The clouds over Nigeria have been coloured by the deafening cries of change. The campaign has been so vociferous that it has come close to becoming a national anthem. To make matters worse, the trumpeters of change are themselves implicated one way or the other in the vices that have brought the nation to its knees, from religious fundamentalism to corruption and tribalism. I am not a pessimist, neither am I in this case an optimist. I consciously chose to be a realist especially as I have lived through many promises of change in my lifetime, none of which was fulfilled. I have thus decided to interrogate this new season of the same old promises of change and to do so I have resorted to history as that is the most reliable guide from the past to the future.
Contemporary Nigeria has historically been in a constant frenzy of promised change, but as a trip through history indicates, none of that promise either deliberately or not was ever fulfilled. From the 50’s when the erstwhile nationalist leaders campaigned for independence we were told that the colonial masters were the problem, that once they left things would change for the better and Nigeria would be a prosperous, peaceful, harmonious Eldorado and giant of Africa. The colonial masters eventually left in 1960 and we ended up with election rigging, corruption, thuggery, violence, arson (wetie) and by 1966 a bloody military coup that truncated the 1st republic quickly followed by a genocidal civil war and diabolical military regimes. In no time Military rule became the problem and we were told that once democracy returned change would come and Nigeria would be well on its way to prosperity and harmony.
Shehu Shagari entered the scene as the democratically elected president of the 2nd republic in 1979, but soon returned Nigeria to election rigging, corruption, thuggery and violence. Once again the democrats became the problem and we were promised again that the military was the last vestige of hope that would bring change once Shagari and his corrupt democrats were removed. And in came the military again with an even more diabolical agenda and a revolving door. When Generals Buhari and Babangida came we were told change was coming and then General Abacha came and we were told change was coming and then General Abdulsalami Abubakar came and we waited for change but each proved to be worse than the preceding regime. By the time the military eventually left the scene, human rights abuses had become the order of the day. Corruption which was one of their principal excuses for coming to power had been institutionalised and all national institutions and infrastructure from Nigeria Airways to NEPA, Refineries to Steel plants, Railways to roads, hospitals to schools amongst others had been destroyed.
While the military held sway, pro-democracy organisations chief among them NADECO, started a noisy campaign to end military rule. We were bombarded with a million reasons why the military had to go. We were told that once the military left the problems of corruption, poverty, ethnic and religious divisions, marginalisation, human rights abuses and general misrule would end and Nigeria would take its rightful place among the comity of nations as a well governed, prosperous, democratic and harmonious giant in the sun. In 1999 the military departed and in came the present democratic dispensation. Rather than the promised change the hitherto democracy campaigners turned themselves into godfathers and unleashed the most systematic looting in the nation’s history. Ethnic and religious divisions have widened with some states in the North officially declared Sharia states in violation of the constitution and an ongoing terrorist insurgency. Critical infrastructure has remained comatose. Thuggery, assassinations, election rigging and violence have become national pastimes while general misrule is the single most defining attribute of the present democratic dispensation.
In 2010 when President Goodluck Jonathan came to power there was again a promise of change and a glimmer of hope. Many suggested he was an outsider who came to power through divine will, a veritable messiah on a rescue mission. But four years later the promises of change has dissipated and we are back from where we started. In all, Nigeria has fared worse in the last 15 years of democracy than in any other period in history. Elsewhere in Egypt and Tunisia the promises of change that came with the Arab spring has ended up with the status quo, while in Libya and Syria it has ended in violence wracked failed states. As can be seen, Nigeria’s history evidently indicates that time and again the promises of change have remained unfulfilled and in all cases made things worse. It is logical to conclude that Nigeria would have been better off if we had continued with the 1st republic in spite of its imperfections or at worst with Shehu Shagari’s 2nd republic. There are also so many who think we should have remained under colonial administration; at least until such a time that we would be able to run a democratic system successfully.
I am thus with historical reasons deeply suspicious of every season of promised change as presently obtains, because it has proven time and again to be a deceptive slogan that only replaces one group with other power seeking opportunists who always end up making things worse. If history can be an accurate guide then continuity embedded with reforms would make more sense than the deceptive rigmarole of change.
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Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu
Email: lawrencenwobu@gmail.com
