Governments in Nigeria operate under motor park atmosphere.The motor park is not the best place to choose for meditation. Hindus choose real isolated places at top of Himalayas, where they will be able to have clarity of thought and vision. Individual Nigerians thrive in chaos. Go to our markets and see. It is not a place for serenity. It is not a place for contemplation. Every available space has an occupant wanting to sell something. The pedestrian walks leading to our markets are all occupied by ‘tenants’,seeking to sell something. Somebody thought there was need for loading bay in one of the Kano markets. For where, the loading bay became a ‘market’ itself. On the road passing by the frontage of an old hospital in Kano is a partition, separating the lanes. Pedestrians could wait on it in order to cross the lanes safely. Who will allow them? It was converted to a ‘market’.
Life generally is not serene, but to get certain results, you must create serenity. To really develop, you must be able to put a screen between governance and politics. Here they are always in a bear hug, politics smothering governance. How many summits, seminars, round tables, has Nigeria conducted, all seeking to find solutions to our problems? The doors of political office holders are always being knocked, incessantly, demonic ally, each with right to be heard. Someone will come and advice to plant rice. They will give directives to get it planted. Then someone says, no, plant yams. Meanwhile rice is forgotten. Then someone will say phased importation of rice is the answer. Someone then says, conduct a summit on agriculture, to find a way how best to boost it.
Before any digestion takes place, it is time for summit on industries, on small and medium enterprises, on commercial agriculture, on Boko Haram, on Chibok girls, on gender equality, on MDGs, on climate change. Don’t forget the UN will come with its day of washing hands, day for gays, till it exhausts all the three hundred and sixty five days.
The reader may sense some absurdity in the examples, but that is the intention precisely. A political office holder’s day will be choked up with all these daily, such that he or she cannot really be focused to remember all the commitments, all agreements, talk less of outcomes.
The civil service ought to be trusted to follow any initiative to its logical conclusion.
Nothing retards us more like our inability to chart our destiny. Whoever comes calling, particularly light – skinned people, they set an agenda for us. In addition, there are so many of them. The head of an executive will be revolving, nearly 360° trying to keep track. Nevertheless, it is precisely for this reason that others waste time to develop periodic plans, most frequent being five – year plans. Since we have four-year executive term, ideally, a political party seeking office should have prepared it’s plan before elections. If it wins, it starts implementation immediately. Some will say it has to wait for handover notes. But a political party should have kept eyes on what it’s opponent was doing in office. That is why the parliamentary system is better for governance. While in opposition you are still in Parliament, you have shadow cabinet. Nobody will come to grill you for being suitable for Cabinet position or not.
So, if you really know where you are going you do not wait for others to show you the way. Then you have no executive time to spare to listen to expert on yams or maize, unless they are all part of the plan. Protocols should not burden an executive without consulting the Planning Ministry. What is the visitor coming for? If what they are coming for is not within this year’s plan, then let them save their ticket cost. Sometimes, they come with counterpart funding proposal. We still apply the same criteria. Is it part of what I already planned? Say someone comes to you with a packet of cigarettes. He asks you to shoulder 50 percent of the cost while he shoulders the balance. Worse, you are to do the smoking! Is the loser difficult to identify?
Is it not same with NGOs, particularly those funded from outside? You think you are getting cheap, free funds and service. You are not. What they have done is to recruit agents within your nation, pay them well, and instruct them to work against you.
A people are best to determine their destiny. Where you shirk such responsibility, where you think others are there to develop you, then you really qualify to be their slave.
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