It really boggles one’s mind the degree to which Ndigbo appear to be excessively reveling in complacency over President Goodluck Jonathan’s so-called favourable disposition to Igbo interest as relates to his 2015 Presidential ambition. As it were, it is though understandable that this Igbo complacency about President Jonathan’s administration is drawn from some empirical facts. For one, analysts believe that until the ascendancy of President Jonathan, no one of the past administrations in Nigeria – be it the military or its

 Onyiorah Chiduluemije Paschal writes from Abuja via duluemije4justice@yahoo.com – 08037738607.

[myad]

The recent spate of defection by some Nigerian politicians from one party to another is a shameful phenomenon that graphically retells the odious rat race, ideological vacuity and mundane craving that typify Nigeria’s political life. Lacking in any form of public-spirited motive or any principled intention to develop the structure and content of partisan politics, this wave is nothing more than self-seeking, whimsical and disdainful political prostitution. To this end, it calls to question the capacity, moral integrity and character of those who are ruling or aspiring to rule this country.
While the cases of many sinecurists and position-seekers flirting around from one party to another in search of comfort zones are well known, erstwhile ‘progressives’ and supposed champions of the masses who are equally becoming turn-coats give cause for worry.
Since the last election, it is not as if a better formula to govern the country has been found. It is not as if a new set of policy framework for socio-economic development has been formulated; neither is it that a roadmap for industrialization has been drawn. It then beats the imagination what the attraction of defection from one party to the other is apart from power for its sake.
In the last 15 years, the quality of political leadership at all levels has remained generally low. Power, violence and money remain instruments of statecraft in the hands of the ruling party, while vanity or indiscernible ideas characterize the opposition. The result is the forfeiture of character as the system remains unable to build strong institutions. The fear of poverty, the unwillingness to develop indigenous capital, inferiority complex, acute selfishness and the imperviousness to a conference of reason have conspired to unleash mediocre persons on the polity. In the continuing sequence of this entropic trend, the political party has become a mere special purpose vehicle for some aggregation of political aspirants.
A few months ago, President Goodluck Jonathan in his usual, self-inculpating posture aptly expressed this degenerate quality and moral bankruptcy, when he stated that more than 50 per cent of those in politics had no business being there. In the same vein, a former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss once observed that judging by their proclivity for gluttonous accumulation of wealth, many politicians and aspirants were mentally and psychologically unsuitable for public office.
All these raise the question: what is the character of the Nigerian political elite? What, in the thinking of the politicians, is the whole purpose of the political party?
Owing to the absence of any identifiable ideology within the Nigerian political party system, there is a dissonance between the idea of development of the political class and the aspirations of the people. Where Nigeria needs simple, basic amenities for survival, there is a deliberate dehumanization of the people through abuse of tax-payers’ money by the ruling elite. At a time when the nation’s political experience needs sound footing in democratic governance, the absence of internal democracy testifies to the lack of character in all the parties.
If this odious political state is not a reflection of the way Nigeria is, what is? Why wouldn’t the masses vote for mass mobilization movements in the mould of Aminu Kano’s Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), or the National Conscience Party (NCP) of the late Lagos lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi to sack atrocious political parties?
Moreover, when the decadent society from which the political elite is recruited is considered, it boggles the mind what kind of model they would be for present and oncoming generations. Unlike in established traditions of excellence, where the succession management process considers the institutions that nurtured would-be politicians, the Nigerian situation is an all-comers affair of contractors, lawbreakers, political hangers-on and sundry jobbers, all lacking in the requisite knowledge for governance. The situation is so deplorable and so scary that senior citizens, who have had the best of this country and may not benefit from any transformation agenda, are now the ones seeking a revolution on behalf of the populace.
In the contemplation of some, the redemption of Nigeria’s state of spiraling decadence is so far-fetched and the possibility of a revolution so slim that Nigerians would have to take solace in the anticipation of a spiritual super force or divine direction. Whether Nigeria could even be extricated from the morass of degeneracy through this means is, of course, a matter of metaphysical conjecture.
But one reassuring perspective is that this rudderlessness and moral degeneracy has not always been the case. In earlier democratic encounters, politicians had always defected from one party to another; but such carpet-crossing had been based on profound ideological differences and working principles. Not a few have marveled at the exemplary character of Nigeria’s political fathers: the simplicity of Tafawa Balewa, the selflessness of Ahmadu Bello, the nationalism of Nnamdi Azikiwe and the enduring vision of Obafemi Awolowo, all of which tower above their personal foibles.
So, a good place to start Nigeria’s clean-up is for the nation’s school curriculum to take history and civic education seriously. Nigerians have to learn from the past; they have to learn the culture of civility, heroism, patriotism and other virtues that build successful nations. Today’s generation of moral orphans need to know and understand that the present obsession with inordinate materialism, the rabid pursuit of power for its sake and the abysmally low productivity in virtually all aspects of  national life stand in contrast to the vision of the nation’s founding fathers.
Another way of morally fumigating the nation’s political space is to have good people as political aspirants. Yet, it would be simplistic to assume that some air-splitting ethical evaluation of would-be leaders can be carried out to ascertain who a good person is. The political space must however, be made safe for good people and genuine potential political leaders to vie for elective positions. To complement this, communities should inculcate the system of fielding decent people who are not ambitious but competent, and dissuade scavengers and incompetent persons.
Furthermore, there is need for a human capital development plan in order to entrench the inexorable symbiosis between the quality of universities and the intellectual capital of a country. Besides its contribution to global culture and civilization, what this wedding of town and gown would do is to re-introduce the value of scholarship to personal refinement and positive transformation of Nigeria’s immediate environment.
Judging by the frenetic struggle over political positions, it is clear that pecuniary incentives and other attractive appurtenances of office are the primary motivations of today’s ruling class, and not service. Thus, there is need for a constitutional means to reduce and de-emphasise the monetary rewards and scandalous perquisites for public office holders. This reduction of pecuniary rewards would attract people who are genuinely interested in public service, and dissuade political scavengers. This position is based on the conviction that the political space is not occupied only by redundant and money-hungry politicians as there are also many well meaning persons who are morally upright, politically sagacious, determined, and visionary enough to become change agents.
This is where the role of the media comes in. Apart from providing information that would enable people become free and self-governing, the media’s first loyalty to citizens demands that it sincerely highlights and celebrates courageous and self-sacrificing Nigerians who can transform the country, and at the same time bring to opprobrium fortune-seekers in government and party careerists who will routinely run the mill.
At the regulatory level, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be equipped through legislation to implement the INEC laws. In the same vein, political parties should professionally organize their structures of management in such a way that they are not brought to ridicule and abuse by crashers and opportunists. They should deliberately write and publicize their vision and mission statements as well as their manifestoes to ensure that the aspirations and personal philosophy of their members align with their objectives. Parties should ensure that members pay subscription fees regularly, while stiff rules should be put in place for the re-entry of defectors. To stem the corruption pervading the party system, the law should be enforced to peg contribution to a political party at a certain amount. This will not only remove the parties from the pocket of a few godfathers, it will help the process of mass inclusion and engender the culture of questioning.

As embarrassing as it is, the on-going carpet-crossing phenomenon is an opportunity for political parties to look inwards and re-invent themselves. As parties are now, all are in bad odour and those crossing from one party to the other are merely carrying the same stench around. This shame is made more painful because this is the time Nigeria needs men and women of character, oases of sanity in a desert of though.  (This is Guardian’s Editorial). [myad]

With the look of things across the country, it does seem that Nigeria’s light fingered ruling elite have found their collective answer and solution to the ‘Poor question’ that is to the question of what to do with the poor, as a way of dealing with poverty.

This will not be the first time in history though that a ruling class has collectively decided on a solution to very persistent and nagging questions, that is issues of existential developmental challenge that they are unable to, or incapable of resolving in any other way.

The Nazis under their supreme leader, the Fuhrer in the first half of the 20th century also arrived at their final solution to the problem they had dubbed the ‘Jewish question’. And what was the Nazi’s final solution? Exterminate the Jew!

So what is Nigeria’s ruling class of the 21st century’s final solution to the ‘poor question’? Eliminate the poor! Ingenious isn’t it?

Every time the treasury looting elite gets up boastfully, beating its chest as to how under its watch we have become Africa’s largest economy, and the world’s 26th largest economy; or as to how a Nigerian man is Africa’s richest man, and the world’s 25th richest, while a Nigerian woman is the world’s richest black woman; etc, each time it goes on this euphoric grandstandings, the poor and poverty keeps popping up to burst the balloons of lies and puncture big potholes in the tarmac of falsehoods.

So yes we are Africa’s largest economy, but we are also home to the largest concentration of poor people in Africa, and the third largest concentration in the whole wide world.

Yes 15 of Africa’s 40 richest are Nigerians, but 112 million Nigerians at a poverty rate of 70% live in poverty.

And whereas Nigeria’s rich own some of the choicest properties, the overwhelming majority of which are empty and not being lived in across Abuja, in Lagos, in PH, in Europe and the Americas, and in Dubai; yet the country suffers a 17 million housing deficit. The implication of this at an average household size of 6, is that nearly 90 million Nigerians are living in subhuman housing conditions are simply homeless.

And so it seems that as the country has grown in wealth, the lot of its ruling elites has improved magnificently while the conditions of living of the overwhelming majority of citizens have largely regressed or at best stagnated engendering a precarious existence for them.

And yes GDP has grown steadily since 1999 at more than 6% annually, nevertheless so has the rate of unemployment; with general unemployment growing from 8% in 2004 to 24% in 2013, and youth unemployment topping 54% in 2012.

And in the midst of this grinding, crushing and alienating poverty and misery that is the lot of the majority, what has the thieving ruling elite been upto?

Every year in the last 5 to 6 years at least, outside of the annual budget of more than N4tn, the country’s ruling class has expropriated extra-budgetary funds to the tune of at least on the average $8bn from the Excess Crude Account annually, and at least another annual average of not less than $10bn from the External Reserves.

The implication of this is that at least in the last 6 years, on the average Nigeria’s ruling elite have had access to and claimed to spend on the Nigerian economy at least the combined sum of N4tn [annual national budget] plus N4tn [combined annual budget of the 36 states] plus N2tn [being additional withdrawals from both the excess crude account and the external reserves] on a yearly basis. That is more than N10tn each year, and more than N60tn over the 6 year period.

This is in exclusion of the untraceable stolen resources that simply disappear into the bottomless pockets of these gangs of treasury looters. Take just one instance, that of the so-called crude oil theft. If we take the lowest but clearly understated estimate on loss of 100,000 barrels of crude oil daily to theft, at $100 per barrel this amounts to nearly $10m per day over 6 years.

Additionally since celebrating with fanfare our debt free nature after paying back in excess of $12bn at once in order to be forgiven the remaining $18bn of debt in 2005; our external debt profile has since climbed back to just below $10bn, growing by about 40% between June 2013 and July 2014 alone.

Where have all of these monies gone? Is it a mere coincidence therefore that a mere 10% of wealthiest Nigerians now own more than 40% of national wealth, while the bottom 20% of the population own a mere insignificant 4% of national wealth?

And so how have they addressed the poverty question? Well we have 17 million housing deficits; what to do? Demolish the houses of the poor and evict them from the urban cities.

We have such a high unemployment rate; what to do? Criminalise the livelihood of the poor. So you ban street trading, ban okadas, ban buses plying some routes; harass street traders, okada riders, bus drivers, sometimes chase them to their deaths, sometimes destroy their equipment, and oftentimes arrest and jail them and absolutely provide no alternatives.

Then to hasten this quick fix solution, ensure that hospitals are either nonexistent or not equipped and staffed and charge exorbitant fees. That way when the poor get sick from your harassment, they can die quickly.

Obviously therefore it seems that to this clueless, irredeemably greedy, light fingered treasury looting elite, the solution to poverty is not to curb their humongous appetite to steal, not to drastically scale back the historic scale and scope of their corruption, and certainly not to punish the impunity that drives this piracy; but instead, it is to eliminate and eradicate the poor from the face of the earth.

Our bounden duty is to chase this inhumane and inconsiderate treasury looting ruling elite from power before they get the chance to fully realize their final solution to poverty and the poor.

Only by waging a war against this thieving ruling class can we end their war on the poor. And we can do this only by taking concrete steps to Take Back Nigeria.

(Follow me on Twitter: @jayegaskia&@[DPSR]