Nigeria: Leadership, Rhetoric and Reality -By Fola Ojo

Fola Ojo

In my earlier years growing up in Nigeria, very many young people in my age category had many dreams. Some of the dreams were lofty; others were lousy. The lofty and lousy dreams were etched in the spine of youthful thinking and immature imagination and mindset. We dreamt about building wealth and making ostentatious marks in all of the then 12 states of Nigeria. We dreamt about conquering the world and counter-colonising our British colonial masters. We dreamt that our generation would be the first to take Nigeria to the moon and onto every imaginable planet.   We kept on dreaming until a certain age range when we inevitably stumbled on the illuminator called REALITY. Then, some of us sat back; fastened our seat belts, and went back to our individual armoury to prepare for a fight against the army of REALITY.  Reality is a factor that determines whether a dream comes true, or remains cocooned in the cubicle of mere dreams.

There is no better fashion to acquire the experiential knowledge of a situation until it is kick-started by REALITY. Experience is a natural phenomenon that confirms the reality of a situation. No matter how long a man dreams, and no matter how sweet the dream is, one day, he will wake up into reality or be consumed by the attending nightmare.

Politicians all over the world love the campaign season. That is the only time that applauding adherents and acolytes make them look like messiahs without whom they can do nothing. That is when they become avatars whose words are indubitable. Political campaigns are full of fantasies and illusions.  They are like job interviews where you pad up your resume with skills you don’t possess. Political campaigns are almost fact-free. They are replete with rhetoric, and obese with lies and deceptions.  After every campaign, however, comes governing.  And the governor comes face-to-face with reality that even the most powerful cannot run away from. In Nigeria right now, ask any of the ministers in the cabinet of Muhammadu Buhari what time it is. They will tell you that we are in the realm of reality.

A man shivering and freezing out in the cold requires no sermonising that it is cold outside. A woman in the valley sweltering, sweating, swiveting and sliding into hyperthermia needs no preaching that life can sometimes get too hot!  Reality is truth not falsity. It is fact not fantasy. You can run as fast as you can from reality; but it will always track you down on your fruitless trip to the capital of illusion. Reality is faster than the speed of light and has more velocity than the high-speed internet technology.  It has too much celerity that science has not yet been able to catch up with. Its effigy has the breath of life that desires and determinations have not been able to obliterate.

When ex-president Goodluck Jonathan promised that he would resolve electricity problem in Nigeria within four years in office, he must have meant it. He drew the idea on the cardboard of his mind but later came face-to-face with a well-trained, well-equipped army of reality.  The outcome of his war with reality led to his ouster as President of the giant of Africa. In the Nigerian terrain, it is almost difficult to hope until you first have a round-table discussion with reality. Unfortunately, nobody knows where reality lives in Nigeria. You’ll just stumble on it while attempting to do great things with your life.

President Muhammadu Buhari promised Nigerians during the electioneering that he was going to crush electricity troubles and increase the generating capacity to 40,000 megawatts in four to eight years. He assured us then that he had identified the problems and has the solution. Like Jonathan, he must have meant it. But a comatose economy and wanton vandalism of gas pipelines have now forced the President to face the reality. Just a few days ago, his team lowered the expectation to 10,000 megawatts in the next three years. In Nigeria, reality may be a demon you want to cast out before you cast a vision.  Mr. President, please whatever you do, just do something that will lift off this veil of pestilence called suffering.

Lest I be deemed a prophet of doom, it is reality that our reckless, feckless, and inefficacious choices as a nation may cause the dollar to eventually exchange for as high as N1000. Those who are astute in economics and versed in how exchange rates work will tell us that imagined magic or mere desire cannot put Nigeria’s economy back on track in a nanosecond. Tanking crude oil accounts for over 90 per cent of our revenues. Nigeria is an economic empty-shell with a drastically desiccating crude oil. She is an empty-shell without a fall-back on other means that have in times past proved to be lifelines. She is an empty-shell without a laser-beam focus on agriculture and exploration of those mineral resources beneath the earth that stretch from the Northern to the Southern parts of Nigeria. This is the reality!

Where exactly did Nigeria tragically miss it?  Where is that Nigeria that boasted of one naira to one US dollar? Where is that Nigeria that was among world’s top exporters of timbre, cocoa, groundnuts, rubber, and palm oil? Where is that Nigeria where Yankari Games Reserve, Obudu Cattle Ranch,  Oguta Lake, Ikogosi Springs,  Gurara Falls,  Mambilla Plateau  attracted international tourists who brought in loads of foreign exchange? Where is that Nigeria when there were different car assembly plants – Peugeot, Volkswagen, ANAMCO; and Nigerian government officials never had to ponder importing American SUVs as official chariot? Where is that Nigeria when houses were built without high walls as fences; and when meals rich in nutrients were given out for free to Elementary students in many of our neighbourhoods? Is that Nigeria gone forever? Nigerians are known all over the world for decking up in the best of garments. Some American friends of mine call us a FASHION NATION. Stroll around any social gathering from Lagos to Port  Harcourt, the paraded clad will daze and dazzle you. But don’t be surprised that not one single yard of those expensive  clothes are made in Nigeria.  All of Nigeria’s textile industries have gone moribund.

Yes, the economy is sick. Yes, crude oil prices have plummeted. Yes, men have stolen the country black-and-blue. Yes, times are hard. But No, Nigerians aren’t settling for excuses. Shrieks from our leaders about why things can’t work will not have receptive ears.  People need deliverance; and leaders at every level of government must deliver. One hundred and twelve million people are hungry; and families are not sure of tomorrow in a land that flows with milk-and-honey. It is the reality.

I conclude with this personal story of Mr. Mike Heinemann, an elderly Caucasian American friend of mine, I met 20 years ago when I lived in Baltimore.  Heinemann narrated how his family had survived the US Great Depression of 1929-1939. Much of the story of the Great Depression was gory, but what stood out from his accounts was that more people survived that season of famine because neighbours helped out neighbours.  Government policies work better where the people work together. Working together in Nigeria especially along ethnic line is largely as impossible as threading a camel through the eye of a needle. Must we not remember that if a man wants to go fast, he goes alone; and if he wants to go far, he goes together with others? Most Nigerians that I know want Nigeria to go far. Most of them also know that going together is not only a pipe-dream in present day Nigeria; it’s getting almost impossible daily.  It is the reality.