Nigeria's military profligacy
Faced with an image, identity and leadership crisis, Nigeria's military leader, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari is desperately trying to redeem the sagging popularity of the regime by embarking on a nationwide tour. Our correspondent in Lagos who has been closely following Buhari's peregrinations files in this reportIn the wake of rumours of planned and attempted coups and amidst his sagging popularity, Buhari left the country late last year to attend the Organization of African Unity (OAU) jamboree in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From Addis Ababa, he zoomed to Saudi Arabia on a so-called holy pilgrimage. Those journeys were supposed to instil into the hearts and minds of sceptics that the Buhari government has indeed come to stay, and that the head of the government can therefore afford to leave his post without the least fear of usurpation. All well and good one might think, what, with a whole fleet of aircrafts at the head of state's disposal and unlimited spending foreign money. Surely one wouldn't begrudge the General's taste of good fortune, after all he would have been killed had his coup against the civilian government not succeeded. But what is of particular concern to this writer right now is the wide-scale "state-trotting" which the General has embarked on inside the country. One would think Nigeria is still under the grips of roving politicians.
At the last count, Buhari has roamed round ten of the nineteen states of the Federation and in each state that he has visited, a large chunk of the 'national cake' had mysteriously disappeared. Often, these state visits as they have come to be known, have lasted not more than three days and yet the amount said to have been spent on each of the occasions have been very staggering indeed. One of Nigeria's leading national daily captures the profligacy of the military government in the following words: ". Before it becomes a big danger, perhaps it is time for General Buhari to call his governors to order as it now appears they all seemed poised to identify the general's state visits as a huge test and contest of popularity. Reports have it that at least a state government has devoted as much as N13 million to expenses incurred during the head of state's visit here If each of the states including Abuja are to devote N10 million for the purpose of welcoming the head of state for only three days each, a sum of N200 million is guzzled in what is no more than vanity fair…”
And if you asked me what the money is used for, I will tell you. Half of that money is siphoned into the private account of the state governor. The other half goes into providing lavish entertainments including the purchase of banned commodities such as champagne (Idiagbon, for example, does not drink anything other than champagne) for the battalion of uniformed men in the head of state's entourage. Another aspect of entertainment for the guests paid for from government money is the payment of call-girls and in most cases, innocent young girls called upon to render services to the "Very Important Personalities". Talking of War Against Indiscipline and accountability. Na Wa O!
At the last count, Buhari has roamed round ten of the t nineteen states of the Federation, and in each of the states that he has visited, a large chunk of the 'national cake' had mysteriously disappeared. Often, these state visits as they have come to be known, have lasted not more than three days.
The visits are increasingly becoming very useless because at the end of them all, nothing is achieved. The excuse is always that such visits are to enable the head of state to "meet the people." But as a matter of fact, the real Nigerian people live in villages and in hamlets where there is no motor-road, no drinking water, no electricity, no hospital, no school, and where no governor or head of state ever bothers to go. The last man in government they saw was the politician who had come to pay tribute to them, bringing them goodies from the town and reminding them that he will still need their votes in another four years.
Buhari is not canvassing for votes, he does not identify with the people, so why should he go to them? He is a man of the city so his visits normally end in Lagos, Jos, Kaduna, Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt. As far as Buhari is concerned, these are where he can find his own brand of Nigerians. The rest of the people are for the politicians. And so when he comes, Governors come and resplendidly dress their capital cities in green-white-green and there is a false impression of calm, quiet, and satisfaction, of greatness created. The head of state is satisfied and comes to declare that the life of the ordinary man is improved.
But the people are not fools, for beneath the ordinary facade and the deception, is a country in chains and a people languishing and wallowing in abject poverty and uniformed hardship. The people are aware, however. They are only patient because they know that time will come when hose who have taken them for a ride for so long, will have to pay dearly for it. They keep waiting and watching, not grumbling at all, and their leader's globe-trotting continues.
Not only that, there is Alhaji Mohammadu Lawal Radin Dadi, head of the National Security Organisation, to contend with. He is said to have despatched over a battalion of his men to London alone, on "espionage" duties. And these men are being maintained on Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings. He also recently gave account that over £5 million was spent by his organisation in the botched kidnap attempt of Umaru Dikko. And when the country's medical doctors, out of concern because of the lack of drugs in hospitals call on the Federal Government to do something about this, they are called "unpatriotic". According to the awful looking Idiagbon, the medical doctors are a "group of professionals who have over the years consistently hoped to hold the nation to ransom by fighting selfishly in defence of their interests, with careless disregard of the own welfare of their patients and the serious narrow economic difficulties confronting the nation". And to think that all the doctors had asked from the government was money for the purchase of drugs so that "our hospitals can cease to be glorified mortuaries". Did somebody say this was a corrective regime? Pardonnez- moi, sil vous plait
