Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO

The good news is that Nigeria is not beyond redemption. Nigerians are dynamic, vibrant, optimistic, and entrepreneurial. These are attributes that build resilience into a national population.

Renewal for Nigeria is an option. But the country has thrown away 5 decades of economic revenues and growth through poor and corrupt governance. These are resources that should have transformed its post colonial social and economic infrastructure into a modern developed state of the 21^st Century.

Nigeria’s elites, its political and social establishment, and peoples, must eschew corruption, wickedness, and greed, and pursue good ethics, compassion, strong morality, and unassailable integrity. The Nigerian will have to run after these values and virtues above all else, if that country is to survive, and the Nigerian is to thrive, in safety, security, and prosperity.

Now, Robert Rotberg of the Brookings Institute described a failed state in a recent research paper as a country that “fails to deliver positive political goods to its inhabitants.” A failed state is one which, “becomes illegitimate in the eyes and hearts of a growing plurality of its citizens.” That clearly describes Nigeria in May 2016.

Nigeria is a country with failed social and economic institutions. Many place blame on a political history of North versus south and Islam versus Christianity. That might be a factor. But many ethnically and religiously diverse countries have succeeded where Nigeria has failed. Religious and ethnic diversity is not a factor in Nigeria’s failure. However, ethnic diversity has led to nepotism and despotism. Both are destructive. Nigeria’s predatory elite have used ethnic diversity to control the population.

Nigeria’s elite and establishment have literally crippled the country’s population through greed and corruption. It is a country that has failed its peoples. In fact, anyone in Nigeria today who wants to live a normal life will have to emigrate to find any semblance of civility and normality.

OK. This Old Boy watched Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun on BBC TV News on Saturday April 30, 2016. The woman is clearly articulate and well informed. However, she offered the usual platitudes Nigerian politicians, leaders, and officials, offer on Nigeria when attempting to explain why Africa’s most resource rich, and populous nation, is today in a deep social and economic hole.

Adeosun spoke of new attempts at economic diversification. She talked about the need for local manufacturing. She defended the artificially high value of the Naira. Nigeria’s currency possesses a value that is simply unsustainable considering the country’s present economic situation. Last of all, she highlighted President Mohammad Buhari’s fight against systemic corruption and colossal mismanagement.

The last remedy- fighting corruption- in the list of remedies the Finance Minister offered should have been first on the list.

Nigeria’s greatest problems are corruption and nepotism. These two evils are followed by poor social and economic management.

Nigeria’s poor security situation is a direct result of politicians looting cash for its military. Then the country possesses the world’s most corrupt and murderous police and security service. Nigeria’s police, and security services, require a massive purge.

Mass looting is also the reason for the dire straits of Nigeria’s social and economic infrastructure. In any event, Adeosun had hope. She believed that Nigeria would escape the current quagmire. 

OK. A failed state is one in which all the basic institutions of governance cease to function normally. The failed state fails to provide its population and constituents with the basics for a decent and dignified life. Safety and security are nonexistent for the majority of the population. Poverty and insecurity are the norm.

The most basic infrastructure: safe road networks, good sanitation, regular water supply, and ample electricity are also unavailable to the vast majority. The social infrastructure in a failed state such as good and accessible education and healthcare; and appropriate social welfare, do not exist. Frequently life expectancy is low. Infant mortality is high. The most vulnerable people, the disabled, the very young, and the very old, suffer immeasurably. Life itself is short, nasty, and brutish. The population is so badly crushed by the predatory elite that it ceases to have any dignity or self esteem.

The population is crushed, rolled over, by the massive wheels of corrupt and poor governance. That is why revolution is practically impossible in a failed state. The elites control the tools of power. The elites rule through the barrel of the gun. The population is acquiescent in its own destruction.

The key causes of state failure are war, poor governance, corruption, and nepotism.

If the preceding woes are the overwhelming feature of Nigerian daily life, then Nigeria is a failed state. Therefore, conquering the corruption and poor governance monster must be Nigeria’s first priority if the country is to rise out of its sickbed.

Then, the country will have to establish a brand new values regime. A new ethics and morality will have to be pursued by every Nigerian. That will be the hardest thing to do. Nigerians have become accustomed to bribery and corruption as a way of life. In fact a majority of Nigerians have never experienced honest, just, and transparent governance.

And even while the Minister of Finance was giving her BBC rendition, Nigeria’s corrupt and murderous police was extorting cash from a prominent Nigerian writer at the point of a gun, not knowing who the man was. And all over Nigeria, hundreds of thousands of acts of corruption, wickedness, and mismanagement were taking place as part of daily life in the country.

Bribery, Corruption, and nepotism, can be likened to millions of maggots destroying the body of Nigeria, eating away at the country’s health and welfare. In time all that will remain is the dry and rotting carcass of a country.

If the fatal diseases called corruption and nepotism are not cured, then all Finance Minister Adeosun’s positive prognostications for Nigeria are a waste of time, and President Buhari’s gargantuan efforts at culling corruption will fail, woefully.

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