As
part of my usual pre-bed time rituals, I spend at least an hour or two to read
through some chapters of any latest publication on a variety of thematic areas
that I have just acquired.
So
on the night of May 1st 2014, I was busy devouring some chapters in one of the
new books I have just picked up from the bookshop written by Ambassador Tunde
Adeniran, Nigeria’s former envoy to Germany.
Aptly
titled “My mission to Germany” which is an account of his
stewardship published by spectrum books.
In
one of the chapters of that book, Professor Adeniran spent considerable amount
of time to analyse what he called ‘the Image of Nigeria in Europe’.
Professor
Adeniran gave the synopsis of why most people migrate to the Western societies
from places considered as third World nations as follows; “…the search for a
better life pattern, relative advantage among and between territories, armed
confrontation as well as economic and ecological catastrophes are among factors
which encourage migration (legal or illegal) from one country to another….”
I
actually picked up this book to read because of a very damaging article in the
foreign press that I had just finished reading on how African migrants jump
fence to enter Europe.
That
foreign Agency’s piece narrated the following on how African migrants take life
threatening risks to cross over to Europe; “They perched atop a barbed
wire laced fence for more than seven hours, hands and feet bloodied, buffeted
by chill winds whipping the cliffs of Africa’s Mediterranean coast. The 27
Sub-Saharan African migrants literally on the edge between Africa’s economic
misery and the long-dreamt riches of Europe: on one side of the fence was
Morocco, on the other the Spanish enclave of Melilla”.
While
still enjoying the beautiful prose penned down by Professor Adeniran, I got a
worrying phone call from a friend that we have lost contact for many years
and this friend told me that he recently got deported from one of the Central
European Nation’s and that since he lost practically everything he had spent
two decades working for in his host country, he decided to move into Nyanya, a
suburb of the Nigerian Capital City.
My
apprehension got to a summit when he told me of the latest bomb attack in
Nyanya and that the terrorists struck at approximately the same spot that the
April 14th 2014 attack took place in which over one hundred persons died.
I
quickly asked him to take precautionary measures to stay safe even as I made
several other calls to verify the authenticity of this sad news that came to me
at exactly 8.30pm on May 1st 2014. Sadly, his information was a cruel reality.
Naturally,
this sad news put an immediate stop to my intellectual adventure of struggling
to complete the reading of the 361 page book by Professor Tunde Adeniran.
The
resolve to think out rational ways of avoiding the disintegration of Nigeria
then became ever more attractive given that the armed Islamic insurgents who
have made several threats to embark on a campaign of genocide have moved from
their operational base in the North East of Nigeria and have returned back to
the Nigerian political capital where they had struck some years back.
How
do we avoid the Afghanistanization and/or balkanization of Nigeria?
The
first step is to bring serious bite to the anti-graft fight by introducing
through the legislative process the amendment of all relevant laws to make
looting of public fund budgeted for defence and the police sectors punishable
by the death penalty.
It
is no longer a secret that corruption is the root cause of lack of combat
readiness on the part of operatives of the armed forces charged
constitutionally with the role of protecting the territorial integrity of
Nigeria.
The
National Assembly needs to order the forensic audit of the Defence and police
budgets to cover the period between 1982 till date to ascertain why the
military still lacks the 21st century compliant combat infrastructure.
The
citizens should be told how the huge budgetary releases were spent and if
persons who had served in both the military and the police are fingered to be
involved in the massive looting of the resources meant to equip our soldiers,
then such persons must be made to cough out our resources and also be severely
sanctioned in the accordance with the law.
Corruption
in the defence sector is the most sacrilegious offence against the sovereignty
of Nigeria because if the military operatives required by the supreme law of
the land to fight to preserve Nigeria’s territorial integrity are weakened
operationally and left without adequate intelligence-driven combat-readiness,
trainings/capacity building, then the nation would become weak and porous for
enemies of our sovereignty both internally and externally to attack us.
Again,
fighting corruption in all its ramification is not just a categorical
imperative but also a constitutional necessity because section 15(5) clearly
states that “The (Nigerian) States shall abolish all corrupt practices and
abuse of power”.
Nigeria
must work out better and more effective means of fighting corruption especially
in the defence and police sectors so as to stop Nigeria from going the way of
such failed nations like Afghanistan and Somalia.
In
2006, at a national Seminar on Economic Crime in which this writer attended,
the current Gombe State governor who was the then Accountant-General of the
federation Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo spoke the mind of most true lovers
of Nigeria’s sovereignty when he canvassed stiffer penalty for the crime
of looting public fund.
Writing
under the title; “Managing public fund; Ethical challenges, conflicts of
interest and solutions”, Alhaji Dankwambo had stated that; “Rules and
regulations should be reviewed and up-dated from time to time. Sanctions should
be imposed appropriately without delay”.
In
the same vein, it is my considered submission that Nigeria has not waged
determined war against corruption in the procurement mechanisms in place in the
ministries of Defence and the police which is the fundamental reason for the
clear rot that afflicts these vital sectors and has exposed Nigeria to a range
of devastating attacks by armed terrorists.
Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo during whose tenure the anti-graft institutions
were erected has this to say on why corruption must be uprooted from the face
of Nigeria and especially in the most strategic sectors of Defence and police.
His
words: “The fight against corruption must not only be sustained and completed;
the people themselves must insist that their leaders do not deviate from it”.
Secondly,
I think Nigeria needs to make it constitutionally imperative that those who
desire to seek public offices must denounce all foreign passports and
citizenship in their possessions and swear an oath to be totally loyal to the
sovereignty of Nigeria. In America for instance, even citizens born outside of
the geographical territory of the United States of America are forbidden by law
from seeking the highest office of the President of the United States.
But
in Nigeria, the members of the political class are competing for who would
possess the best foreign citizenship than the other political rival and by this
way none of them is completely loyal to Nigeria. The reason is that because the
greater percentage of today’s political leaders have second countries to return
to should Nigeria collapse, this is the reason why such sacred budgets of
Defence and police for national security are wantonly stolen.
The
National Conference should recommend a constitutional amendment to compel all
political office holders to become Nigerians in reality and practice. From my
extensive research, almost all the legislators in the National Assembly and
officials of executive arm of government in Nigeria have obtained foreign
passports for themselves and their immediate families.
* Emmanuel Onwubiko; Head, HUMAN
RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; blogs@www.huriwa.blogspot.com; www.huriwa.org.
2/5/2014
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