In Nigeria, Govt Means Primitive Accumulation Of Wealth

Comrade Muyiwa Jimoh, a radical member of the Lagos State House of Assembly and representative of Apapa Constituency 2 at the House, takes a critical look at the country and proffers solutions to its challenges in this interview with EROMOSELE EBHOMELE

How do you feel being associated with the Nigerian Independence celebration?

I have a mixed reaction about that. Apparently, we are 52 and that is good, but what are the things that can help justify that we are 52? What are the economic indices that would state that we are living like normal human beings? Life expectancy in Nigeria is between 45 and 47. Cuba is a country surviving on sugar cane. If an average Cuban citizen could live for up to 78, then, you can see the gap between the country and Nigeria.

I want a Nigeria of my own dream where the people would live comfortably. So it wasn’t by accident that I see a neo-liberal ideology as most alternative to our development. We may be travelling abroad and seeing what they are doing, it is not the alternative. Our solution to our problem, if we chose to go the way they are, has been determined.

As at 1930, a great British economist had predicted what would happen in Year 2000. According to him, by this year, the greatest problem the western world would face is not what to eat or drink, but how to manage leisure. And this is what they are facing currently. This, however, does not apply to us. The Asian Tigers realised this correctly and they took a paradigm shift and started with life. You can see where they are today.

On the floor of the House some days ago, we were discussing Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is just an infinitesimal negligible part of India that decided to pull out of India, but look at Sri Lanka today; it has become a reference point to Nigeria. Members of the House went there, they couldn’t help learning the process. In that country, no matter the amount in dollars that you have, you must convert it to their local currency or they won’t listen to you. They are operating a socialist republic. There are so many other examples.

Our situation is understood when judged with its pre-colonial status. The pre-colonial state created an unequal society deliberately empowering some more than others. So it is that line we have been following. Then, with the Richard’s Constitution of 1946 that introduced regions, politics of ethnicity became an issue in the country. Before then, we all saw ourselves as one. Today, things have gone so bad that it is difficult for even your siblings to believe you or for you to believe them. It is now a case of two pretenders in this country pretending to be one. We are not living as we should and we must do something fast about this because delay is dangerous.

How do we do this?

This thing can even start from parents. The duties of parents include taking good care of their children, but do they adequately parent their children these days? These days, whenever a child brings anything home, he is welcome. When we were very small, if you hold money that is more than your status, it would generate a lot of complaints and talks, but these days it is welcome. It is now part of our social life.

Who do we really blame for this change in social life?

I will go with a quotation from ‘The Retched Of The Earth,’ which states that ‘everybody must be compromised for the sake of the common goods. There is no clean hands, no innocent; every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor’. Government has its own and it is not limited to it. The orientation of the people to life and government is another thing. For example, in my constituency, I have told them never to block me on the road whether I have money to give to them or not. If I have money to give, I would gladly give, but if I don’t have, don’t stop me from passing. I can do this because I am a radical. Some of us can’t withstand that, all they do is to avoid places when they don’t have money. Some would even abscond because the people also demanded heavily from them during their electioneering campaigns. It is a symbiotic situation or problem.

I am very sure you listened to the President’s speech in which he gave himself credit in the fight against corruption and using a controversial rating of Transparency International…

You could actually see the bankruptcy in the statement of Mr. President. Don’t you think that man should resign if after a few minutes of making his statement, it was negated by Transparency International? When we were small, we were always warned not to tell lies. We don’t need people like Jonathan in government!

A leading revolutionary of Guinea Bissau said it: ‘tell our people the truth, tell no lies; claim no easy victory.’ So President Jonathan should tell no lies or claim easy victory. If a good thing happens and people are ascribing it to you and you know you were not the one who saw it happen, it behoves on you to acknowledge so and you would have more respect.

Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his son’s teacher and these were some of the things he demanded the teacher teach the son. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the case is different. When Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State in 1976, he said in 1980, we would have been through with our economic problems. At the same time, the German Chancellor at that time was only being progressive without giving a specific date. Where is Germany today? The country has the best economy in Europe and is the fifth economy in the world. Our own people don’t have the courage to tell the truth.

One of the foremost political economists in America, Paul Baran, in his book: ‘The Commitment Of The Intellectual’ was just thinking that the university environment should be different from the outside world which is full of hatred, lies and animosity.

He said the desire to tell the truth is the only condition of being an intellectual. Others, he said, are courage, readiness to carry on national enquiry so that it does not shrink and added that a comrade is a social crusader that is concerned about the masses. For you to be an intellectual, you must be honest, but this is not the case of our dear President.

The President also rated himself well in the health sector…

The man has failed! He is only rating himself instead of allowing others to rate him. Jonathan does not know the amount of crude oil that is lifted from this country on a daily basis. Of course, those in government lack the ethical knowledge; they only concern themselves with what they can benefit from the international community. They are thinking that if they can get theirs, then why should they bother about others. We cannot run this country like that.

Nigeria has over 413 ethnic groups as enumerated by the United Nations and the population of Nigeria is about 150 million. So you just ended up deceiving the masses.

But it is the belief of some people that the people are docile…

In what regard?

I mean when it comes to taking part in the process by which they are governed or call the government to order where it is derailing…

In Nigeria, do you know what the PDP government has done? They harm the masses with ignorance and confusion. They created this myth about governance that makes people see it as a mystery.

I don’t shut my door and if you come uninvited, I have the right to send you back. You can’t just say because you want to explain some things to me, you come when I don’t invite you. I pick my calls always and when you demand for what I cannot do, I tell you straight away so that you won’t waste your time coming to me.

There’s this man called Josi Marti, a founding father of Cuba. He said just as we need a minimum degree of sunlight to do whatever we do, we also need minimum degree of honour. He said there are men with honour, there are men without honour and there are men with honour of so many men contained in them. Jonathan lacks that. How can he tell lies about corruption?

Transparency International cannot rate Nigeria as second world best in the fight against corruption because with the level of corruption in the country currently, you will marvel. The country is in disarray.  The EFCC probed former Governor James Ibori and he was freed by the court but in London, he was convicted. This would make you understand the character of those we are operating with. Our problems are like plants. They have roots that must be tackled if we are to be happy again.

How do we tackle these roots?

What we are doing now is part of the process. I’m in government and exposing them. You are also in government in another level. I agree that there’s deep corruption everywhere, not only in Nigeria. The government of China wanted to stop the buying of opium. The English man that was selling opium to China and India went to war with the Chinese government for that reason. You can see the level of corruption everywhere and right from time.

Adam Smith in the preface of his book, ‘An Enquiry Into Nature And The Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations’ in 1776, the same year America got her independence, said one of the reasons he wrote the book was because of the deep corruption in the British society. So there’s corruption everywhere. But Nigeria’s corruption has two features: it is underdeveloped and it is controlled by imperialism.

If it was just underdeveloped, the situation could be salvaged, but this other one is primitive accumulation of wealth. They pack the resources, keep them somewhere for themselves and their children. As a lawmaker, if you travel abroad and get into a shopping mall, there are some counters you cannot go to buy anything because of the price, but you would see the children of our leaders going there without thinking twice. We must continue to talk and talk until we get a Nigeria of our dream.