The Nigerian abductions, 58 days post-Chibok

58 days post abduction, the Chibok girls are yet to be found.  The Nigerian government response continues to leave much to be desired. It’s largely MIA.  When it responds it sends at best, mixed messages, at worst, its response appears to be schizophrenic and utterly devoid of compassion.  For example, why ban demonstrations in Abuja, if Nigeria is indeed a democratizing country?  Such a move smacks more of authoritarianism than anything else because it closes up, rather than opens up the political arena.  It also denies fundamental civil rights to Nigerians and signals that only adulation of the government is acceptable, no critiques.  How then does the country expect to grow into a better polity?  How does it demonstrate that it cares about its people’s opinions, particularly when they are expressing compassion toward the marginalized and oppressed; calling attention to an egregious injustice and demanding solutions to problems that if left unsolved, are not only damaging to the families affected by the abductions, but to the entire country and its well being? 

The humanitarian response is poorly coordinated, haphazard and inadequate to the point of being nonexistent.  I know that NEMA exists.  There are also SEMAs!  But the only meaningful demonstration of the existence of an institution is its effectiveness; its capacity to deliver what it was established to provide.  Are the displaced populations in Nigeria experiencing the effectiveness of NEMA and the SEMAs?  Not in the least!  So, what then does it mean to have the largest economy in Africa?  Is it about jamborees and crowing in the media about Nigeria being open for business?  We should bow our heads, be ashamed, lament and mourn the absurdity of having this largest economy and lacking at one and the same time, the basic necessities of life for our embattled majority—the poor.  We should be saddened by the rampant lack of human security in Nigeria.  We should lament the yet to be realized Education for All (EFA) goals.  We should abhor a situation where the gross lack of absence of a medical care system means that our leaders and their affluent friends and family, plus the few privileged Nigerians revel in seeking medical care abroad.  We have had the disgraceful situation of First Ladies dying while seeking simple things like plastic surgery, sitting Presidents dying in foreign lands and their superior hospitals, sitting President’s sibling dying of heart inflammation while being stabilized for transportation abroad to get the best medical care.  The state of our roads is predominantly atrocious.  If you want potable water, you provide it.  If you want a good school for your children, you pay through the nose, or resign yourself to the tragic carcasses that most of Nigeria’s schools have become.  Our public Universities and other tertiary institutions are eyesores.  The Police College in Ikeja, Lagos, is an assault to the sensibilities of any thinking person.  What is wrong?  Are we conscious of the responsibilities of a sovereign nation to its people?  What is there to celebrate?  What is there to crow about?  If majority of our citizens are down in the depths of despair about their lack of capacity to put body and soul together, why are we not mobilized to use the resources of the largest economy in Africa to turn the situation around?  What is our future if we can live with a situation where our children can be so easily abducted and kept away from their families by irrational individuals spouting incoherent diatribes?  I am puzzled.

There is seeming lack of awareness that we are in a democracy and citizens have a right to a whole panoply of civil & human rights, including but not limited to:  asking questions and demanding answers from their government; peacefully protest government policies; freedom of speech; freedom of association; publicly criticize government policy and demand significant changes; insist on well functioning democratic institutions such as the rule of law, and by implication an independent, impartial and fearless judiciary; elections that aren't rigged, and a truly independent and well functioning INEC, an institution whose name more belies the aspiration that it encourages in the mind of those that are unfamiliar with its nefarious history and record of ineptitude, collusion with venal political elites to defraud the majority of Nigerians. As an aside, most Nigerians hope that the institution under Professor Attahiru Jega succeeds in demonstrating that it can run clean elections. The jury is still out on this. The executive branch does not seem to understand that law enforcement, defense, bureaucratic excellence in policy implementation and commitment to separation of powers are all it's responsibility. It seems to think some magic would produce such results. It is MIA, dead in the water, absent, clueless and seems utterly incapable to demonstrate any sense of purpose that connects with the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of Nigerians. One is almost driven to wonder: what is the essence of Nigeria's claim to being a nascent democracy?  Does it mean we should be unmoored, plan less, stumbling from one crisis to another and modeling our ineptitude as well as impunity writ large to the world?

Nigeria just this year celebrated 100 years of its existence. I was puzzled by the extravaganza and jamboree that attended the event. Why on earth do we want to celebrate 100 years of colonization? If we're confused enough to do so, why not do sober and more productive reflection that considers the enduring legacies of colonization on our body politic? Why not re dedicate ourselves to connecting with the best aspirations of our nationalist struggle for independence, lamenting the elusiveness of the "life better for all" that was promised in those heady days and demonstrating a commitment to doing all in our power to awaken those dreams, regroup, be serious and determined to fulfill the social contract that those nationalists of yore promised?  Instead we threw a most extravagant party, gave numerous scandalous awards, displayed in graphic relief that the plight of ordinary Nigerians matters little to its government. The attitude displayed was one akin to "fiddling while Rome burns".

What is the way forward?  There are passionate advocates of immediate rescue. These individuals and groups acknowledge the bankruptcy of the Nigerian government and call upon the international community to rescue us.  Some call for a return to military rule because there was order when the military had its jackboot on our necks.  In terms of asking the international community to swoop in and rescue us, it is surprising that we expect altruism and magnanimity.  Why should any country perform the magnanimous task of committing its human and material resources to rescue a country that seems to be hell-bent on self-destruction?  What justification would they offer to their people?  How would this be in their national interest?  Do we realize that when political scientists say that the international system is the realm of anarchy that the implication is about the salience of self-help?  The meaning of this simply is that no one will help you.  You help yourself.  If you are “helped” there is a price to pay.  Oftentimes, that price is the loss of autonomy, a sort of colonization.  Is this what we want?  Maybe that’s why we celebrated 100 years since the instantiation of colonization with so much fanfare.  Maybe that’s why we are so devoid of a sense of purpose and determination to establish a functioning political system that is designed to meet the needs of our people.  Maybe that’s why we have politicians that seem determined to fiddle while Rome burns.  They have such high salaries and perquisites of office that it is ridiculous.  Their people—the constituents they serve are predominantly destitute, hungry, incapacitated by problems that can be easily solved but prove to be intractable in Nigeria, and all they’re concerned about is how to fill their pockets with ill-gotten gains purloined from the patrimony.  It is a shame!

Leftists who raise the alarm about the craziness of a blanket call for rescue by America and the other world powers are right.  There ain’t nothing like a free lunch!  No rescue without giving something in return.  America is of course interested. So is China, so is the UK, so is France.  There is a panoply of other interested parties.  Each and every one of them is there in Nigeria “helping” to look for the Chibok girls and others that Boko Haram has disappeared.  We should be grateful but vigilant.  We should thank all these powers and powerful interests.  If we were organized and our house was in order, we would not need the extent of assistance that we now need so desperately.  However, vigilance is required.  The lessons of history, as recently as in Iraq and farther away in time in the Congo, show us that external intervention can cause more devastation than provide solutions.  No matter how grievous things are, we do not want to be recolonized.  Besides, no one can rescue us.  Only our collective efforts will rescue us.  The job ahead is messy, formidable, seemingly intractable, but really not insurmountable.  We should gird our loins and first rescue our girls, and then embark anew on the long and painful journey of nation-building.  It is difficult.  It is not impossible.  Without a state that is conscious of its responsibilities to the people of Nigeria, we cannot accomplish a thing.  What I am calling for is such a state to become manifest.  This is the meaning of independence, autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty.

Nigerians, rise to the challenge.