Hussaini Babila

Nigeria is a perculiar place to be. It is a place where everyone thinks that what he or she does is just and justice is difficult to attain in its best of form.
It is a place where justice and the rule of law suffer too much violence in the hands of unjust operators of the systems. It is a place where most of those who have unexplained wealth exhibit the most intolerable and abhorable misconduct to the prejudices of justice and fairplay.

Nigeria has great potential, no doubt if there is right leadership. Leaders with nationalistic interests are in short supply. Nigeria is a place where most of those who are in charge of institutions appear to permit evil thinking that they are doing their jobs.

In Nigeria, those who killed to earn a living plead to live even when they gruesomely murdered someone dear to the family.There are so many ritual killings in Nigeria today. Those who have unexplained wealth lord it over many people and in most cases engaged themselves in the perversion of justice, and they go scotfree.

There are many who have murdered many Nigerians without physically doing so. There are people who have responsibilities to ensure that Nigerians have good and motorable roads but have refused to do so, and nothing happens to them.

These people refused to do the roads.They misappropriated the money. You see many bad roads across Nigeria. Kidnappers target these bad places to strike and take their victims. Many victims of kidnappers have died in these processes. Nigeria is a place where nepotism is assuming almost official state policy. We want to be like Americans, but we are not prepared to do what the Americans do.

What about those who flood our hospitals with fake drugs or medicines. What about those who manufactured fake drugs or medicines. Nigerians are just enemies of themselves. Those in positions in most cases think they are more suprior in knowledge. Many see public offices as private properties. Many who have the privileges to lead think more of themselves than the larger interest of the society.

Many representatives are not representing the people.
The sharing of our commonwealth has been personalised, and the same has reached a very intolerable, amazing level to the irritation and annoyance of Nigerians. Injustice is permeating every strata of our society.

From being filmed hastily stashing $230,000O under his babanriga in 2018, to becoming the APC national chairman in 2023 and today getting appointed by Tinubu as new board chair of FAAN, Abdullahi Ganduje is proof that in Nigeria, the reward for corruption is public office!

I think what Nigerians need from the Nigerian government and Nigerian politicians today more than anything else is security. We need food security. We need social security. We need employment security. We need security for lives and properties. We just need security to earn a living.

The Nigerian constitution is very clear on the primary duties of government. It is provided in the constitution. It is my view that any government that has not been able to provide its citizens with security is not far from a failed government.

As I said before,the primary purpose of government is to provide for the safety, security, and well-being of its citizens. Section 14(2)(b) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 provides emphatically that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”

The people can not enjoy any welfare, assuming there is any without peace and security. The security situation of Nigerians seems to be in a terrible perilous situation. Today travelling by roads is dangerous. The constitution guarantees freedom of movement from one part of Nigeria to another part.

Today, the freedom from fear of insecurities is in terrible jeopardy. Bandits and kidnappers have almost crippled Nigerian state. While the government appears to be trying, I think more efforts are required for the government to fulfil its constitutional obligations to provide for security and welfare as the primary responsibilities of government.

In other words, I think the government in the 2025 budget needs to provide for the security and the welfare of the people. I do not see where the security and welfare of the people occupy top priorities in the 2025 budget.

When the constitution speaks about the people, it was not used in the restricted sense to mean only the few people in government. No, it does not mean so. It means the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Therefore, making provisions for the security and welfare of a few of the people in power and not the vast majority of the people of Nigeria is itself a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Nigerians want their security and welfare pursued with vigour. Nigerians need security to go to farms to cultivate and farm to feed the people. The failure of governance to give and provide the must needed security as its primary duties and responsibilities has retarded the availability of food for the people.

I, therefore, call on the government of Nigeria to focus more on its primary responsibilities of providing for the security and welfare of the people. Without security, any infrastructure put in place is a waste.

Today, you see how vandals operate at will. The other day, it was the manholes on the major roads in Abuja that were recklessly removed by vandals. The removal of electric cables is the pointer to the points of insecurities in our land. The government needs to prove itself worthy that it has not failed.

The security and welfare of our security agencies, too, are parts of the duties of government. In this vien too apart from providing for correct weapons for the security agencies, the security agencies and its personnel must know how and when to go for raides of the hideouts of alleged Criminal elements in the society.

Going for night operations by security operatives can be hazardous to the lives of the security agencies and their personnel. The security agencies must have an understanding that they need to be alive before they can provide the needed security for the nation.

Endless thought?

The Real Culprit.

He lies and he steals. He is religious and he attends church services regularly. He is nice and he is humble. But that niceness and humility are just a facade to lie and steal.

When he was young he stole from his church. He removed other people tithes and offerings from inside their bags. He was caught but he was forgiven. After all, he was still young and he would change.

But he’s old now and he has not change. He has the type of assets that do not match his salary.

He still goes to the church he stole from as a youth. He is revered because, now, he pays a fat tithes. And his offerings to the Lord are among the best. He adhere strictly to the verse that told him to pray ceaselessly. But he ignored the part that says prayer, without following the law is an abomination to God. His violation of the law by lying and stealing is insignificant to him. His Lord and Savior had died for his sins. And he’s no longer under the law but under grace.

He turns around and blame PBAT for not growing and progressing the country. Someone should please remind him that “Righteousness exalts a Nation.”

But he has hope, he told me himself, that God will help us to grow and progress this country.

Populate a country, any country, with millions like him. And you are more likely than not to have a country called Nigeria.

We cannot get there from here.

Are African youths the leaders of tomorrow in reality?

The youths we are told are the leaders of tomorrow. I ask if African youths are truly the leaders of tomorrow.
There is no dispute that there have been clamour for generational shifts in leadership recruitment processes in Nigeria.That is a good concept. But are the Nigerian youths really prepared for leadership in the land rooted in the leadership that makes the difference from the corrupt infested governance we have witnessed over the years.

I have my doubt. In Nigeria and many African countries, how many young men and women have patriotic commitments to the development of their countries devoid of primordial partisan ownership of regionalism and tribalism, particularly in Nigeria
There are only very few who are still committed to good leadership in Nigeria.

I think the bane of Nigeria growth and development is that we have too many young Nigerians who see things from strictly narrow partisan considerations without any faith in the entity called Nigeria. The majority of these youths in power or around the corridors of power are too sycophantic in praising bad leaders just to earn a living. Even those whose tomorrow is being destroyed by badly executed policies and programmes see nothing wrong with what is wrong in the governance system.

The insulting analysis and attacks on social media in this era are in point. So many Nigerian youths are so laden with bitterness and hatred for ourselves that even what ought to be applauded is not applauded, and what needs to be condemned is not condemned

The pre- occupation that it is the time of my tribe to rule or produce the president of this country, hatred for particular ethnic group that rule Nigeria nepotism in appointments and promotions and so on has be clouded most of the visions of the Nigerian youths to see and discuss issues that promote cordial national development. The youths have lost focus on the goals for good of their tomorrow.

I have read and read the propaganda of political actors of the youths of both political parties from social media, and with respect, they are both playing politics of emotions rather than politics of issues. All one sees are insults or youths being used as attack dogs against political “enemies.” Nigerian politics is hardly about the people.

You can hardly see people talk about politics or issues or issue based politics. Those who are being used as thugs to snatch ballot boxes and papers are not the aged but the younger elements. There is hardly any Nigerian youth that does not think of how to make quick money or want to worship money. Many of the youths don’t want to work before earning a living. The majority lack ideological direction for sustainable growth and development of the nation.

For me, the politics of “you be theif I no be theif” arguments can not give us good road and good health care facilities. As for putting young men in power, we see how some of our young men have become emperors in their respective states in which they are governors. Some stole the future of the nation and other generations yet unborn and are applauded by even the elders and the aged who should guide the youths correctly.

So, I think we need to discuss issue based and solutions focused matters rather than the alarmist issues always seen on social media. Some have argued that Nigeria is not one. That may so, but do we even have one tribe devoid of divisions within the tribe. We can overcome our current travails if we show love and patriotism towards making Nigeria great. But as long as the youths worship unexplained wealth and are prepared to do anything to retain thieves and those who violate our laws in power, so will the Nigerian youths not be leaders of tomorrow.

State of Nigerian Politics, recent shift?

I think it was thomas Hobbes that propounded the theory of the state of nature where he said the mighty is always right.He postulated that in the state of nature, life is shortish, brutish, and nasty. I wished Thomas Hobbes was in Nigeria and see the practical realities of state of nature.

In a state of nature, the rule of law does not have any role to play. It is the rule of men.In such a state, Thomas Hobbes argued that the sovereign must control civil, military, military, judiciary , ecclesiastical powers, and even the words. Men in power do what they like, and nobody can question them.They men hold the citizens and society to ransom because the citizens have surrendered their powers to the government.

Thomas Hobbes is right. The systems we see today in government bear eloquent testimonies. There appears to be totalitarianism of governance. Many things are not far from Hobbisian propositions. Investments can not and are not encouraged in the state of nature. Everyone is law unto himself.

Looking at what our society has turned to, one may be tempted to ask whether we are not in a state of nature.Today, they mighty is right. Those who are connected are always right even when they are wrong.

While we as Nigerians condemned successive governments as lacking in focus and direction, it appears that most Nigerian citizens are worse than the government we condemned.
There is wickedness everywhere in the DNA of almost everyone. Go to market as see what market men and women do. Most of the adultrated goods and sells expired goods.

There are ritual killings within the youths for no reason other than for money. There is wickedness in destroying government properties. The other day, the rail tracks were removed by vandals. Not too long ago, some persons removed manholes on the major roads in Abuja. The other time, someone was electrocuted in Ajaokuta because he climbed to the top high tension wires to cut it.

Just last week, my callmate lost a younger sister because of medical negligence. Most drivers are reckless on the wheels. Human lives mean nothing to many people in Nigeria. What kind of wickedness do we allow in Nigeria. We accused government, but some people are worse than those in government. The same people who accused the government of corruption are themselves corrupt in most cases. Nigeria is in a mess.

There is lawlessness everywhere. There is corruption everywhere. Everyone appears to be law unto himself. No emparty for one another. We seem to be in the jungle. State of nature in the extreme. Too bad.

Breakdown of Mess

Here is the breakdown of their so-called 2024 Budget of Renewed Hope.

Total Budget size: N28.78 Trillion.
Capital Expenditure: N10 Trillion.
Recurrent Expenditure: N8.8 Trillion
Borrowings or loans: N8.2 Trillion.
Statutory Transfers: N1.7 Trillion.

Extra N1.2 trillion was smuggled into the budget for reasons that are very unclear.

Only 2% is devoted to education for a country with over 20 million “out of school children.” It means there’ll be ASUU strikes this year, & the bogus student loan is not feasible. The illiteracy & gullibility rate in Nigeria will balloon.

Poverty & direct assaults on any type of Education, are one of the major policies of the APC. Those guys are against any form of enlightenment or emancipation.

Only about 0.11% is devoted to sports development, in a year Nigeria will be participating in major sporting events. It means the Super Eagles could be owed for participating at the Nations Cup.

NASS smuggled N12.12 billion inside the budget as “Take-off Grant” to build a so-called library for the indolent National Assembly. And extra N3 billion to buy books. Your current lawmakers, do you see them as any type intellectuals? Do you see them as the type of people who read?

Food Feeding Program: N100 billion. Put your eye on the new Madam Palliatives, Betta Edu. Nigeria should not have the repeat of the School Feeding Program Scam that happened during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Sadiya Umar Farouq is yet to account for the billions she received as the former Madam Palliatives. Madam Imprest is enjoying her cash out! Buhari is very pleased!

Now that the budget is passed. The big challenge is the implementation.

Politicians & their acolytes will now relocate to Abuja to lobby for those juicy contracts. While many line items in the budget are bogus, others will not be executed.

Most of the N28.78 trillion will end up in private pockets. We know how it works!

They are parroting their mouths that the Budget Deficit of N7.82 Trillion is going to be financed through Revenues. The question is how? Your OPEC Quota is 1.5 Million barrels/day. Yet, you hardly meet the target. Much of the less than 1.2 barrels/day oil produced, are stolen by the IOCs, in cahoots with the same criminally minded politicians.

Dr. Shobowale who is an Economist, he said & I quote, “the 2024 budget is in fact a 23% decline from the 2023 budget.” He went further to say that 2024 will be the toughest year for Nigerians, economically.

It means the 2024 budget is dead on arrival.

A Peter Obi would have devoted 15% to Education. He would have devoted 15% to Healthcare. A Peter Obi would have devoted the monies saved from subsidy towards HDI, & in pulling Nigerians out of poverty.

Finally, a Peter Obi would have brought in the much needed FDIs into Nigeria. Diaspora Nigerians had hoped to bring in $50 billion of their hard earned monies into the economy, but INEC & the Supreme Court had other ideas.

Bola Tinubu will not only struggle with Propaganda, he will struggle with governance. As the number one image maker or the Chief Marketing Officer of Brand Nigeria, Tinubu is tainted & grossly unqualified to steer the ship of the Nigeria state.

Especially now that Nigeria is in dire straits. At the end of the day, what’s left to play for, is anyone’s guess! Lesson teachers & bag men.

Are The Nigerians really Aware or it is Negligence??

Nigerian nation is somehow assuming very confusing and sometimes very difficult to understand. Everyone seems to enjoy the absurdities in the society. What kind of society is Nigeria. There are no consequences for misbehavious. Misconducts are celebrated and rewarded with stamp of official recognition.Laws are put in place for orderly conduct.

But in Nigeria everything is done upside down and nobody seems to care about anything. Nobody respect the laws of Nigeria.
Judges don’t.Policemen don’t.Lawyers don’t. Politicians don’t. Security men don’t. Citizens don’t.Why because there are no consequences for misbehavious and misconducts.

Those who fear the laws are the downtrodden who have no godfathers. That is why stealing a goat is more dangerous than stealing billions.Nigeria is a country of absurdities. Look at politicians bragging about their powers in influencing judgments of courts. What an absurdity and sacrilegious temerity. What an audacity of illegitimate arrogant. Yet nothing will happen.

During elections or should I selection some lawyers get involved in electoral malfeasances to the annoyance of the nobility of the legal profession yet nothing is done to bring them to book. What kind of a nation is Nigeria where anything goes.

Even in the places where we have put our trust for justice, injustice permeates thereat. Leadership seems to be so tolerant of misconducts and misbehavious. There are just no consequences. Consequences are only visited as instructment of political vendetta.

No society can progress with the level of indiscipline and corruptions in Nigeria.There seems to be no willingness on the parts of those we trusted to do the right thing to do those things correctly and rightly. Everyone seems to be hopeless. Everyone seems to have accepted that abnormality is the best route to attain fame and positions.

No body trust our institutions anymore because those institutions have been infested with compromisers at the helm of the affairs. Institutions set up to tackle corruption are not spared of the corruption they are set up to fight. Nobody seems to care and love Nigeria. Nigeria seems to be an orphan. It is left in the orphanage without support.Those in charge seem confused.

Those who have ideas to do what is right have no power to do it. Those who cannot change things positively have forced themselves on us. Can we please go back to true rule of law where things are done according to law and when there are violations the violators are punished accordingly.

Until we return and practice true rule of law and genuine democracy development will elude Nigeria. True democracy is built on the rule of law. There can be no true democracy where judiciary is cornered and conquered by political class. Democracy in Nigeria is heading to calamiteous destination and the politicians are the cause. Nigerians must rise up to defend democracy and rule of law. That is the only way Nigeria can grow and develop

Leadership decay

When Nigerians are dying of hunger and of diseases and of banditry, when the value of naira is bafflingly sinking deeper and becoming useless against the dollar, our Senators do not have time to think about how to make lives easier for the Nigerians, they do think of their roles as the arm of government that are expected to be closer to the people, they have been raising their voices to justify the purchase of expensive SUVs for themselves.

The shock and shame that came with this condescension of the sensitivity of the common Nigerians is heavy to bear. That the people voted to checkmate the excesses of the Executive are the ones who have stooped so low to compare themselves with the lavish spending of the ministers as an excuse to also buy vehicles for themselves at exorbitant rates, as though they transport themselves to the chamber by foot.

Those are people who are supposed to stop or question the dubious spending of the ministers. But they have seen saying they needed better cars because the Nigerian roads are so bad that they require stronger ones. There was no remark about how to make Nigerian roads better so they don’t need to use SUVs when they decide to visit their villages.

“If I go home to my senatorial district, I return spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad. Am I talking to somebody? I said our decision on using Land Cruisers is for the durability.”

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Senate Duties shamelessly said that. I’m not lying.

He didn’t stop there. He added: “If you go to state houses of assembly today, check out, most of them before they were even inaugurated, the governor would have bought vehicles waiting for them, even for local government chairmen. I drove the vehicle my local government chairman uses, so why not the National Assembly?”

I don’t even know when we reached this level that these people don’t even care about what they say in public.

The committee chairman audaciously and thoughtlessly compared the Senators with the state legislators, down to the local government chairmen. I was waiting for him to compare himself with ward councilors but don’t know what stopped him.

He said if governors buy cars for state lawmakers a local government chairmen, cars should also be bought for him and his colleagues. Because they are co-wives

Leopold fervently believed that overseas colonies were the key to a country’s greatness, and he worked tirelessly to acquire colonial territory for Belgium. He envisioned “our little Belgium” as the capital of a large overseas empire.Leopold eventually began to acquire a colony as a private citizen. The Belgian government lent him money for this venture.

During his reign, Leopold saw the empires of the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain as being in a state of decline and expressed interest in buying their territories. In 1866, Leopold instructed the Belgian ambassador in Madrid to speak to Queen Isabella II of Spain about ceding the Philippines to Belgium. Knowing the situation fully, the ambassador did nothing. Leopold quickly replaced the ambassador with a more sympathetic individual to carry out his plan. In 1868, when Isabella II was deposed as queen of Spain, Leopold tried to press his original plan to acquire the Philippines. But without funds, he was unsuccessful. Leopold then devised another unsuccessful plan to establish the Philippines as an independent state, which could then be ruled by a Belgian. When both of these plans failed, Leopold shifted his aspirations of colonisation to Africa.

After numerous unsuccessful schemes to acquire colonies in Africa and Asia, in 1876 Leopold organized a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society, or the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of the Congo. In 1878, under the auspices of the holding company, he hired explorer Henry Stanley to explore and establish a colony in the Congo region. Much diplomatic maneuvering among European nations resulted in the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 regarding African affairs, at which representatives of 14 European countries and the United States recognized Leopold as sovereign of most of the area to which he and Stanley had laid claim.On 5 February 1885, the Congo Free State, an area 76 times larger than Belgium, was established under Leopold II’s personal rule and private army, the Force Publique.

References:Hochschild, A. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin, 1999. pp. 111–112