Graffiti… How soon Will Buhari’s plane take off? by Levi Obijiofor

While the drums of celebrations are still sounding loud in some parts of the country following Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, the man himself remains locked in meetings with top party officials as he configures the list of people who will serve as ministers, advisers, and assistants in his government. Long before the swearing-in ceremony last Friday, 29 May 2015, Buhari had acknowledged publicly the enormity of the challenges before him.

The difficulties that confront Buhari as he settles into office are extraordinary. He is expected to restore sanity to all aspects of our national life following the severe damage that 16 years of irresponsible and rapacious leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had done to the country’s economy, healthcare, political system, infrastructure, higher education system, agriculture, energy, and indeed other aspects of our national life. For 16 years the PDP ruled with little opposition. In that environment marked by widespread indiscipline and stupefying financial recklessness, senior officials and assistants plundered whatever came their way.

The PDP was elected or (as some people would argue) found creative ways to claim victory at the federal level in four different presidential elections in 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011 but senior government officials and party apparatchiks took that as licence to consecrate state sanctioned robbery of our common wealth. The country was governed by greedy men and women who had little regard for the frail health of the economy and the welfare of the people. For that period of political folly, Nigeria looked very much like a sinking ship with a drunken captain. At the state level, governors and their assistants made innumerable trips to overseas countries to nourish their burgeoning bank accounts.

For the past 16 years, government officials behaved like patricians who could do no wrong and therefore could not be questioned. There was no culture of accountability just as the concept of transparency did not make sense to government officials who treated the national wealth and government property as free resources available to those who knew how to appropriate them for their personal enrichment.

Consider the track record of the presidents who ruled between 1999 and 2015. Olusegun Obasanjo exaggerated his achievements and propagated the groundless view that he was the best thing that happened to Nigeria since the advent of democracy. Similarly, the governments of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan were generally adjudged by ordinary men and women to be economically cataclysmic, lacking in foresight and national direction.

The first major test for Buhari will be how to handle institutionalised corruption in our society. Allegations of corruption during Jonathan’s government were hardly investigated, as was the case during the short time that Yar’Adua ruled or the eight years that Obasanjo managed the country as if it was his personal estate or his commercial farm at Ota in Ogun State. Consider the oil subsidy scam that highlighted allegations of corruption against Farouk Lawan, the chairperson of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on the Fuel Subsidy probe and Femi Otedola, chief executive of Zenon Petroleum & Gas Ltd, who was accused of attempting to bribe members of the House Ad-hoc Committee. After weeks and months of extraordinary allegations backed by dodgy video tapes and uncorroborated claims and denials, the case appears to have stalled and everyone seems to have forgotten about all those sensational scandals.

Consider also the shocking police pension fraud in which senior public servants fed fat on other people’s earnings. The police pension swindle has blemished our national image. It is a disgrace how we treat men and women who served our country. To deny retired workers the benefits they are entitled to after years of hard work and sacrifices is a measure of how our society values those who contributed to national development. While people in other countries proclaim the much accepted creed that every labourer deserves their wages, we have twisted that dogma to justify embezzlement of workers’ well deserved entitlements.

Many retired workers in Nigeria, particularly the elderly have died in the process of trying to claim their pension and gratuity. One of the greatest acts of inhumanity that our society has bequeathed to retired workers is the deliberate hurdles that are placed before them that make it impossible for them to receive their pension. These are citizens who served the country meritoriously for many years. Rather than confer honour and recognition to retired workers across the country, criminals who hold responsible positions in government have conspired to ensure that retired workers die in pain and penury. A government official who deprives an elderly retiree of their entitlement has literally stripped the retired worker of that essential source of livelihood and oxygen that helps to sustain life.

These are some of the deep-seated corrupt practices that Buhari will have to grapple with if he expects to triumph against evil in the fight against corruption and other forms of criminal behaviour. That is the culture of corruption that 16 years of PDP-led Federal Government entrenched in our national psyche.

We live a life of denial. We encourage workers to put in their best in their workplaces as their contribution to national economic development. At the same time, we manufacture various devious schemes designed to deny workers of their entitlements after their retirement. Why is it difficult for the Federal Government to put an end to the corrupt practices and scams that go on in the pension scheme? Obasanjo set up the anti-corruption watchdog — the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) — and appointed Nuhu Ribadu to chase, apprehend, and prosecute high and low officials who commit crimes against the state.

While Ribadu tried to arrest and put on trial some high profile criminals in government service and in the private sector, in many cases the big fish that engender corruption were never caught. This is not surprising. The EFCC, under the leadership of different officials, was afflicted by the same ailments that Ribadu could not subdue — namely corruption, mateship, a culture of preferential treatment of citizens based on their social status, the selective arrest of people perceived to be enemies of the government, and lack of financial support. In essence, the same government that set up the EFCC effectively starved the agency of funds to carry out its mandate. There are also questions about the moral character and uprightness of some officials of the EFCC.

Ever since the country returned to democratic system of government in 1999, no government has had the iron will to tackle corruption. Will Buhari succeed where his predecessors failed? Time will tell. It is not an easy challenge. With time, Buhari will find that it is the same widespread corruption that encouraged many officials to act thoughtlessly in the past 16 years that will also empower party and government officials to abuse the law, to corruptly enrich themselves, to steal government property, and to embezzle resources that are meant to help us to improve our socioeconomic conditions. This is why the country has continued to go round in circles with no appreciable progress. This is why every government, from the one that proclaimed anti-corruption as its official motto to the one that paid lip service to corruption, must take responsibility for the way things have remained in the country for nearly 55 years since we gained political independence in 1960.

Since 1999 and even before that year, every presidential candidate and every military dictator that governed this country proclaimed themselves as the messiah who would lead Nigeria from the period of economic backwardness and recklessness to a period of prudent economic management. Years later, their poor track record in office was exposed as a charade. They left behind them atrocious legacies which the nation is still struggling to overcome 16 years on. There is something infinitely odd about Nigeria that has defied social scientists, clinical psychologists, and sociologists.

How can a nation of highly educated citizens, men and women of industry, active student and union leaders, be so beholden to the same class of so-called leaders who contributed through their greedy lifestyle to the level of poverty that has enveloped the country today?

Are we so stupid and short-sighted that we cannot see through the empty promises, the treachery, and the duplicity of our so-called leaders? Buhari’s government is only six days old today but the man, as the captain of the ship called Nigeria, is already inundated with suggestions about how he should govern. If we are so full of productive ideas about how to improve our situation, why is the nation still lying comatose even as other less economically endowed countries make greater progress than we have done in the past 55 years? Why do we talk so much but do so little? Why do we look up to a weak civil society for leadership when civil society is a part of the problem?

The enthusiasm, positive attitude, and goodwill that many people have shown toward the Buhari government should be expected. Whenever a new government is installed, the expectation is that change, particularly improved efficiencies, would follow. That is always the case. Nevertheless, Buhari and his government can expect to be scrutinised vigorously by the press and the people. Buhari’s government will be judged by its ability to follow through on its pronouncements, its promises, and how quickly it succeeds in restoring some kind of order and discipline in the society. There could be more doubters than believers in Buhari as the man starts to unfold his policies. We must be patient, as we wait and watch Buhari tackle national problems in order to fix our society.

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