Nigeria Content Online

I
have asked this question several times in this column and I ask it
again: are we a nation that is inured to cheating? Are we irretrievably
sold on the idea that the best approach is the short cut route?

These questions
have been prompted by recent developments on our sporting scene, one of
which is our recent triumph at the Africa Youth Championship, which
ended recently in South Africa.

For a lot of
Nigerian football fans, slaying the Camerounian bogey felt even better
than lifting the trophy itself. Expectedly, officials of the Nigerian
Football Federation (NFF), have been beside themselves with excitement
engaging freely in backslapping and chest thumping.

But as we have come
to know with almost everything that has to do with our participation in
international youth football competitions, the victory in South Africa
is decidedly pyrrhic. It has come at the cost of national honour and
integrity.

For as we gloat
over our triumph, the foul smell of corruption pollutes the firmament
and dogs our every step. The use of players who are clearly over the
age limit in prosecuting a tournament, for which lads are supposed to
participate, certainly diminishes us.

For the second time
in two years, Adokiye Amiesimaka, the respected former commissioner for
justice in Rivers State and a former member of the Super Eagles, has
drawn attention to the use of players clearly too old for the teams in
which they have been fielded. In 2009 he pointed out to us the folly in
fielding Fortune Chukwudi, a player he said was 18 years old, seven
years earlier, in the Golden Eaglets squad.

This time around,
he has picked on Kayode Olanrewaju pointing out that the player was in
the same Sharks feeder team with Chukwudi nine years ago.

What has been the
reaction of the NFF and the larger Nigerian society to the disclosure?
Indifference. While the football federation has pretended nothing has
happened, one of its senior officials is alleged by a journalist to
have threatened his life for daring to draw attention to the fact there
are indeed more players in current Flying Eagles squad over the
prescribed 20 years age limit.

Now, before anyone
thinks that this practice is the sole preserve of the NFF, he or she
would do well to consider recent developments in the Athletics
federation of Nigeria (AFN). This week in Botswana Nigeria will be
participating in the African Junior Athletics Championships. The team
has been chosen and visas obtained. Sadly, we are confronted yet again
with allegations of use of overage athletes.

The danger of shortcuts

Last week, Olajide
Fashikun, one of Nigeria’s leading investigative journalists wrote that
some of the athletes in the Nigerian contingent are actually older than
they are making out:

“Nigeria, through
her athletics federation, has perfected a massive but criminally
fraudulent measure to go the next African athletics championships
holding in Botswana to cheat again.

“The latest is the
massive importation of 30 year olds to participate in championships for
17 year olds. In this team, we have a quarter miler whose personal best
by the records of the AFN is a 48 seconder! Can a 16 year old return
such? Haba AFN! One of your juniors was in the world universities games
in 2005 and in 2011 is a junior. This is obviously senseless cheating.
I have the three Nigerian passports of this single athlete all changed
at the AFN’s instance.”

If this revelation
does not disturb us then something is fundamentally wrong with our
values. No society survives or gets ahead through cheating. If anything
shortcuts, rather than help us along on the path of progress, actually
distract and makes us lazy.

For truly, it is
laziness that has continued to feed the desire of our sports officials
to field overage athletes in age grade competitions because it is so
much easier for them to do so than engage in the mental exercise of
devising programmes that would identify and groom youngsters to become
the elite athletes of the future who can win laurels for Nigeria.

No nation follows this path and succeeds and Nigeria will not be
different. True greatness in sports cannot be attained via the back
door. The potential to succeed exists; the resources to actualise it
are overabundant. What are lacking are integrity, commitment and plain
commonsense.

The governorship
election has provided yet more proof of the seismic shift in Nigerian
politics that has taken place over the past few weeks.

In many parts of
our country, it was a tale of hitherto strong-men of local politics
being humbled right on home turf. While the surprising defeat of a
politician in and of itself is nothing to be cheerful about – and in
many cases, there is hardly an ideological difference between victors
and vanquished – it is remarkable as a demonstration of people-power
when the people who appear to have held our hard-won democracy hostage,
are sent a strong message.

Across the country
for the past two days, that has been the case. As one newspaper put it,
for the first time in Kwara State, it appears that Olusola Saraki,
variously referred to as the godfather of the state’s politics, was not
responsible by influence or activity for the ‘installation’ of a
governor-elect. In Anambra State, the assumed favourite, Dora Akunyili,
after a run-off, missed the mark by a few hundred votes – to the
surprise of many. In Delta State, Great Ogboru almost reached to snatch
the mandate from the sitting governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan; and in the
south west, many strongmen came tumbling down, including the scion of
the late Lamidi Adedibu’s ‘amala politics’ heritage – Adebayo
Alao-Akala, governor of Oyo State.

Indeed, the south
west, following the trend of the National Assembly elections,
effectively went back to the hands of the opposition – the result of
almost four years of strategy and grassroots mobilization; and a
combination of street smartness and aggressive politicking.

In Imo State, it
is a titanic battle between the incumbent, Ikedi Ohakim and perennial
candidate, Rochas Okorocha – a mishmash of accusations, cancellations
and rumours. No one knows exactly who the leading candidate is. The
electoral commission sounds and looks as confused as impatient
onlookers, but one thing is clear: Mr. Ohakim – whose image has taken a
beating following a string of media stories about strong-arm tactics on
his part – is in the fight of his life to retain his seat, and to save
face.

This is a state of
affairs that should be pleasing to Nigerians – and by this we do refer,
not to the fate of individual candidates, but to the atmosphere and
appearance of robust democracy that it suggests. Clearly, politicians
now have to go to the people for power. It used to be that when two
elephants fight, the grass underneath suffers – but it begins to appear
that where democracy is alive and well, when the elephants fight, the
people have the last laugh.

There are of
course, a lot of factors involved in this – a vibrant, even militant,
opposition; a media that has admirably taken its place as an unbiased
umpire; an Independent National Electoral Commission that is determined
to see through its promise of credible, if not completely fair,
elections; a Presidency that continues to impress with its complete
refusal to interfere with electoral processes and a country that is,
finally, ready for some real change in the way it is governed.

Twelve years ago,
the headliners of Nigeria’s ruling party, the People’s Democratic
Party, would wave away any imperfections – natural or man-made – in the
system with a casual “this is a nascent democracy”. With the benefit of
hindsight, they were right. Our democracy has had its teething
problems, and it has struggled and stumbled along the way, but it has
continued to grow.

That, fortunately
for Nigerians, was where the ruling class missed it. Yes, once it was
nascent, but now it has grown. If Nigerians keep up this tempo, the
balance of power will really change hands. In another four short years.

Look, officer, I
was going to stay out of this, but after watching CNN and seeing the
kind of pekelemes preparations for Prince William’s wedding, I can’t
stay out of this matter anymore. From all indications, it seems you
British people think a royal wedding should be like that of a Nigeria
Railway junior staff’s marriage. Therefore, I am applying for visas for
the best wedding planners in Lagos. I am sure you have been around long
enough in Nigeria to see how weddings are conducted here. We want your
people to have a taste of that.

We will bring Lagos
high life to London and shake whatever cold off your bodies, and throw
summer colours into your sombre hued London Fog coats. All of these
people applying for visas today are owanbe specialists. It’s a pity you
are going to be in Lagos while we are leaving a taste of a lifetime in
your palace dwellers’ palates.

Here are the applicants, please:

Mama Tunde – she is
locally known as the aso-ebi queen. Let’s assume you sneeze right now,
instead of her to say “bless you” and offer you a hankie, right under
your nose she would sew and sell aso-ebi (uniform) for the entire
embassy staff, gate men, security guards and other visa applicants just
to tell you “e pele o, e pele o”. Mama Tunde knows every textile mill
in Sub-Saharan Africa and by the time she is done donning ankara,
damask, tie and dye, etc on white wedding attendants, you would think
you were in a Yinka Shonibare art opening at the Smithsonian, instead
of a royal wedding.

Aunty Titilayo –
she is our souvenir baroness. If you want to know the meaning of
‘branding’, check her out first. She will brand everything under the
sun for William’s wedding. Name it: from Raleigh bicycles to Mini
Coopers, office chairs, jacuzzis, shower curtains and pure water. If
you need branded babies (just in case the likes of Madonna would be
attending the wedding), let Aunty Titilayo know. And she would have no
qualms distributing these items during the reception, no matter the
crowd.

Iya Buki – she is
also known as Mama Silk. She has no problem covering the entire
Trafalgar Square with yards and yards of silk. If you need her to lay a
red carpet on the road from Heathrow Airport to Buckingham Palace, that
would simply be like asking her for a throw pillow on your living room
couch. She can also give the London Bridge the ‘Breadfruit Effect’,
which is what she does with balloons at events.

Ronke – she is the
Change Agent. People need to ‘spray’ the newlyweds with money during
their first dance and that is where she comes in. Forget the fact that
the Royal Family is wealthy; you British should learn to show off a
little bit. Ronke’s job is to break your large notes to manageable
smaller crisp pounds sterling notes. If you need to break a hundred to
fives, her charge is two percent – you need to be quick on mental
arithmetic or Ronke will show you that Balogun Street is smarter than
Broad Street.

Mama Ngozi –
Emotion Generator. What does she do? Ah, she is very important; she
whips up emotions during wedding speeches. Something like, “I wish
Sister Diana was alive to see this William her son on this beautiful
day…boohoohoo.” And before you know it, everybody is crying and
donating their houses and cars to William and Kate without thinking
twice.

Uncle Bankole – The
Wine Merchant. You people’s plan is to serve wine in glasses and
calculate how much each glass costs? That is not how we do it in Lagos,
please. Leave this matter to Uncle Bankole, who will give each and
every one of the invited guests as many bottles of the most expensive
wine on earth as they can drink. Beer, champagne, brandy and other
kinds or drinks will be distributed in cartons by his boys. As we used
to say in Ekpoma, don’t count the people on a table, count the bottles.

Iya Bose – Chef
Extraordinaire. This woman here can cook jollof rice and fried meat
that will send an aroma from the British Isles to the Isle of Pigs. For
the vegetarians among you, she has Lagos Special Salad. I must warn you
that our salads are full meals, not appetizers, please. As for the
wedding cake, she has already designed one of Buckingham Palace, with
William and Kate sitting on the roof.

Meet Pastor
Adeboye. He will pray for the royal family and cast out all those
generational curses that may have plagued the royal family since they
looted arts and artefacts from Benin Kingdom.

Pastor Kumuyi will
pray for the Middletons and abate their fears in case they are nervous
about their daughter’s future. You know our people say inhabitants fear
ordinary lizards in a house where snakes bite.

Pastor Chris will pray for the newlyweds. His acquired accent is the only one the youngsters can understand.

Did you ask who will pay for all this? The federal government of
Nigeria, of course. We all delivered our wards and constituencies
during the presidential election.

If there is
anything the repressive Arab regimes of the middle east and north
Africa and the traditional institutions in parts of northern Nigeria
share, it is the deliberate misinterpretation of Islam to hold on to
power while abusing human rights and dignity. There is often a
convenient convergence of culture and the clergy to perpetuate this
fraud on the people. In Saudi Arabia, less than 1,000 princes and
members of the royal family control a country that earns about $1
billion every day when oil prices climb above 100 dollars a barrel.

Similarly, in parts
of northern Nigeria, members of royal houses and those ‘honoured’ with
traditional titles dominate choice positions in government and
elsewhere. Few people know that during the 1979 primaries of the
National Party of Nigeria (NPN), blue-blooded Shehu Shagari was the
preferred choice of the northern elite over ‘commoner’ Maitama Sule.
One of the first politicians to challenge the power of the northern
traditional establishment was the late Aminu Kano who ran for president
under the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). Kano. Just like the CPC’s
Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Kano never got the backing of that powerful group.

History teaches
that injustice and oppression do not last forever. That is why after
decades of misrule, a new generation has finally mustered the courage
to say ‘enough is enough’. First, it was Tunisia, then Egypt. Yemen is
burning. Syria is on edge. Morocco, Jordan, Algeria and Saudi Arabia
are trembling. The United States conveniently overlooked the crushing
of the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain, while the West has hijacked a
popular movement in Libya with a dubious military intervention.
Whatever form it may take, one thing is clear – democracy is in the
air. In a way, the Arab awakening is also blowing across the north.
True, we have many people who have risen above the system to educate
themselves and confront the challenges of today’s world head on. For
these, education has been the key. Conversely, for a majority of
northerners, illiteracy is all-pervading. It is a sad reflection on the
quality of leadership that even when ‘commoners’ make it to positions
of power and authority, they are quickly absorbed into the elite class
and given traditional titles. In gratitude, these new ‘royalty’ forget
their roots and serve the interests of the traditional establishment.

But like our Arab
contemporaries, a new generation of people in the north is beginning to
realise that a distorted version of Islam has been used to enslave them
for too long; there is nothing Islamic about poverty and illiteracy.
The only leader they could trust is General Buhari in whom they saw a
beacon of hope – that explains their support for the incorruptible
general. He represented a change from leaders that only exploit and
impoverish them; Buhari’s loss resulted in massive voter apathy in the
north and the virtual collapse of the opposition in the governorship
elections, to PDP’s joy. People say: “Why bother voting when nothing
will change?”

When the results of
the presidential elections (under-aged voting and 99.96 percent and
all) came out, the north’s long oppressed and downtrodden saw their
hope of emancipation dashed, triggering the senseless slaughter of
innocent people. Unfortunately, there are no military (or violent)
solutions to political problems. This may explain why the peaceful
change in Tunisia and Egypt succeeded while Libya’s armed rebellion is
festering. If those who engaged in this dastardly act read newspapers,
I would have asked: did the ordinary citizen eking out a livelihood and
minding his business inflate the figures? No religion condones the
killings and the subsequent reprisals. The violence serves no purpose;
it is condemnable and completely uncalled for. It is totally
indefensible and can only be explained, but certainly not justified, as
the result of mindless, directionless mob action. Even Buhari’s
motorcade unknowingly drove into the mayhem and was equally attacked.

Ultimately, for the northern traditional establishment and political
elite, the chickens have come home to roost. Who would have imagined
northern masses approaching the palaces of emirs not to pay homage, but
with intent to loot and burn? Or reports that the Sultan was pelted
with sachets of ‘pure water’? True, a revolt against an anachronistic
feudal system is needed, but that does not excuse killing innocent
people. For genuine change agents seeking to kick out a corrupt and
visionless ruling class, (another plentiful national resource), our
support and edification is needed, not the usual ‘almajiri’ or
‘bloodthirsty’ northerner taunts. The road to liberty is paved with
adversity, but with understanding, the Nigeria of our dreams may yet
emerge.

Ask many
Nigerians, especially a class of young people, why they are not
involved or supporting a particular movement or campaign for change,
and their response is simple: the people working for positive change
are ‘not serious’.

The tragedy for
most of these people is that this knee-jerk reaction to efforts to make
change, is neither supported by reality or facts. They criticize a
project for a lack of thoroughness and then you find that they have not
in fact taken their time to be thorough in their assertions. They
accuse a campaign of lacking vision or depth without even taking the
simple step of perhaps checking the accused website to confirm this
lack of vision. They criticize a petition without even reading its
contents. They dismiss networks as ‘group of friends’ without any
efforts to indeed verify that claim. They nitpick on credibility and
sustainability, without any iota of fact-checking on the matter on
which they so confidently mount a soapbox.

In a sense, it is
nothing unusual. Across the world, apathy is always driven by cynicism
– another form of resignation and helplessness that effectively hides
itself under a garb of worldy wisdom and realism. However, in this
case, this resignation is hardly quiet. It is in fact alive and kicking
– fed by its own sense of justification, even necessity.

It has always been
perplexing to me, for instance, that people who have not lifted a
finger to make a difference, even in the smallest way possible, are the
ones most vociferous in decrying double standards, insincerity, lack of
reach or some other inadequacy in those who have stuck their necks out.
Fortunately, I am not one of those who assume an invalidity of opinion
just because certain people do not have the street credibility of
‘working for change’. However, this peculiarly Nigerian syndrome throws
up a lot of interesting challenges for anyone who understands the
imperative of waking the people up from slumber and cynicism.

Perhaps, column by
column, we might be able to engage the dimensions of this problem. But
a good place to start is with those who make twin accusations – about
people whose work is, in their words, limited only to urban centers and
people who don’t go national. One of my pet frustrations is in fact
those people who seek to invalidate the work of others because their
work is not sufficiently (who measures?) national.

What is really the
imperative, or utility, in a country of 150 million, of any initiative
that seeks, immediately, to reach everyone across the country? Is it
really possible for any development activity to reach the nooks and
crannies of a country when even big-budget telecoms companies, fully
capitalized and with all the relevant human and material resources,
have been unable to do that over the past 10 odd years?

Because our
country is so large and our resources so little, it becomes necessary
to focus on an area of engagement and do that properly. The most
effective development modules appear, to this inexperienced eye, to be
those that are able to focus on their strengths or their ‘catchment’
areas – be they rural women, youth in the diaspora, single mothers or
widows. It only makes sense that people focus on an area of strength
and do the best they can.

In the bid to
‘reach scale’ or ‘go national’, many organizations have become mere
noise organs, stretched beyond capacity. Why, for instance, will a
group, in Ibadan, unable to reach all the local governments of that
state, be hell bent on taking its activities to the north west? What is
the utility in that ambitious goal that is yet to achieve depth in its
area of origin?

How do I think
Nigeria will change? Little by little, milestone by milestone, everyone
working in their corners of influence – that’s the way I think we all
can solve this problem.

Rather than
criticize those working for change in their little corners, why not
take a hoe and start digging where they are not and make the impact
that you so desire to see? That would be the best way to build that
nation we desire.

P.S: Please join
one such initiative by reading the 7-point demand to #ProtectTheCorpers
and signing the petition here:
www.thefuturenigeria.com/protectthecorpers. Let’s do our bit.

Ask many
Nigerians, especially a class of young people, why they are not
involved or supporting a particular movement or campaign for change,
and their response is simple: the people working for positive change
are ‘not serious’.

The tragedy for
most of these people is that this knee-jerk reaction to efforts to make
change, is neither supported by reality or facts. They criticize a
project for a lack of thoroughness and then you find that they have not
in fact taken their time to be thorough in their assertions. They
accuse a campaign of lacking vision or depth without even taking the
simple step of perhaps checking the accused website to confirm this
lack of vision. They criticize a petition without even reading its
contents. They dismiss networks as ‘group of friends’ without any
efforts to indeed verify that claim. They nitpick on credibility and
sustainability, without any iota of fact-checking on the matter on
which they so confidently mount a soapbox.

In a sense, it is
nothing unusual. Across the world, apathy is always driven by cynicism
– another form of resignation and helplessness that effectively hides
itself under a garb of worldy wisdom and realism. However, in this
case, this resignation is hardly quiet. It is in fact alive and kicking
– fed by its own sense of justification, even necessity.

It has always been
perplexing to me, for instance, that people who have not lifted a
finger to make a difference, even in the smallest way possible, are the
ones most vociferous in decrying double standards, insincerity, lack of
reach or some other inadequacy in those who have stuck their necks out.
Fortunately, I am not one of those who assume an invalidity of opinion
just because certain people do not have the street credibility of
‘working for change’. However, this peculiarly Nigerian syndrome throws
up a lot of interesting challenges for anyone who understands the
imperative of waking the people up from slumber and cynicism.

Perhaps, column by
column, we might be able to engage the dimensions of this problem. But
a good place to start is with those who make twin accusations – about
people whose work is, in their words, limited only to urban centers and
people who don’t go national. One of my pet frustrations is in fact
those people who seek to invalidate the work of others because their
work is not sufficiently (who measures?) national.

What is really the
imperative, or utility, in a country of 150 million, of any initiative
that seeks, immediately, to reach everyone across the country? Is it
really possible for any development activity to reach the nooks and
crannies of a country when even big-budget telecoms companies, fully
capitalized and with all the relevant human and material resources,
have been unable to do that over the past 10 odd years?

Because our
country is so large and our resources so little, it becomes necessary
to focus on an area of engagement and do that properly. The most
effective development modules appear, to this inexperienced eye, to be
those that are able to focus on their strengths or their ‘catchment’
areas – be they rural women, youth in the diaspora, single mothers or
widows. It only makes sense that people focus on an area of strength
and do the best they can.

In the bid to
‘reach scale’ or ‘go national’, many organizations have become mere
noise organs, stretched beyond capacity. Why, for instance, will a
group, in Ibadan, unable to reach all the local governments of that
state, be hell bent on taking its activities to the north west? What is
the utility in that ambitious goal that is yet to achieve depth in its
area of origin?

How do I think
Nigeria will change? Little by little, milestone by milestone, everyone
working in their corners of influence – that’s the way I think we all
can solve this problem.

Rather than
criticize those working for change in their little corners, why not
take a hoe and start digging where they are not and make the impact
that you so desire to see? That would be the best way to build that
nation we desire.

P.S: Please join
one such initiative by reading the 7-point demand to #ProtectTheCorpers
and signing the petition here:
www.thefuturenigeria.com/protectthecorpers. Let’s do our bit.

In retrospect, one
of my favourite toasters from my university days was a guy nicknamed
Buscopan. And it is not because he was the most sophisticated of
charmers. On the contrary, he was always tipsy, a little too happy, and
a little too close and touchy feely. One could blame the irony of his
life.

He had an exquisite
musical ear, could play a few musical instruments, and played the
church organ by instinct; with such precision and beauty that one could
not reconcile the drunk with the natural instinctive brilliance.

It is hard to
describe, but maybe if his time had been now, he would have been
tolerated better; mercifully labelled as Aspergers, left to his
God-given devices, not confined and compelled to studying something
like Sociology or Law when it should have been music, music and more
music.

Buscopan, like many
brilliant minds, was socially inept, and spoke his mind without really
adding up the sums. He, one day, gave me ‘a look’, and followed it up
by telling me that he would like to “cook me in some hot pepper…” No,
in fact, it was more explicit than that, but the word “cook” cleans up
the sentence considerably. The closer word, though awkward, is “turn”,
and Nigerians use it often in place of the word “stir”.

For what purpose
did he want to “turn” me in pepper? I’m afraid I’m going to have to
leave that to you to decide. It might help give a genuine sense of my
extreme befuddlement at being offered such an unusual treatment.

These days, I
cannot eat peppered snails without thinking of Buscopan. My neighbour
in Calabar and a dear friend, Sylvie Dunn, makes the best peppered
snails, and the secret may be the simplicity of her recipe.

I have to put this
in perspective because preparing snails for cooking is not easy. It
only really becomes simple after the cleaning of the snails, which in
fact can be quite harrowing.

Sylvie always
chooses the small snails; the bite-size ones. It must be possible to
put a whole snail in your mouth and have lots of space for chewing on
it.

Sometimes, it is
hard to tell if the snails are alive when they are being purchased,
especially if they are sold out of a container or basket. It is best
when snails are bought off the bare-floor because the dead ones are
easy to sight. Perhaps this is only possible in tidy markets, like
those in Calabar.

Always buy large
pieces of alum for cleaning the snails because smaller pieces will make
your job twice as hard. Coarse salt is also good for washing snails,
but one still needs the alum to get squeaky clean snails.

During washing, one
needs to go over the snails again and discard any that have shrivelled
entrails or broken pieces of shell in the skin. Both are a sign that
the snail was dead on purchase. Sylvie always insists on “cutting off
the faces of the snails” because she claims they give her nightmares. I
must personally admit that I have never seen a face on a snail in all
my years of eating them. Maybe I’m too distracted! The snails are
boiled with salt, a little ginger and garlic, until they are al-dente,
not soft. Also, not chewy; the sensation when biting on a well cooked
snail is brisk, almost crunch-like. This is the advantage of using
smaller snails. They are easier to cook just right. The ‘pepper’ for
the snails is a mixture of onions, tomatoes and small aromatic hot
peppers. The onions are cut in long slivers, the tomatoes are chopped
roughly, the hot peppers are chopped very fine.

Sylvie puts quite a
scandalous amount of oil in a pot over high heat. She throws the
onions, tomatoes and peppers in and fries, stirring all the time. She
does this until the mixture resembles a sauce, then she adds some
tomato puree, a stock cube, and a little water.

She throws the
snails in the pot and stirs until they are well coated. The snails are
served on their own or with a bowl of basmati rice soaked for 20
minutes, washed, then briskly boiled. The rice is enhanced with a
generous tablespoon of coconut oil.

I could eat the
combination of peppered snails and basmati rice day in day out, year in
year out, and in my sleep. Delicious! Unfortunately, I was the butt of
many rude jokes for many semesters afterwards because of Buscopan’s
rather raw offer, made in a very loud voice in a very public place.
Buscopan did not get to live very long; he ran into an unfortunate and
tragic incident with vigilantes, on his very own doorstep. He might
have read this and had a good laugh. He might be reading this and
having a good laugh.

This article was first published in the April 15, 2009, edition of NEXT

Last September, the
world gathered again in New York for the UN Special Review Summit on
the Millennium Development Goals (also known as the MDGs+10 Summit).
The event was a significant milestone in the global quest to halve
poverty and inequality by the year 2015. Two-thirds of the way down the
line, the world had to pause for a breath, as it were, to reflect on
what had been done so far and what more needed to be done.

As usual, the
Nigerian government and civil society were strongly represented, with
our officials reporting that the country is on track to achieve most of
the goals. On MDGs 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 relating to universal primary
education, gender and women’s empowerment, reducing child mortality,
combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and global partnership for
development, the lights show green and amber, says Nigeria’s 2010 MDGs
Report. The report, however, admits an emphatic red light for goals 1,
5 and 7 on extreme poverty and hunger, maternal health and
environmental sustainability.

To be fair, there
has been good progress on some of the goals. There has been an amazing
effort by the MDGs Office at the Presidency to channel debt relief
gains into poverty-reducing projects across the country. Despite
teething challenges, the Conditional Grants Scheme (CGS) which makes
funds available to states and local governments for use on locally
identified pro-poor priorities has been hugely successful in delivering
social infrastructure, strengthening the partnership between the three
tiers of government and improving public expenditure practices in some
ways.

But achieving the
MDGs for Nigeria does not begin and end with the MDGs Office or the
micro-level interventions it coordinates. What about the macro-economy?
In the past few years, we have seen growth in Gross domestic product
(GDP), but this has not been accompanied by any significant development
outcomes for the majority of Nigerians. Jobs are critical to poverty
reduction but they cannot be created in an economy that lacks the
critical infrastructure to support business. The commitment to building
Nigeria’s road network and overhauling the power sector, for instance,
must move beyond rhetoric to concrete action, if the private sector is
to gain the confidence it needs to play well in the economy.

Over 70 per cent of
Nigeria’s population, its poorest, may remain poor for a long time to
come because they continue to depend on the natural environment for
their survival. Unfortunately, while climate change continues to wreak
havoc on their livelihoods, governments at state and local levels
remain oblivious to the challenge, with little or no effort to
implement actions to promote adaptation at that level.

And then the
question of international partnerships for development keeps nagging.
Granted, the 2005 debt relief has led to the freeing up of at least $1
billion a year for pro-poor, MDGs-related spending. Yet those gains are
threatened by international protection for stolen assets which
continues to block progress in the fight against corruption in-country.
Besides, aid in-flows at under $10 per capita still fall far short of
donor promises, while the quality of that aid and the actual percentage
of it that touches the ground remain dubious. Civil society
partnerships, long proven to facilitate development efficiency, are
widely being undermined by aid agencies.

Even as
agricultural productivity in the country has increased, the vast
majority of Nigeria’s over 60 million peasant farmers are still locked
in a vicious cycle of poverty. This is mainly due to the skewed
international trade system which denies their products access to
markets while condoning massive dumping and subsidies for farmers in
the USA and Europe. Nigeria’s government and its international friends
need to realise that without a genuine international partnership for
development, the MDGs will turn out to be another celebrated waste of
time.

Lack of social
data, especially at sub-national levels, is still a huge obstacle to
monitoring progress. Similarly, coordination between targeted MDGs
projects and wider development efforts in the context of Vision 20:2020
seems to be lacking. Policy reversals and inertia usually associated
with change in political leadership in Nigeria also pose a serious risk
to the sustainability of MDGs projects.

But nothing appears
to be standing in the way of the MDGs like money. The MDGs Office is
currently implementing its projects in arrears, due to budget gaps. In
2010, over N65 billion was appropriated for the office but only N38
billion was released. Due to this shortfall, many of the 2008/09 quick
win projects and the CGS and monitoring and evaluation activities for
last year have been rolled over 2011. A review of Nigeria’s funding
gaps for the MDGs conducted in 2009 put the cost of meeting the MDGs
between 2010 and 2015 at $171 billion, or between US$19 billion and $27
billion annually.

At the current rate
of progress, and in the context of time constraints and limited
financial and human resources, Nigeria is very unlikely to achieve many
of the goals.

So beyond practical
action on the goals and targets, government must also be willing to
make an important strategic choice. It is critical at this point to
decide whether we still want to achieve all the goals in four and a
half years or we want to double up efforts to reach a few of the goals
that we consider most critical for the country’s long-term development.

Mr Bolton is an associate director of DevPro Group, a development consulting and policy advisory firm, based in Abuja.