Before he became a civilian president of Nigeria, retired General, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, spoke on a BBC programme, saying: “We are spending money like a drunken sailor. We are spending much more money than we are earning. Where does all the money go?”
Before then, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had also warned, during Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s Presidency, that the Nigerian currency, the naira, was degenerating to the status of tissue paper. In the typical Nigerian manner of prevarication and equivocation, these warnings were dismissed as the rantings of dooms-day prophets.
Interestingly, one of the dooms-day prophets of the past became a President, with one of the tasks of making the “drunken sailor” sober and less profligate. Rather, the old “Prophet” referred to Nigerians who raised similar alarm calls and warnings about profligate spending, as “dooms-day prophets.” At that time, some one asked if there is any strange thing which makes critics of government become different when they get to power!
The situation of Nigeria then was not quite different from what it is now, rather, the groaning of the masses has become more widespread and disturbing. As things are now only those Nigerians who had piled up enough booties and private stock from the national patrimony in readiness for the dooms-day, live in ignorance that the national patrimony is now in jeopardy.
The national patrimony, derived from and largely dependent on mineral oil, has been placed in jeopardy arising from activities of clever Nigerians, who, like Obasanjo’s drunken sailor, have been “spending much more money than we are earning”. Consequences of such profligacy and non-accountability are now with us, and Nigerians should be asking: who are the drunken sailors and their accomplices? We may never know who they are, or the clever ways they operate, but surely, the nation has bled enough and the masses groaned enough. Would the “drunken sailor” not stop drinking and would the bar-tender not stop giving him more booz?
It was longer than we can tell, that the nation’s economy began to slide towards greater danger and into deeper waters. The danger signals came not only from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, but several people had also warned that the country was sliding into danger and agony.
The oil and gas sector as the life-line of the Nigerian economy is not in a stable state. Oil business world-wide is known to be “oily affair” not only because of its capital-intensive nature, but also because it is a political lubricant. All intrigues and bamboozlement play out in that sector and those who poke-nose therein, get their nose, fingers or the entire body burnt.
Why is Nigeria, an oil-producing nation, with six refineries, importing fuel and why are the refineries not functioning at full capacity, in spite of huge sums of money sunk into maintenance in the past many years? Why does privatization become a solution to management failure? Why would the cost of production of oil not be high, when large numbers of soldiers, police and other security personnel are deployed to guard the facilities, from off-shore and on-shore drilling sites, to refineries? This does not include personal escorts assigned to personnel of oil companies by the Inspector-General of Police.
Many years ago Professor Tam David-West stressed that “the magic word of privatization can only yield meaningful dividends for the general good if we have a responsible government in place … what we should be addressing is first and foremost, good governance, and consequently all the other set economic goods will fall in place, even without privatization”.
Reasons for the pathetic state of the nation’s economy are not far-fetched. We cannot deny the fact that the proverbial “drunken sailor” is the government itself. Those who can afford to drink and get drunk are usually those who are affluent and merry, or those who resort to it because of frustration.
The mess and fraud we find everywhere can be traced to an insatiable appetite to amass wealth regardless of what happens to the country and its future and image. Not every rodent can have an access to where the proverbial national cake is being baked or shared. Those who are excluded from such access scrounge through similarly fraudulent and corrupt means, to have some food in their stomach and roof over their heads. Let us join Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to ask:
Where does all the money go?” What an unlucky scapegoat Deziani must be!
Dr. Amirize is a retired lecturer from Rivers State University.
e-mail:bamirize@yahoo.com.

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