1-10-2024.

During President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Independence Day Speech, I thought he would gloss on the ‘strides’ that Nigeria has made during his 16 months old administration, fortunately for him, his few supporters (including members of his immediate family) and the rented cheerleaders, he avoided doing so. And with good reason too. 

Not only was the speech empty of concrete evidence of what his administration has achieved, but was more into arcane issues such as the traditional conferment of the second, third and fourth of the nation’s highest honours of GCON, CFR and CON to maddeningly rich officials that have added no value to the country but themselves and the immediate members of their family, and the usual promise of a money guzzling conference, which has become this time is for the Nigerian youths.

The youths are said to be the leaders of tomorrow, but in this country, the tomorrow NEVER comes for the youths to take over its affairs. The older generation always keeps it to itself, using money and state power to do so.

A young woman, who claimed to be the daughter of the President, made an appearance on a television programme agreeing that there is hunger and anger in the country. However, she said that her father (Mr. President) brought some ‘wrong’ people aboard his team. She alleged that the country was in the mess it is because such people did not share the President’s vision of moving Nigeria forward, but instead they came to ‘enrich’ themselves. She particularly named the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Cordoso and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr.  , as two of such people.

I am not given to criticising speeches made by Presidents or any other leaders, evident in the last speech made by Mr. President. In my intervention, I applauded the President for not giving in to the demands of the so called ‘end bad governance’ strike. Some of the demands, among others, were the unconditional release of the terrorist, Nmandi Kalu, and the unilateral abrogation of the 1999 Constitution of the country.

Namadi Kalu is fond of always ordering the ‘unknown’ gunmen to gun down and kill state officials, particularly the police and military, as well as ordinary northerners living with the killers or just passing through their controlled places of origin. Yet, his unconditional release was one of the demands of the protesters, which, among other reasons, was why yours sincerely, wrote an article before the commencement of the protest, which was titled: ‘Count Me Out Of The Planned Nationwide Strike’. Besides, Mr. President was kind of stampeded into giving that speech.

However, the Independence Day Celebration, is an annual ritual for which your speech writers had enough time to prepare for you. That this was all that they could give you said a lot of how much you were not prepared to say, or nothing to say altogether. The speech’s apparent significance was to massage the oversized egos of some people and the rented crowd, who would have a reason to ‘celebrate’, since they got paid or were promised to be paid, for staging the  celebrations. Otherwise, there is pretty little to celebrate 64 years after Nigeria got the freedom to do as it wishes with its abundant God given mineral resources.

 Unfortunately, but for the revered leaders of the First Republic and a few other patriotic Military leaders, most of the rest were nothing but self serving rulers, who prefer themselves to the rest of Nigerians, most of whom defy whatever element is in season so as to cast their vote for them.

I however, recently read that 40% of Nigerians now enjoy up to 20 hours of electricity daily, with the current generation of 5,500 megawatts for the country, so boasts the Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, in a statement reviewing his ministry’s activities in the last one year.

The minister is trying very hard to save his job though. There is said to be an imminent cabinet reshuffle by Mr. President, and Mr. Adebayo, who in a previous write up, I called as an ‘Unserious Power Minister’, appeared in no hurry to leave the cabinet now.

That only a mare 5,500 megawatts are produced for a country with an estimated population of 230 million people, and enjoyed for up to 20 hours per day by only 40% of that population, should not be a matter for chest beating, but something to be ashamed of by the so called giant of Africa, Nigeria. Known to be very richly endowed with abundant mineral resources scattered beneath its soil, the entire citizenry ought not to be in the abject condition most of them are. But the country is saddled with an unfeeling leaders, many of whom ONLY used brazenly (sometimes surreptitiously) the resources for themselves, to the detriment of the betterment of the people’s lives.

South Africa, which has a population of 64.3 million people, produces 44 million megawatts of electricity, and intends to make it 77.2 million megawatts by 2030. Egypt, with a population of 117 million people, produces 35 million megawatts. Even with a small population of 35 million people, Ghana produces about 4,756 megawatts 

Again, Nigeria and Brazil were said to have started their individual Defence Industrial Corporations in the sixties. Ours was cited in the northern city of Kaduna. While the Nigerian defence company produced furniture and some 19 century firearms, its Brazilan counterpart is rubbing shoulders with the US’s Boeing Air Company, and Western Europe’s Airbus Company, in the manufacture of the state of the art aircraft, building the highly successful Embraer Aircraft, for the military, for commerce, for business and for agriculture.

Still again, while Nigeria was a rich country when it got its Independence in 1960, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) were just poor nations in deserts. Today, our ‘big’ people run to the city of Dubai in a the UAE to live or holiday there, and to Saudi Arabia, where many of the Muslims perform the annual pilgrimage and the countless Umrahs every year. Saudi Arabia is a country which was once ‘donated’ an airplane by the Nigerian authorities to start her Saudi Airlines. The Saudi Airlines boasts of many aircraft while the Nigerian Airlines exists only in name, boasting of no single aircraft.

Yet still, while the Saudi Arabia oil company, Saudi ARAMCO is the largest in the world, estimated to be worth $1.4 trillion, PETRONAS of Malaysia is one of the biggest oil companies in the world. The former was established well after Nigeria’s NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Company), while the latter was established the same year with it. NNPC is today selling the fuel produced by a businessman, with not a single drop produced by it.

And on the matter of electricity, it remains a luxury that multitude of people in the country can only see in the Villa, government houses and buildings, the streets (mainly the solar powered types) and the houses of the ‘big’ people and the top politicians, but not in their homes.

 In any case, the state I come from Katsina, the 40% supply of electricity may be supplied to government places, top politicians and those who could afford the gas or petroleum for their generators at home and offices, but is not felt by the overwhelming majority.

The poor Nigerian, who is battling with how to make ends meet on daily basis, cannot claim to be involved with such luxury. He is on his own, fending for himself in whichever way possible, including illegalities, which explains, though not justifies, the cases of rampant do or die by some elements in the country to hit it big, even at the expense of sacrificing lives, but not theirs. 

In trying to reach their ‘seniors’ in the society, who are stupendously rich with no defined source of income to justify the riches, the so called Yahoo boys are always wasting some innocent lives. The ‘big’ boys’s harmful activities and other indiscretions are often ignored by the authorities, because of their influence, made possible courtesy of their very deep pockets and their ‘generosity’. Among them are the so called socialites. who do nothing but to spend (apparently blood) money.

Running water taps and medical care are two other things not available to the poor people in this country, despite its abundant mineral resources, which are ‘stolen’ by the ruling class with impunity. The crime is big enough to earn the offender the hang man’s noose or a life sentence in nations where doing the right thing is the norm, unlike here, where doing it (the right thing) is an aberration, abhorred by the fortune-worshipping society we live in.

What is bothersome to the ordinary user, go on a Friday to the office of your electricity service provider and complain to the people you find there of a fault, like the often so called falling of the line, they would tell you straight that they did not go on work at the weekend. But on weekends they would work to bring the electricity bill, but they would tell you they prepare to collect the payment in cash there and then, if available.

Like the weekend, the electricity providers have another excuse for not serving their customers as they should. They use the rain as a ready excuse to be their usual ineffective self, since Nigeria is in the season of rains. The moment the rain starts, the power will go off without fail in my own neck of the woods, except for the houses and offices of the very important people in the area.

The Federal Government also has repeatedly announced that it was illegal for any electricity vendor to demand the customer to install or pay for the installation of transformers and it was illegal to cut and take away the wire connecting a customer to the grid. But these instructions are obeyed in the breach in the place I come from, like the mirage ‘no bail’ posters posted at all the Police stations in the country.

I have written so many times about the electricity situation in the country without appreciable results that I sometimes feel like throwing in the towel on the matter. But the fact I am doing it for the ordinary and, in many cases, voiceless, Nigerian, kept the faith in me to continue with the struggle until the wrong is righted or received the appropriate attention of those in the position to do something positive about it. It is not about myself, since I am not of the age to be one of ‘tomorrow’s’ leaders. 

In a previous article, I made mention of a Ghanaian lawmaker, Honourable Ibrahim Mutala representing Tamale Council, where he advised his colleagues at the House of Assembly, to stop the rampant corruption in the country, fear God and fear the day they would meet their Creator and account for the wealth they had had while alive. I noted that Honourable Ibrahim could have been talking in the Nigerian National Assembly (NASS) as an elected member.

But his fellow countryman, Pastor ENOCH AMINU of PURE FIRE Miracle Ministry, believed that Nigeria was most corrupt. He categorically asserted that Nigeria was the worst country in Africa before his congregation, in Accra, Ghana. He claimed that West Africa was the most corrupt in the region, and Nigeria the most corrupt in West Africa. He stated in clear term that Nigeria was the worst nation, led by people “who have no brains for anything but to steal money”. 

Nigeria cannot continue like this, with yesterday better than today. And if care is not taken, Tomorrow probably becoming worse than today, a condition better imagined than experienced. As some Nigerians would say, ‘God forbid bad thing’. We have to say to ourselves that, ‘Enough is Enough’ or ‘Never Again’. It is therefore the duty of the ordinary voting person next general elections to choose the people who have the fear of God in their hearts and the faer of the day that they will meet Him and account for how they led the country when they did, while in the temporary world.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.