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Description:
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Book Review
Britain, the colonial power that created Nigeria and ruled the new country as one political entity for 46 years granted independence to Nigeria 47 years ago. Nigerian politics has remained trapped in the internecine in fighting that the pre-independence political parties ignited in 1950, some 57 years ago. Available and accessible natural resources have, in the period multiplied many times over since the British handed over power to Nigerian politicians. The population has multiplied more than four times over. But the quality of life continues to slide down the comparative international scale in spite of contemporary rapid advances in many countries across the world, particularly outside Africa. Nigerian political practitioners in government are on emoluments and allowances that are comparable with current rates in European countries whilst the vast majority of the Nigerian peoples belong to families that live on less than 35 dollars in a year. From self-created corrupt earnings, the politicians multiply their personal takings many times over within the crookedly operated national economy. Nigeria is a land that is literally flowing with milk and honey. Consider the 923,738 sq km of landmass that is covered with variegated segments of climatic blessings.
You may start from the thick rain forests of the Southern coastline, the rich alluvial Niger delta that is fecund simultaneously on the surface on land and water, and below the surface with the sixth largest world deposit of oil and natural gas. The delta spreads across from the Republic of Benin through Lagos, Ogun, southern half of Ondo and Delta States. It also includes Edo, Bayelsa, Rivers, and lower parts of Imo, Ebonyin, Cross River and Akwa Ibom States. Consider the rich deciduous vegetation of Oyo, northern Edo, Anambra, Enugu, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, and the northern half of Akwa Ibom States. We have the rich Savannah lands of Niger, Nassarawa, Plateau, Taraba, Adamawa and Bauchi States; the open grasslands of Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe and Borno States.
It is a land with immense deposits of solid minerals, from coal to diamond, which remain mostly unexploited, and petroleum with gas that is being ravenously consumed at the behest of international capitalism whilst our peoples bear the adverse geoeconomic effects of exploitation. With a vibrant population of 140 million, the 10th most populous country in the world, the vast majority are youths who are mainly jobless and virtually hopeless in respect of future prospects of making a worthwhile livelihood. The politicians who have dominated the political arena and government in the last half a century remain incapable of turning the vast resources into accessible wealth for the people. Never in the history of man have there been a people so much blessed, so much in need of development yet so much unable to convert the blessings into benefits.
In spite of these immense human and natural resources, Nigeria is the 149th rated economy in the world, marginally better than 23 other countries in a comity of 174 countries. What is the problem? The problem is the successive cohorts of kleptocrats, military politicians and their ever-available civilian collaborators who have continuously used politics and power for self-enrichment with the mass of the people getting steadily poorer.
The basic issue in Nigerian politics is to replace these antidevelopment politicians with a new brand and breed that will ensure the rapid economic development of Nigeria. That is the issue we discuss in the new book, Savagery in politics: the hindrance to national development. The political parties that have dominated the scenes of politics and power since 1950 have consistently failed to construct programmes that will give fervour to the economic possibilities in our country. They have selfishly focussed politics on the parochial interests of tribe, region, religion and self. Of course, the final pathway is self. The tribe, region and religion are weapons, being mere methods of serving the self. The political economy of the current rulers in the legislative houses and the executives at federal, state and local levels of government does not go beyond the award of contracts for services and products to foreign and local contractors.
Since the entry of military dictators into the political process and governance in Nigeria 41 years ago, government projects are only published in terms of cost, actually the amount of money to be spent. There is usually no specific mention of targets in terms of volume, number and quantity of what the money is to buy. The budget is regularly increased along the line of execution whilst in many cases the projects are either poorly executed or not completed at all with the increased budget fully expended. This behaviour is at all the levels of government: local, state and federal. The book gives a number of examples of such corruptly executed projects involving billions of naira and actually costing Nigeria many more times in comparison with identical projects executed in other countries. When we place this phenomenon within the context of growing international capitalist predation of Third World economies, particularly in respect to the continuous criminal externalisation of Nigeria’s national wealth within the illicit outward financial flows that are only mutually beneficial to western corporations, financial institutions and the Nigerian ruling military politicians and their civilian collaborators, it becomes very clear that the country is in the traps of people who are anything but patriotic.
Nigerians require an immediate stop to the historical calamity constituted by the present cliques in power and politics. The seeds of the new breed have been planted in new political formations that are identified in the text. The book, which arose from our experience in the 2003 Presidential political campaigns, examines the historical, anthropological and ideological origins of politics and power in Nigeria. It proposes a political plan for the desired change and requests those who are fit to belong to the new breed of politicians to proceed beyond mere complaints and grumbling. It may be a painful and slow process, but it must be embarked upon.
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About the Book
Political practice on the platforms of political parties as a route to political power started in its present form in Nigeria during the last decade of the colonial era. With the twin formation of the Action Group of Nigeria AG and the Northern Peoples'' Congress NPC, events that made the new political parties rivals to the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons NCNC, politics and political practice in Nigeria rapidly acquired the characteristics of parochialism on the basis of tribes, planned electoral rigging and fraud, corruption in government and the public service. These features are adversarial to economic development, a project that should rightly be the objective of any group that goes into government, particularly in a country that is so backward as Nigeria. With the formal departure of the British colonialists on October 1, 1960 military politicians ravenously invaded the political terrain on January 15, 1966. In spite of the regular claims to the objective of cleaning up the political field at every successful overthrow of the constitution by successive military dictators, the coup plotters and their civilian collaborators deliberately sustained the politics of exploitation of the people and the kleptocracy that were the hallmarks of the politicians whom they had removed from power. Every military government was composed of the coup makers and the politicians they had excised from constitutional government. In 1999, the military dictators were compelled to retreat from power following the twin deaths of Sani Abacha and Moshood Abiola. The present constitutional polity is still, like before and during the era of military dictatorship, characterised by faulty electoral mechanism and processes in a cosmetic democracy that perpetuates the combination of erstwhile military dictators and their usual civilian collaborators in power. They utilise the platforms of the three ruling political parties as their mutual political base.
In such a political environment that effectively shuts out alternative and new political options from the choices of the improvished Nigerian peoples, kleptocracy in government, corruption by the ruling politicians and exploitation of the people continue as the prominent features of Nigerian political practice. This book offers a new approach that the author believes that politicians with new ideas can use to gain access to political power and initiate the needed rapid economic development of Nigeria. The Democratic Alternative and similar political organisations are called upon to utilise the programme in this book to rescue Nigeria and Nigerians from the clutches and grips of political practitioners whose ideology, objectives, methods and practices in government have continuously denied Nigerians of the immense benefits that are derivable from the abundant national resources with which the country is blessed.
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About the Author
A soldier, surgeon, politician and administrator, Abayomi Ferreira was born at Port Harcourt, Nigeria on August 1, 1938. He attended Christ''s School, Ado Ekiti and studied medicine at the University College, Ibadan. He obtained commission into the Nigerian Army in 1967 and served with the 3 Marine Commando Division as the Divisional Surgeon commanding the 3 Field Ambulance Organisation and Military Hospital, Port Harcourt during the Nigerian Civil War 1967 to 1971. Dr Ferreira obtained his baptism into politics as an undergraduate at Ibadan.
A Marxist doctrinaire and ideologue, he fervently subscribes to the political concept and programme of a Nigerian society that will give every citizen equitable access to the resources of the country for a quality of life that is consistent with what is respectable in the early years of the 21st century. This ideological position drives and militates his political beliefs and practice. He was the foundation Chairman of the University branch of the Nigerian Youth Congress NYC and a foundation member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers and Farmers'' Party of Nigeria SWAFP.
He was the Vice-President (African Affairs) of the National Union of Nigerian Students NUNS, in which capacity he served as the Secretary of the Preparatory Committee of the African Union of Students which was inaugurated by all the National Unions of Students of African countries in Cairo in 1964. In 1984, Dr Ferreira was elected the inaugural Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the Labour Party of Nigeria.
On June 4, 1994 he was elected a foundation Vice-President of the Democratic Alternative. He is presently the President of the party, on which platform he contested Presidential elections in Nigeria in April 2003. His experience, both at the electioneering campaigns, which the party conducted throughout Nigeria, and the conduct of the general elections gave, rise to the publication of this book.
Dr Abayomi Ferreira
http://www.abayomiferreira.com
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