I have thoroughly studied General Olusegun Obasanjo’s terse 18-page letter to President Goodluck Jonathan. The letter dealt with the state of the nation, the disintegrating political party, the PDP, the ineffectiveness of societal institutions, which seem to be out of control and the absence of solid measures to arrest the drift.
I categorically state that Nigeria has surmountable crisis, but definitely not in jeopardy. We have always withdrawn from the brink because most Nigerian rulers have an insurable interest in the survival of the Federal Republic.
They stand to lose inexorably if Nigeria breaks-up or breaks down.
As a law student since 1964, I have seen through the unworkability of all the Nigerian Constitutions, as legal instruments of statecraft in a neo-colonial state, heavily teleguided by alien socio-economic philosophies and modified laws that have been mechanically used in the administration of the Amalgamated Federal Republic of Nigeria, since 1947.
I am well-informed about the role of proxies and counterfeit nationalists.
Military intervention in Nigerian politics abysmally retarded the forward march of Nigeria.
When one looks at Kenya’s socio-cultural progress, the step by step advancement, the use of Swahili, the standard of political thought in parliamentary deliberations, one is bound to lament the low culture of political development of Nigeria and the state of affairs in our civil society.
We have lacked an organized social system based on scientific foundations of statecraft.
Our system has been based on chance happenings, of strong men dictating inane values that do not assist society to gain acceleration in the right direction.
It was not Jonathan, who saddled the Federal Republic with a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, expensive presidential system.
It was not Jonathan, who sold the juicy corporations, industries to absentee-owner directors, who now collaborate with whiz kids to obliterate the gains of the Indigenization Acts of the 1970’s.
Jonathan inherited a broken pot and in trying to mend it, he has been impeded by septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, failed leaders, jet-set evangelists, who have confused, rather than assist in constructive national dialogue.
When Olusegun Obasanjo stepped down as the Chairman of the PDP, I knew that the party had lost his advice, which he now gives through vitriolic communications.
. His successor did not have what it takes to run a political party and it has shown.
PDP politicians now engage in gory lamentations and predictions of a shifting apocalypse.
The builders of this presidential Republic, were tricked by their mentors to institutionalize rigging, corruption and occasional disagreements that give the impression that a segment of the ruling class is more patriotic than others.
Yet, they hold nocturnal meetings and share the dividends of democracy together.
The Republic was design to fail. The designers knew that the teleguided economy, the bloated salaries, emoluments and corruption by leaders could not sustain the system up to 2015.
Perhaps, due to the dexterity of the Finance Minister, Dr. Okonjo-Iwela, we have managed so far so good.
A New Nigerian super class has emerged known as ENTREPRENEURS AND PHILANTROPISTS. Recently, I tested their benevolence. They failed.
I concluded that the appellations are a public relations stunt.
Occasional sounding off about corruption, inefficiency and retrogression, no longer impress any thinking compatriot, because let us start the national accounting of the wealth status of all past leaders and the noisy aspirants and we shall have a clear picture of the hypocrisy of “ sympathetic undertaker” Jeka gboro!
Gory lamentations will not prevent the Republic from wobbling. The structures are weak, the personnel unprepared for effective governance, the economy lacks electricity, water and other necessary infrastructures that assist in propelling economic growth.
What awaits Nigeria? The men are there. Let us play our first eleven. That is where the solution lies. May God help the helpless. Amen.
