Frauds & Scandals | |
Frauds & Scandals | |
5592 VIEWS | |
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I visited Oshogbo, the Osun State Capital, recently. This was my second
visit to the city, and I believe I got a better glimpse of it. On both
occasions that I’ve been there I saw a people in financial distress. Of course
as in most other states in Nigeria, anyone not plugged directly to government -
and Government House especially - is in financial limbo. Fundamentally,
most of our people cannot find any purchase in the new global economy and most
are in a state of economic disconnect - from global and by extension, the
fragile, legless local economy. They have no skills that can be sold, and those
that do, are priced down and beaten down in the mindless game of crony
capitalism being played in Nigeria.
For example take the city of Ibadan. They have these famous Nissan
Micras being used as taxis. Till today, one could get a ‘drop’ for N20 between
one point and another. To that extent, people say ‘Ibadan is a cheap place to
live’. But I pity the drivers and those who invest in such businesses. They
could never survive for long in this economy. A driver could man say
N3,000 daily driving those cars, but will struggle to repay his loans or handle
major repairs. Even if lucky to scale these, all that is required to knock him
out permanently is a major health mishap or illness requiring major spending.
The business is not running at a pace that can afford him to save - or a rate
that can afford him survival in this modern economy. Now, none of our
economists is helping these people by letting society know that they exist and
that they don’t understand the concepts of inflation, asset replacement, health
insurance or the highfalutin necessities of the modern economy. The fact is
that anyone not lucky enough to work in some organization where their racket is
still holding up - like oil, telecoms, banking or some super government
parastatal - falls almost in the same category as these Micra drivers of
Ibadan.
But I digress. We have already reached Ibadan from Oshogbo where we
started this journey but we have to retrace our steps for the two hours
drive over very bumpy, abandoned roads. So I found in Oshogbo that the
governor, Rauf Aregbesola did build a number of good roads especially in the
city centre. Many places look good to behold. From his massive borrowing for
infrastructure, he also tried to reposition the educational sector by
rebuilding and refurbishing many public schools. However, the people have never
been poorer than they are. Never been more disconnected from the economy.
Apparently, the profits made from the infrastructure projects did not
remain in Osun State. I know a number of smart Lagos boys who used to boast
about their consultancy to Aregbesola in his early days, and who held him up as
the symbol of great governance. Those were the boys who creamed off the Osun people.
Add to them the major construction firms from abroad or places like Abuja or
Lagos. The problem with all of these - including the Lagos boys - is that the
cream of their profits end up abroad - I mean outside this country. We
Nigerians are still locked in that colonial mentality that says that until we
can show how linked we are with foreign countries, through our investments
there and our frequent travels, degrees and certificates acquired from ivy
league schools - and perhaps our accents - we haven’t arrived. That is actually
the biggest problem we have; the externalized cash flows and points of view.
Our own president - at 75 - does not help matters. At the drop of a hat he jets
abroad.
Osun brings to bold relief the fact that blind investment in
infrastructure does not solve problems sustainably in country like ours. Indeed
the World Bank, among many other agencies, has always said that it is in
investment projects that the major corruption deals go down. And that explains
the reason why most of our government functionaries and big politicians use
infrastructure to hoodwink the people. I have a better idea on this by the way.
But look at Ganduje. He stuffed his many pockets with $5million based on
‘infrastructure’ from a singular contractor. What about other contractors that
did not have him recorded? What about all our other governors, senators, DG’s
of parastatals, ministers and perhaps the president himself directly and
through proxies? The infrastructure fraud is what reigns in Nigeria today.
Lest I forget, the World Bank President, Jim Young Kim, also apologized
subtly to countries like ours recently at their annual meetings in Bali on this
same infrastructure matter. He felt contrite that they have always misled us. I
can’t say I blame him. I blame us. Why can we not think for ourselves? Why for
example, do we need to wait for World Bank and IMF Growth predictions for us -
which come around 1% and 2% - when we should be projecting our own growth by
reorganizing ourselves. I have always fought this war. I recently found out
that in the 1960’s through the 80’s, even the US economy often grew at 15%-18%
in some years, and the UK managed 8% to 10% growth per annum. Now when I argue
that we should set our growth targets at that level, I hear how it’s
impossible.
We must note that as our people say ‘the pains of washing, cleaning and
dressing a wound will be borne by the carrier of it’. The World Bank has misled
us and our most-vulnerable people bear the brunt. But our own people (leaders
and smart alecs, profiteers and robber-barons) have misled and harmed us even
more. Hear Jim:
"I think that the World Bank has to take some responsibility for
having emphasised hard on infrastructure, roads, rails, energy for a very long
time and I think that changed 20 years ago.But there is still then the bias
that says we will invest in hard infrastructure and then when we grow rich, we
will have enough money to invest in health and education.We are now saying that
that’s really the wrong approach, that you’ve got to start investing in your
people right now.’
Just imagine!
Let us remember the infrastructure wastage of the past in this area; the
$470million spent on CCTV cameras in Lagos and Abuja - the infrastructure of
which lay in the dust today. Let us remember the N73Billion spent on Abuja
stadium which is grossly underutilized and decrepit today (an equivalent of
over N350Billion in today’s Naira). What about the ones we borrowed for, such
as the Chinese-built Abuja Airport, which we recently heard we will need a
whopping N500Billion to correct just the defects. That facility is unused
today. Nigeria is strewn with infrastructure projects that are abandoned and
going nowhere. In every state we find them - roads going nowhere, abandoned
housing estates, airports used by the governor alone, rail-lines and metros
uncompleted for decades, federal government behemoths infested by rodents. We
seem not to have that presence of mind to complete most of our projects or to
ensure they are judiciously and optimally utilised. Waste is Nigeria’s second
name. There are many fancy projects that are built on a whim, usually
these days by foreigners, and with foreign loans. We have left our
children to pick up this heavy bill.
So apart from the fact that our infrastructure projects are not
well-thought-through and are often conduits for corruption, the bigger issue as
stated earlier is that there is no pass-through benefits especially for our
youths. Like I said, I have a better idea. We should start involving our
university students in the building and maintenance of small infrastructure as
a way of powering Nigeria into the future more rapidly, growing the economy in
leaps and bounds, and training these children to be able to build their own
country. And we must pay those students a token for work done. These should
also form part of their curriculum because it is the best way of repositioning
education from theory to practicals. The professors should also benefit, just
as this can also cause a massive creation of employment for graduates who can
supervise such infrastructure building and maintenance. It will be far cheaper
than awarding huge contracts for everything. I wish we could find patriotic
leaders who can take up this idea.
So, we should be urging our leaders to reduce their penchant for
corruption and fraud and get our youths to reposition this country themselves.
Street roads should be built by our students as semester projects. We should
provide them with implements and resources. Let them make their mistakes and
learn. Established companies, and their professors, should mentor and supervise
them. Not everything is about money money money. Our environmental disaster
areas must be made good by our students and our youths as well. Even History
and sociology students can be useful in documenting our languages and the
histories of our many ethnicities. It’s not enough to quarrel over ethnicity
while all the languages and cultures are dying. Every Nigerian student in
higher institution, and every youth, can be useful.
We need to start appreciating what we have and banish this idea that
locks us into waste as we build monstrosities just because of kickbacks. We can
actually have maintenance budgets in this country for the next 5 years and
insist that we will meticulously manage what we have. I know countries in
Eastern Europe, South America and Asia, where it could be argued that they
don’t have what we have in terms of infrastructure. Here, we sometimes behave
akin to spoilt children always throwing tantrums for new toys after spoiling or
abandoning what we have. The place to start is to understand the value of
things; to be able to make and maintain valuable assets on our own. Imported
development is no development. It’s at best a good day out at the amusement
park.
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