imminent change will stretch and challenge us to rethink assumptions we have always believed to be right. The funny thing is that, the people are ready for the tsunami, but, on one hand, none of our leaders,  as yet dedicate themselves to the process that would birth change; that’s because growth requires change, not re branding and recycling, and on the other hand, we appear to be uncomfortable with the things change brings, in personnel, ideology and philosophy.

It is said that, Justice begins where inequality ends and with the journey to the future losing some of its anticipated pleasure with the nation’s growing disenchantment and dire calls for restructuring alive today in movements for reproductive justice, equality and rights, the nation must join forces to show the world what’s possible when it confronts its history, reconciles with its differences, and reimagines a more perfect, more just union together.

The strident message from marginalised communities is resoundingly clear: to achieve a truly equitable society, the faces of leadership must change across all sectors. It is no longer acceptable for communities not to have a say in their futures. But achieving this change takes more than identifying future leaders – they’ve long been there – it’s about those with power ceding their grip in favour of recognising and resourcing those who have lacked power.

This change in leadership orientation is playing out around the world and Nigeria, nay, Africa cannot be complacent with an old model of leadership. The nation must:
i. Rethink how global public goods are financed – shifting from a charity model where wealthy nations control the vast majority of the world’s supply of investment and prioritise equity and advocacy efforts in the Global South; encouraging government and Political leaders to change course.
ii. Building the next generation of leaders. Leaders grounded in the issues affecting their community and deeply aware of systemic inequity are key to combating inequality.
iii. To equip more leaders to respond to the urgent challenges of the moment, whilst taking a wide range of challenges, including human trafficking, democratising technology, protecting civic space, gender justice and education as it supports leaders developing creative solutions, help build a supportive environment and communities have a new framework to advocate for themselves and build on the aspirations of supporting people, places and philosophies of the nation.

From the general to the specific: the local refineries and refiners and government’s newly found variation, Modular Refineries must be improved upon. Here the government have to look at the mirror and remind itself of what has become of our once-giant refineries, as our wrong believing of the past had produced wrong living, or the people will doubt this APC/PMB led administration, its promises and its willingness and capacity to fulfill them.

The government have been intimidated by the existence of illegal refiners, who have taken advantage of its timidity, weakness and naiveté; with the government’s capitulating and falling flat on its face, the result is likely going to be eternal ethical chaos.
Why? Because it allowed the people in the Niger Delta to set their own standards, and self set standards are prone to change from situation to situation; because of the state of the human mind at any given time. There is a perceived, Double Standard somewhere, and it is easy to get disgusted with people who fail the ethics test – here the government has and still is.

The government has encouraged the local and illegal refiners, and has indeed, mooted, the construction of Modular Refineries – a processing plant that has been constructed entirely on skid mounted structures. Each structure contains a portion of the entire process plant, and through interstitial piping the components link together to form an easily manageable process, if you have ever seen the local gin (ogogoro) distillery.

Without laying a single pipe, the one in Lagos would cost about $116million for a 20,000bd. Yes, Modular Refinery is a welcome alternative in emerging economies as it offers a number of options, particularly, for a nation whose Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries have been hiccuping and in non-functional states due to lack of adequate and proper maintenance culture and a profound difficulty for the nation targeting 2,000,000bd to sustain industrial ethics needed for large scale refining, cost differential and flexibility.

A simple calculation of the nation’s conservative need, tells you that it will conservatively require 200 modular refineries multiply by $116 million to (give or take) make the nation’s daily Target. Here the nation must undertake a serious Risk Assessment evaluation and must work so hard on the front end to reap the rewards on the back end. To win this battle, you must first admit you have a problem with the existing refineries. It’s been a long and brutal fight, no doubt, getting the three refineries to operate at installed capacity, but if an end has come to their existence, and what the local refineries plans, desires and programmes lines up with government own intentions, so be it.

However, this goes without saying that, the recognition by government, that the nation’s “Young men” and army of illegal, local refiners, must be properly engaged to participate in the Modular Refineries, must have been off the cuffs. Of course, coming up or toying with the idea of Modular Refineries to accommodate local refiners, have shown that the government has been challenged and are apparently  thinking ‘outside the box’,  a welcoming paradigm shift in the way we usually and ordinarily identify problems and applying the appropriate solutions congruent to them. However, the issue of local refiners has trumped up a number of issues that bothered on equity, fairness, balance and stability, that must not be swept away with the wave of the hand:
i. There is danger ahead, if the nation have to transfer the technology of refineries to largely untrained amateurs called local refiners;
ii. The nation must incur more expenditure to bring the modules operators to the standard and sophistication  of the manpower required to operate, undertake and manage the business of a refinery.
iii.The young men that have grown used to getting paid by government to carouse to now begin to eke a living is most likely a grand deceit.
iv. The nation’ll require a crash programmes of some sort, which invariably may not come cheap, to augment whatever limited knowledge at the disposal of its ‘local refiners.
v. Would young men from the other geopolitical divide be able to take advantage of work that would be readily available in the refineries or is it going to be the exclusive preserve of residents where they are located. More often than not, the latter would play out, as you will hear from time the deafening roar of ‘quotas quota’ and indegene, so, what are the government plans for “Young men” from elsewhere in the country, what programmes does the government have in place for their yearnings and aspirations, and, vi. What would be the impact of the nation’s connection with the Niger Republic refinery.

I empathise with the government in its onerous task, but, because, one can’t be right and be wrong at the same breathing, it must be careful to change the protocol to suit the environment, it would be seen as laying a bad precedent by those seeing the big picture from a 4D projector.

The greatest indictment against not knowing is not learning. Let government look dispassionately, at the local refineries, its existence, antecedent the right way, ask the hard questions, bring perspective, to keep it on track. It’s high time this government pulls its weight and look for ways to make its presence an asset not a liability, even as it attempts to uncover the plot to the nation’s greatness. Like Self-help gurus would say, “Look inside yourself and you’ll find the key”.

The nation’s change agenda should therefore, take a cue, from the experiences, that have liberated the Asians and placed their economies in good stead, within the bracket of emerging economies. The nation should focus on growth in culture and character. That has been the secret of the new found prosperity of the Asian tigers, little wonder, they control the heartbeat of the global economy.

These nations are even more interested in character than career, as success without character has the potential to hurt us and hurt our nation. It is not our talents but our desire that determines our destinies, Nigeria’s oil wealth without our character and desire brought misery and ruination.

The dwindling oil revenue in a monolithic economy has thrown up a huge unemployment problem. The government short term fix of #5000 hand out to jobless graduates, even when the graduates are not the only catchment group in the unemployed bracket; in any case, dishing out the money  might amount to flinging good money into a bottomless pit as the universities will keep churning out more pan handlers every year.

The idea apart from failing the logic, equity and fair play tests, coming at a time when even those fully and gainfully employed consumes 90%of our gross earnings, and are been owed months of unpaid salaries and emoluments, and in other cases, a backlog of arrears of pensions. The alternative in the absence of a fund to meet such a political exigencies, is to begin to teach the youths how to catch fish. It would thus serve the nation’s interest best if the government can establish cottage industries, where the youths training can be put in productive use.

Nigerians have daily listened to stories of mindless fleecing that has plunged the nation deeper into the darkness of despair and self-loathing, and every attempt at recovery, leaving us pathetically, unchanged and uncertain. In other climes, leaders must by now, be suffering from guilt and self-incrimination with persistent failure.

Take this, change is just evidence of growth. Nigeria can’t become what it is destined to be if the leaders insist in staying AJUWAYA.” Only fools and dead men don’t change”, John Patterson said, ” fools won’t and dead men can’t”. Before they tag your toe, the earlier you realise that, the neurotic thing is not to be afraid, or to be afraid of the wrong thing.

The only adequate preparation for our future is the wise use of today and its resources, knowing we’ll ace it, with adequate planning, strenuous preparation and transparency. To overcome depression and all what nots, the government must begin to focus less on our feelings, but rather, on available resources and facts, and the reality of the situation. Feelings often lie, and can be notoriously unreliable.

In concluding this piece, who is going to salvage the nation, for how long would our hospitals remain “consulting clinics”, these and other questions, should engage the attention of the nation’s leadership, while setting up a sincere, achievable and sustainable development,  agenda for the Nigeria project. The nation’s space should be a “theatre of dreams” and reality of experience, where all are inspired and challenged for everest, and not the theatre where we are placated by mere pittance that could not buy a month’s data.

The government must show up to a people in the throes of corruption caused by human desires and a people that has it over a barrel. Call the people to a life of radical commitment with an agenda and roadmap that has perspective, context and meaning and must never allow the gravitational pull of past failures, abuse of office, neglect, ruin the nation’s future. In this wise, government response to the nation’s disappointing failures of leadership must not be another failed relationship, supposing as we often do, that, doing more of what doesn’t work will eventually make it work, in the laps of the gods.

The APC/PMB combos should not just offer us another tinkering efforts, but, to stop the nation’s lonely, wandering as a big black raincloud. The nation’s been stuck for a long time, now we must take a new step and taking a new step is what we fear most, yet our real fear should be the opposite.The new agenda must be fortright, while all the leaders and the led must roll with the punches, bend without breaking. Getting stuck isn’t always an option, but staying or remaining stuck is. The best thing in the circumstance is, no matter how long the nation has been stuck, the right attitude can get it moving. It only requires good direction, focus and energy.

#JimiBickersteth

Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger, public affairs analyst and a writer.
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