"Mr. Jonathan, who leads a corrupt government that has little credibility, initially played down the group’s threat and claimed security forces were in control. It wasn’t until Sunday, more than two weeks after the kidnappings, that he called a meeting of government officials, including the leader of the girls’ school, to discuss the incident." The most important issue on the front burner of the Nigerian administration is how to return back and re-unite these young women with their families.
But there are still pending issues.
• More than $12 billion worth of receipts from crude oil is still missing (Sanusi says the figure is $20 billion while Ngozi says it is $1)
• The Boko Haram insurgents are definite to continue their horrendous campaign even after the girls are freed.
• There is the problem of governmental tardiness in almost everything
• Diezani Allison-Madueke still has to tell us what happened to our N10 billion allegedly spent on private jets.
Mr. Jonathan had his work cut out for him from the onset and it was to deliver good governance and that he has failed to do. Lying inside his cabinet will be no less that 50 reports of various probes into the malfeasances of his ministers and on other issues and he has refused to act.
With nearly N1 trillion of our money stolen under the petroleum subsidy regime, not a single person - either a public official or a private contractor - has been put in jail for anything relating to this massive theft.
Recently, the government admitted that its sales of the power assets had been untidy. The nation is bleeding on many fronts - materially and reputationally.
Our nation is a nation of oddities - we import that which we have in abundance and export that which we do not have. We also dispense with the services of those we need to keep and keep those we need to lock up in jail.
Whatever his errors were, despite helping us to clear the mess in our banking system and containing inflation at sub-two-digit levels, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was sacked for financial recklessness but we are keeping Diezani Madueke - obviously for financial probity - after spending a mere N10 billion to charter private jets for the use of herself and her family.
When NNPC was asked to tell us what happened to our $12 billion, Mr. Tony Anenih released a statement cleared the corporation adjudging the explanation given by NNPC's "Thief" Exceutive to be sufficient (on behalf of the odd 170 million of us). Our goodwill within the international community is eroded on daily basis on account of Mr. Jonathan's criminally inept leadership.
In the early 2000, the most horrific but common violent crime in Nigeria is armed robbery. Today, it is a combination of ritual killings and hostage taking. So lucrative has killing others for money and power rituals have become that normally sane persons dress and act as if they were mad to go undetected in public. Young graduates now do not bother looking for employment knowing they will not find. They simply join up with other college cult members and form their own hostage taking gang. Just a few days back a whooping N500 million was demanded for a securing the release of foreign national. Where do you turn and you would not need to cover your face and your nose at the base level we are as a country or the indices of corruption?
An accountant in the Prison Service was discovered to have N200 million of your money in his accounts. Those who were to pay pensioners diverted the money to themselves. As of today, no less than N40 billion is claimed to be missing from the Police Pension funds.
When confronted Mr. Jonathan said these were mere act of stealing and not corruption.
A certain Mr. Farouk Lawan, credited to have received kickback of about $600,000 from Mr. Femi Otedola is still active in the House of Representatives. Indeed, despite public knowledge of his misdemeanour, they still call him "Mr. Integrity". The last time I checked the meanings of the word integrity in the dictionary, what I read did not include those who take bribes or give it.
I once spoke to a friend of mine who works as a director in the public service in Abuja and asked why all the contracts from his office are not advertised for public bidding. He told me it is because most are reserved for our parliamentarians. He said nearly 40% of supply contracts have been guaranteed for the committee members in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Recently, Rotimi Amaechi, the serving governor of River State, told us public that we should take stones and stone those in political authority. He actually threatened that if we don't do that his likes cannot and will not stop stealing our money.
It doesn't stop in government, the private sector is as bad. Most of the organizations that we knew when we left the university are dead as a result of corporate mismanagement and corruption - Tate & Lyle, RT Briscoe, PAN, Leyland, Volkswagen of Nigeria, Aswani Textiles, Roads, etc. The question is: are you going to watch and allow the country go up in flames? Act now, lend your voice to the voice of change in Nigeria.
Say no to inept leadership and call for credible representation. Insist on a fundamental change in the system and reject any palliative surgery that keeps our parents, our brothers and our sisters as "slaves" in their own country.
Graduates of ten, fifteen years are roaming Nigerian streets without jobs. Those who had some seeming jobs are unbelievably underemployed with university graduates working as security guards and drivers. A cousin of mine has an HND but has opted to be selling sandals and slippers in the market in my home town because he couldn't find a job. He has a wife and two kids and at least four other hangers-on - children of his late mother.
That is the Nigeria of today but it should not be the Nigeria of tomorrow if you raise your voice.
By Oluseyi Steven Faseyiku
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