Nigerians And The Government – The Unfair Blame Trading, The People vs The People.

Nigerians And The Government – The Unfair Blame Trading, The People vs The People.

In Fela Anikulapo’s voice - before reading this piece, take your mind off those goddam Churches, those goddam Mosques, and those goddam political parties – Just read as Humans, Africans, and especially Nigerians.

There are no happy people without effective and active government, just as there is no government without the people; they both need each other to be a success story. Without the support and acceptance of government policies by the people then they are dead on arrival, without an active government in place, you will find anarchy and lawlessness.

Humans are designed to blame anyone but themselves whenever there is a shortcoming or a mistake and unfortunately, the government is the easiest one to blame for any misfortune in the society even when this situation is self-made, the leader of the government of the day would be accused of all sorts and abused for almost everything including a natural occurrence that they have no control over.

Now, let me relate this back to our immediate society. For better understanding, I will be using various scenarios that we all must have come across in the community and even within friends and family.

To make movement of the people and goods easier from one zone to the other, the government introduced a transport programme and they bought a thousand brand new buses to support the people in commuting, a body was formed and officers appointed to manage the programme. The head of this board managed to allocate 100 of these buses to himself, another 300 to his cronies, the other members of the board couldn’t resist being left out either and they managed to share additional 400 buses within themselves.

Now we have 200 buses left, buses dispatched to the local government by the state after nearly two years after they were bought, at each local government, the chairmen of these local government knows what the game is and they all shared most of the buses to family and friends, by the time the buses gets to the people that are actually in need which was the original plan of the government – only 10 buses got to the people, 10 buses to serve millions of people daily! Now the people will start complaining and lashing out at the head of the government! The only enemy here are the people against the people.

After working meritoriously for the government for 40years, it’s time to get paid pension and gratuity and there is no money or only few people are getting paid. But here is the truth and the twist, there are plans and arrangement in place to pay all these money as at when due but some people at the pension board decided to take what belongs to millions of people as their own personal estate, they will take the money abroad to buy properties and jets while those in need and the rightful owners die like chickens over curable diseases. These thieves are part of the people that got appointed to manage the people’s money!

The lucky few that got paid their gratuities, either by knowing someone that knows someone else that matters – Now money paid, Mr Asemota got 2million Gratuity after working for 30years, he got the money and the first thing he did is to call his nephew in America to get him a Toyota SUV as he has arrived, God has done it! Mr Asemota has no other job, no other asset or investment but just this one off liquid cash, SUV was paid for, arrived and cleared from the port, now Mr Asemota’s liabilities has increased in folds, SUV must be insured, run and maintained regularly, family and friends are now regular visitors. After a year, the centre could not hold and SUV must be sold off. He was lucky to find a buyer for a paltry sum, overdue rents paid, various small debts got settled and now Mr.Asemota is back to where he was before the “Windfall” – Now he is blaming the government for lack of support!

In the quest to support the people, create opportunities and give support. The government will establish a poverty alleviation programme and provide a capital for individuals to help them start a business with the intention that they will develop and support not just their family but also contribute to development of their respective communities. Billions of Naira earmarked for the project, National, state and local government co-ordinators appointed. The government has done its part by making the money available and appointed “Trusted” hands to manage the delivery of the project.

Without the government’s knowledge, the people in charge at the national level are on a different agenda, nepotism is a way of life for an average Nigerian, My brother and sister against who is best for the position or award, the national officers appoints co-ordinators in all the states and local governments, in most cases their girlfriends, family members and college mates of their friend’s contacts. National officers already siphoned half of the fund under the guise of contracts towards the delivery of the project, list are being compiled for these government grants, the list are full of friends, family and party loyalist to the disadvantage of the people in need and lucky few were able to scale through to the list.

Money disbursed to all awardees, bear in mind how hard it was to get on that list in the first palace and how much money has been siphoned in the process at every stages of the project and Mrs. Adewole got lucky, his profile on the application is to set up a small eatery with the plan to employ 10 people and expand in 3years to qualify for a second grant. 

Mrs. Adewole was paid 300,000Naira to set up her business, money received and voila Mrs. Adewole suddenly remembered that she has a friend that import gold jewelleries and clothes from Dubai! Call made and she bought 100k worth of items to treat herself! Then to honour her Grandmother who died 20years ago, she organised a prayer session and mini party for her, which went with another 100k! She supported some family and friends who are in need to the tune of 50k and paid some rents and stock up her kitchen – In all these, the original business plan is now hanging and abandoned. 6months later, she found a solace in the Government blaming club, even though the same government gave her an opportunity!

Agitation for support in the Niger Delta – The government is aware of the situation in that region and their major contribution to the wealth of the nation, various programmes were introduced to enable peace in the region. OMPADEC, NDDC and Amnesty programme were created to look into creating better life and environment for the people of the region, several billions were allocated, some states would dream to have such allocations, but rather than make life better for the people which was the sole reason of all these bodies – it is no news that various emergency billionaires were made out of the agitators and the people are still suffering with zero economical power. The government blames continues!

Farming – It is a major source of livelihood to various Nigerians, especially in the rural areas and the government is always at hand to give support whenever necessary, F.A.O, an arm of the United Nations is known to provide support in terms of supplying fertilisers to the rural farmers via the federal or state governments. International NGO’s are also not left out in giving various supports by supplying tractors etc.

Take a scenario where 100 trucks of fertilisers was donated to a state for onward distribution to the local farmers, 90% of these fertilisers would end up at local market – up for sale at market price! Don’t ask me how they got there!  Ask those people in charge to distribute to the “People”!

The government has been busy giving support to local farmers and especially young people dropping white-collar jobs for farming. It would interest you to know that the banks do give loans to these type of people based on agreement with the government. I heard a story from a friend, his own friend bought some massive land, designed a business plan and got a huge loan from the government at interest-free, he bought himself a big house and a G-wagon Benz then fled the country! This is not limited to just one person but the only story we know, I understand this is not limited to government farming grants and loans but cut across every other monetary support programme from the government.

It is the place of the government to create programmes to support the people but the delivery if these programmes are entirely up to the representative of the people to the people – Unfortunately, we all cant be in government but if we all do our parts religiously and judiciously, our communities and Country would be a better place.

In the quest to create jobs for the people and make life meaningful, the government would advertise government positions across all ministries, the people already working there will publish these jobs in the newspapers for the general public, the youths would be excited and send in applications in millions for 1000 positions and in most cases these forms are not free. At the end, very few of them will get the jobs, that’s because from the 1000 positions, almost 70% has been allocated to the directors at the ministries and top politicians from the state and at the federal level.

It is a known fact that most of these people they are filling into these posts are either living abroad, dead or in the private sector, yet they get paid salaries just because they are a relation of one politician or a director. I heard of a lady who’s a Nurse in the USA and registered as a staff in one of the ministries in Nigeria as an active worker – All these are the work of the people working against the people without the knowledge of the government or the head of government. Another friend of mine has a relation living in east London in full time employment and she is on the payroll of NDDC in Nigeria, she has not been to Nigeria in a decade, she gets paid into her Nigeria account and she just withdraws at the ATM in the UK without lifting a finger!

Many well connected students schooling in the Arab Nations or the western countries are on the payroll of one ministry or the other and of course getting paid salaries monthly while millions are looking for jobs after graduating in the country. The entire system is messed up, not by the government but by the people.

Have you seen how an average government worker behaves in their offices? Some only come in the morning to register and they leave to attend to their private businesses, and those who are present spend majority of the hours on Instagram and facebook or speaking on the phone while ignoring the main purpose of the office with a high degree of negligence.

Security – The government will enlist men in the police force and provide them with arms to provide security to the people and their properties but the same police officers that were drafted from the people goes about harassing and killing innocent people that they were meant to be protecting.  The same police officers have been known to be officers during the day and armed robbers at night! Police officers are people in uniform, they are not aliens.

As it stands today with our people’s mentality. If the government support every youth with a million naira each, most would end up with iPhones, Samsungs, iPads and MacBooks rather than embark on a business and of course blame the government afterwards! This is the sorry state of our community unfortunately. 

Until the people in general are ready to embrace and make government policies work then it’s just one charade or the other from one government to the other with no head way but a high degree of stagnancy.

This piece was not written to exonerate the government from any wrongdoing. They are not there yet but they won’t get there either without our cordial support.

There is no bad government – there are bad people in trusted positions within the government.