Ernest Omoarelojie

By Ernest Omoarelojie

Nigerians are wonderful people, very religious too. We love to pray, for just about anything and our tendency to command the heavens to rain celestial bounties down for us has no limit. It hardly matters that work is all that we need to do. For some inexplicable reasons, we are quick to see our every failings as the handiwork of some enemies somewhere. Our idea of solution is to invoke the wrath of God, through the holy ghost, to swallow them up. Our penchant for vengeance, even for mundane reasons, is too intense that we have little or no room for self introspection. We are simply comforted in the belief that “Holy Ghost Fire” must drop from above, burn and wish our every imagined troubles or enemies.

It does not matter either that in the beatitude, also referred to as sermon on the mountain, Christ admonished his followers to pray for their enemies. Our perceived enemies must die. Truly, I have wondered about what may happen if God decides to heed our prayers, rain down fire and brimstone on our enemies. No one may be spared because if i prayed for fire the same way you pray for same, will anyone be left unscathed?

As it were, it appears our prayers are coming to pass. Indeed, “Holy Ghost Fire” seems to be lose on a destructive rage. That is, if one considers the present realities in our dear country Nigeria, arguably occasioned by our supplications to God to spit fire on those who led us here. Brimstone is raining on those who stole our collective patrimony and along with them, we all are paying so much for our collective indolence over the years for refusing to do the needful. But I am worried that typically, we are acting very undiscerning as we fall easy preys to the antics of those who must, of necessity, receive furnace heat from the fire as they latch on our vulnerability to join them in fighting against a good course.

Those with questions to answer seem to have persuaded us by taking advantage of our gullibility to fight against being punished for crimes they are alleged to have committed against us. We are blaming those who chose to help sort out corruption justifying our angst with the inevitable hardship that must accompany any well-intended reform as excuse. And I ask, what manner of a people are we?

Only recently, Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, revealed that our country is technically in a recession. Typically, we raised alarmed voices as if we never knew that it was bound to happen or that indeed, we did not see it coming. Pretentiously, we are giving the impression, having been viciously conscientized by partisan affiliations, that it is coming from some perceived inability of the present administration to do the needful. It does not matter that we are very aware that it did not begin today. It matters not that we are very familiar with events in the past, when the country had money aplenty, from the sale of crude oil, our only revenue earner.

We simply forgot that we adjudged those who held sway then as profligates having concluded that if they failed to save for the rainy day as they did, recession would set in one day. Rather than push for them to save, we clapped and sang “Hallelujah” as they took no deliberate step to remove our country from being an import-dependent economy. We knew that as quickly as revenue from oil dries up, recession was inevitable. Yet, we did nothing as long as we benefitted from a system we know is not sustainable. But now that the result of our collective inertia is here, we chose to whimper and pretend not to know how our troubles began. What a people we are!

By popular mandate, Mohammadu Buhari is today, our president. He promised change in the way we do business because like you and I, he knew what the real problem is. But unlike most of us, he knows exactly what has to be done. In accepting to take the job, he, like us, knew that no one can prepare an omelette without breaking an egg. Of course we know how delicious omelette is except that we always refuse to think about the damage preparing it does the egg. In like manner, we cannot imagine that we must experience any pain in the process of righting what has gone wrong even we know that pain is inevitable. Rather than look inwards and play our part, we are seeing the problem not from the perspective of what we failed to do but the perceived inability of the president and his team to quickly wish the troubles away without breaking a sweat. What manner of a people we are!

Not too long ago, I heard a respondent to a radio program in Benin City, Edo state, declare that “Jonathan administration’s corruption is better than Buhari’s integrity”. I thought I didn’t hear it right until he re-emphasized it on the prompting of the moderator. I still cannot comprehend how or what makes corruption better than integrity. But I took from it the fact that the assertion may be an apt definition of our mindset particularly now that a lot of us are now unable to accept the reality that access to free money is gone. Unlike before, we must now learn how to concentrate only on getting what we need, certainly not what we want. We must now learn to play our part.
Our part is not difficult.

Certainly, it is not in projecting partisan wishes as rational national requirements. Our part is to consider the peculiarity of the times we are contending with, offer constructive rather than destructive criticisms. Unfortunately, most of us are concerned more with projecting biased ethno-religious profanities in place of constructive ideas. For that, we can comfortable remove “stealing” from our lexicon and replace it with “hammer”, an absurd euphemism for acquiring illegal riches if the culprit shares ethnic, religious or fraternal relationship with us. The truth is that we must learn to see good conduct as good, bad conduct as bad. We must begin to see the need to institutionalize punishment as a necessary requirement for bad conduct generally, including corruption in its entirety. We must begin to accept the fact that those alleged to have light fingers, in whatever form, deserve enquiry and when found culpable, punishment.

For that to happen, we must appreciate the fact that feathers must be ruffled as the process takes off. Rather than refer to the process as one side, we must bear in mind the fact that even though it is practically impossible to catch everyone that is guilty, the law has time on its side such that it will catch up with those we may have overlooked today, ether by design or otherwise. Our real concern must be the need to establish a culture that prescribes punishment for crimes and ensures that culprits are dealt with statutorily. These are what our roles should be knowing full well that corruption festered in our country because there is no punishment for its disciples.

Look at it this way. Beyond oil, Nigeria has undeniable agricultural and other natural resource potentials. In particular, we have the capacity to develop the rice industry and turn it into a major export. But we watched as some of us destroyed the sector having realized how easy it is to make quick millions from importation. As at today, the country requires over $10 billion to import rice annually. In like manner, the country is capable of sorting out its power challenges in just a few years if those who benefit from its long established epileptic essence, including generator importers, allow the resuscitation process to progress without putting deliberate blockades.

It goes on and on in all sectors but fortunately, we all have a fair idea of those involved in making sure that we remain in the woods. We also have an idea that beyond cosmetic statements of intent, no serious effort was made to deal with them in the past as it appears now. Yet, we seem not to have the patient we need for the process to take root and have effect. We just want to move forward without setting the right foundation. What a way to go!

Lastly, the time has come for us to competitively seize every opportunity offered by our individual, local government, state or regional comparative advantages in the diversification process currently being pursued by the federal government. Let me explain this by delving into a reality most of us seem to wave off.

Our country is so blessed that it has everything in terms of natural resources. Our land is so fertile that we find grasses sometimes growing in tall concrete buildings. What it means is that we can grow suitable food or cash crops all year round and have bountiful harvests. Unfortunately, we have not been able to produce enough food for ourselves let alone export much to make any meaningful and sustainable economic sense. Instead we rely on less endowed nations for our sustenance.

The case is even worse in the southern part of the country where the land is mostly green all year round. Yet, we wait for the north to produce the tomatoes, pepper, onion and even yam we need. It does not matter that our side of the divide can produce all of them even at commercial quantity. It does not matter either that crude products, a finite resource we rely on so much, will not be as useful one day as they are now. We are simply satisfied accusing even God of allowing us to be part of a nation which recognizes collective patrimony. What a way to live!