Awakening the giant within to push beyond the limits Of the Eagle heights and giving the Nation a Square Deal -By Jimi Bickersteth

“In the multitude of people is the King’s honour: but in the want of the people is the destruction of the prince“. Proverbs 14:28

With a cloud covered moon spreading a faded light over the city, the smoking oil lamp and its flickering flame triggered in me the urge to take a stroll and perhaps have a bottle 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.

When I reached the top of the pimple in the middle of the road, the prominence of a dark and silent night in all its ramifications 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 with its youths overarching permissiveness still promises to remain in eclipse for many years, if the needful and necessary things are not done right and or put in place. I’ll come to that shortly.

I began to think about the state of the nation, of 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 self-importance and good living, without the trappings of a massive desks and battery of telephones – Portfolio Executives and political merchants.

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 their government. Their ‘government’ couldn’t fashion a headway to the ever rising interest rate, the food crises and escalating rise in cost of living.

A nation that currently epitomises unstable and poor power supply, while it’s official currency have always taken a dive and has drowned further to #521/$ – driven principally by the impact of the Naira, the nation’s unannounced ‘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 too 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 of January 2017. 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’ (or, so I thought) moral rectitude that prevent the recrudescence of civil disorder. A thought of Abba kyari and his recent travails with the FBI streamed in to my consciousness. 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, even as government transmit tranquility and confidence to the people. As it is, 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, ceilings, etc, anywhere, just anywhere, 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, engaged in voodoo practice and ‘money-ritual’ all of which had 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 hiccups of PHCN, the high costs of fuel, kerosene and cooking gas in a country with an inexhaustible pond of black gold in every district, so to speak, 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 nation’s 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. In this wise, 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.

This present times is terrible. A time the PMB’s administration is fighting so many battles from many fronts. And this are battles he must win one way or the other. To the nation, something basic is changing on the social and political scene, something that will have profound effect on the nation’s well-being, something to which the nation needs time to adjust. And the hope was, and is, that that something will provide the necessary lead time for politicians, the ruling elites to develop their strategies of adjustment.

What are these changes? It is perhaps misleading, in an age and world of discontinuous change, to single out any one particular trend, but, for purpose of this article, one can focus on the phenomenon of changing societal values and expectations and the resulting increased politicising of the economy and the resultant heightened vocal and intellectual acrobatics.

The Year 2020 was a watershed in the nation’s history. The increased agitations for self-independence, ethnic profiling, herdsmen attacks, Boko Haram persistent killings in terrorist style, increasing rise of cost of living, etc. The analogy is apt for, since then, and curiously, with the emergence of covid-19, the streams of the nation’s social thinking have started to flow in quite different directions. But the solutions lie in the nation’s awareness and ability to consider the changing values inherent in its new perceptions about what constitutes the right relationship between the North and the southeast, southwest, the minorities, the individual and institutions, the economy, ecology, business, politics and society.

Among the consequences of these values will be a rewriting of society’s “charter of expectations” on one hand, and on the other, the pact, in other words, the mandate of the people in relations to government’s performance. Clearly, expectations are on the march and the ruling elites and the democratic institutions must scurry to keep up with them. By the dawn of year 2020 it was obvious that “the business as usual” sentiments could no longer be satisfied.

The government must wake up to its responsibility and end this slapdash approach to governance. Exaggerating its liabilities, which included the problems of the Niger Delta, the Boko Haram pounding, the comatose economy, and the several strident calls for self-independence amongst so many intimidating but surmountable problems, would make the government want to overreach and overplay its hands and may sink lower than ever, and this may only compound the problems further and may further conscript the people to live in constant fear, anxiety and state of insecurity.

With a complacent “other things being equal” perceptions for formulations of policies to cover the areas of planning that lay outside politics and traditional economic and technological forecasting brought in a lot of names under different aegis. The impact of the various “movements” of the time broke suddenly and forcefully on the unprotected flanks of the nation and its few enterprises, causing major disruptions in plans of action and “sorrow, tears and blood” in its trails.

Lacking strategies to deal with these unexpected forces, the government was forced to back on hastily improvised tactics that did little more than stave off one assault before another came. Such a course of reluctant and belated reaction is the antithesis of the nation’s corporate existence enterprise, an initiatives on which the nation pride itself and which is an essential prerequisite for the future vitality and its government’s legitimacy.

If it was to reverse this present situation, the government have to engage in proactive strategies to deal with the: a. changing social, economic and political forces, b. its mono-economy, c. in an effort to “make sense of change”, to see a pattern in the kaleidoscope of prospective events, it seems logical to conclude that it must, as one condition for success, expand its forecasting system to include, making adequate provision for availability of agricultural products and food.

Man is a wanting animal–as soon as one of his needs is satisfied another appears in its place. This process is unending. It continues from birth to death. Man’s needs are organised in a series of levels – a hierarchy of importance. At the lowest level, but pre-eminent in importance when they are thwarted are his physiological needs. Man lives for bread alone. Don’t believe anything to the contrary. Unless the circumstances are unusual, his needs for love, for status, for recognition are inoperative when his stomach has been empty for a while. Why do you think politicians talk of a “stomach infrastructure.”

But when he eats regularly and adequately, hunger ceases to be an important motivation. The government is defeated on that front. When the physiological needs are reasonably satisfied, needs at the highest level begin to dominate man’s behaviour – to motivate him. These are the safety needs. They are needs for protection against danger, threat, deprivation. All are invariably in a dependent relationship, where it fears arbitrary deprivation, they have become threatened or their existence had, they demand security.

Man’s, greatest need today is for guarantees for protection, for security, which were  not forthcoming, here the government’s scores was poor. Feeding, safety and security were, arguably, the PMB’s administration’s loose and substantially weak specific performance factors that are relevant for an economic and  socio-political corporate existence. Its considerations of historical PowerPoint presentations and extrapolations of these factors should provide it a means of internal views of growth plans and decisions thereto.

Presently, these does not provide criteria by which government quality may be evaluated. But, it is necessary and essential for Government to be constantly evaluated on its ability to maximize enterprise performance with minimum resources. That calls for a re-evaluation of the nation’s 1999 constitution: to unambiguously defined that the purpose of government is to achieve the objectives for which it exists and to ensure its survival. None should cry of lack and or hunger as is presently the case.

The changing lifestyle of the Nigerian society is requiring a concurrent change in the lifestyle of government because government exists to serve the needs of the people. The changing expectations of people are requiring government to be more concerned with the social consequences of all its activities. It must realize that questions that has not destroyed the nation for this long can only make it stronger, hence, must stop its ‘change’, oneness, 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.

ln the change era, the government and the people should brace up, as the imminent change, the real 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, as is presently the case, and on the other hand, we appear to be uncomfortable with the things change brings, in personnel, ideology and philosophy.

As with any current fancy and the desirable change in an emerging nation, there’s the possibility of this latest romance with sociopolitical rhetoric in the APC change era will turn out to be a short-lived affair, weakened by lack of resolve and substantive contribution by the real people in the real sector. This would be a pity, if it happened. Because the need for this new dimension to nation-building and its plannings is real, and, to a large extent, recognized by the downtrodden.

II. The post-war generation of Nigerians have entered adulthood, and with that, one fact has emerged. This generation born in the joy of “No victor no vanquished” and a surge of unprecedented affluence, represents a sharp change in the social fabric of Nigerian life. Born to parents whom familial life was equated with material possession; their children were to have everything. Never would they know the deprivation and hardship experienced by their parents. Hand in hand with this child-centredness went progressive education and a permissiveness characterized modern child-rearing practices.

In stark contrast to the overly ambitious hopes of their parents, the baby boomers are less motivated toward success, less optimistic and certainly less committed to the large institutions that make up this society than any previous generation of Nigerians. A set that could raze down establishments and 200 buses in minutes and with glee. The emerging young adult population spurned the nation’s value systems, and the Church, family, the political arena, government, PMB, et al, all came in for well-aimed scorn as they face challenges to their authority and increasing skepticism about the institution’s ability to solve society’s problems and offer hope for the future.

They, too, detect a flowering of narcissism among the “Me Generation,” a crisis of authority, and an age of cynics. The signs of value change and discontent a là the infamous #ENDSARS protests extend beyond the nation’s borders. In the time past, youth in Switzerland pressed their demands for a youth centre by raining destruction on the Bahnhhofstrasse. As reported in New York Magazine, this “movement of the discontented” rebelled against conformity, materialism and chauvinism. That sounds true for the nation’s youth too. Though fiercely critical of older values and “bourgeois ambition,” their own values and motivations were unclear and nebulous, except for the certainty that they did not want to waste themselves in hard work.

A problem for the authorities in dealing with them was that their motto was “No leaders”–there were no spokespersons or structures with whom to negotiate. Nowhere does this sharp break with traditional values cause more consternation than in the nation’s corporate environment, which built its strength on competition and on the Horatio Alger myth of personal success through the scramble for leadership. With them it became a proverbial clash of irresistible force and immovable object.

But, will the nation change to accommodate these young people weaned on immediate, instant gratification and wedded to notions of rampant individualism, or are these youngsters-in-anomie simply aliens passing through without leaving a mark on the nation? Will a renewed emphasis on participative democracy engage the hearts and minds of these disaffected young people, or will they simply hasten its demise? Can the nation negotiate a safe journey through the turbulent times ahead if leadership again falls to those who would rather not lead!

III.With the hardworking older generation not been able to perform as they once were, consumer goods and agricultural products continued to suffer great decline and a downwardly spiralling standard of living sharply came into focus and challenging the nation and its people. This essay digressed here, and views what is it with the Modular Refineries and refiners. Talking of the local refineries and refiners and government’s ‘newly’ found variation Modular Refineries and the PIBill.

Here the government have to look at the mirror and remind itself of what has become of the nation’s once giant refineries, as its wrong believing of the past had produced wrong living, or the people will doubt this APC 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 (on a venture that is ‘our Commonwealth’), 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 private one in Lekki-Lagos would cost about $116million for a 20,000bd. With such comparative analysis, 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 a non functional states, due majorly, to a 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 our 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, that 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 projects, 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. That was a welcoming paradigm shift from the way the nation usually and ordinarily identify problems and applying the appropriate solutions congruent to them.

But then, 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.) It must incur more expenditure to bring them 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 to carouse to now begin to eke a living is most likely a grand deceit. iv.) We’ll require a crash programmes of some sort, which invariably may not come cheap, to augment whatever limited knowledge at the disposal of our local refiners, and v.) the political angle, would the 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 the deafening roar of quotas, quota and indigene. So, what are the government plans for “Young men” from elsewhere in the country, where there’s no crude. What programmes does the government have in place for their yearnings and aspirations.

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 on a wide screen. 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.”

IV.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’s promises of a short term fix of #5000 hand out to jobless graduates, (even when the graduates are not the only catchment group in the unemployed brackets); 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 year in year out. 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, is preposterous.

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 the nation’s 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 Greater Nigeria project.’.1. The nation’s space should be a theatre of dreams where everyone is refined, refired, inspired and challenged for Everest, and not the theatre where we are placated by mere pittance that could not buy a month’s data. 2. 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. 3. Call the people to a life of radical commitment with an agenda and roadmap that has perspective, context and meaning and, 4. 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 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 it must take a new step and taking a new step is what we fear most, yet our real fear should be the opposite. The  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 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. #Jimi Bickersteth
Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger, public affairs analyst and a writer.
He can be reached on twitter
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Emails: jimi.bickersteth@gmail.com

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