Nigeria Content Online

Where to start.

Apparently, a legion of government officials is
presently circling around Johannesburg, South Africa – clearly at the
expense of tax payers and other Nigerians.

This band of travellers are ably led by the
President of our Federal Republic, Goodluck Jonathan, the same man who
came into office projecting an aura of frugality and fiscal
responsibility.

The first question immediately arises: What
exactly is Mr. Jonathan doing at the World Cup? Did he go in with the
expectation that there would be something to celebrate? That his team
was indeed worth seeing? That there is a particular function that his
presence would serve in Johannesburg that it wouldn’t from the Federal
Capital Territory in Abuja?

He has been part and leader of a government – as
Vice President, Acting President and then President – that has overseen
one of the world’s worst tournament preparations, amid monumental
corruption, that any nation can cobble together. Apart from that, he
has less than nine months to perform the hardest task in the world:
organising free and fair elections in Nigeria amid suggestions that he
himself will be throwing his hat in the ring. So how does going to
South Africa to witness the opening ceremony of the tournament
factor into this urgent task?

Unfortunately, this sense of misplaced priority,
not to talk of fostering an atmosphere that tempts corruption, is not
limited to His Excellency. Newspaper reports crow of a 13-member
Federal Government delegation led by Senate President David Mark,
including at least two governors and five serving ministers, including
the governors of Ogun, Gbenga Daniel; Borno, Modu Sheriff; Kwara,
Bukola Saraki; Rivers, Rotimi Amaechi; and Delta, Emmanuel Uduaghan as
well as some ministers and top federal officials, who were part of the
advance team that travelled to South Africa ahead of the President.
This is apart from the 62 senators who, last Wednesday night, left
aboard a chartered aircraft from France, Boeing 757-200, for the
fiesta.

It is crucial to note that, at any point in time,
it is difficult to find 62 senators seated in the hallowed chambers
where they work – actually making laws. The ministers have spent less
than two months in office, many without any remarkable signs of
achievement, these are governors who are not remarkable for their sense
of vision and purpose, not to speak of the President who has yet to
demonstrate any urgency in terms of the tasks he has set for himself:
power and electoral reform. As it is, the electoral commission is
unprepared to begin the monumental task of voter registration not to
talk of preparing for the elections proper.

When you add this to the 202 names of football
officials submitted to the South African embassy by our sports
authorities, the thread is clear: this is not a government different
from its predecessors; waste and recklessness continue to define our
governance: it is business as usual.

In an interview with News Agency of Nigeria, the
popular Save Nigeria Group described this as what it is: a waste of
public funds. “As individuals, there is nothing wrong with their going
to watch the World Cup, but as senators going to represent Nigeria, it
is shameful and condemnable. We are talking of the nation’s image
abroad and the senators are making us a laughing stock,” the group
said.

Indeed, laughing stock is the term to use in
describing a nation that celebrates when it should be mourning, one
that travels to a sister nation to celebrate its global coming of age
party while its own people grapple with fundamental issues of survival.
A nation where the levers of its government are allowed to screech to a
halt whilst its key drivers embark on an estacode-powered jamboree.

This is, without mincing any words, a national disgrace.

And it is a disgrace that speaks to a spectacular
failure of judgment that has spread its cancerous limbs across the
length and width of our executive and legislative arms of government.
It is also a calamity because the two arms who are supposed to check
and balance each other have colluded to promote a culture of
triviality. This is of course the same government that plans to expend
N10 billion on the Nigeria @ 50 celebrations – with such inanities as
N100, 000 for a website.

What is worse: there is no hope that this is just a one-off incident, a moment of madness that will pass, no.

As we speak, information in the public space is
that a 200-man delegation is “gearing up” to, in a matter of weeks,
follow the president to the G8 summit in Canada.

One does not even begin to know whether to laugh or cry.