by Eze Eluchie,
Often times,
the failure of a people is rooted in their inability to identify the causes of
their continuing decadence and misfortune. When you recognize your weak points
or those factors that retard your growth, there is the likelihood, presuming
the society concerned is genuinely interested in moving forward, to isolate and
demobilize such minuses, wheresoever they may exist, as an integral process in
moving society forward.
In
realization of the fact that the Nigerian contraption currently resides far
behind where even the most pessimistic had envisioned it to be, the Worst of
Nigerian Awards, which is now in its fourth year, is principally geared at
identifying the arrowheads amongst our numerous minuses which contributed most
negatively to keeping Nigeria in the back woods where we now find her.
Expectedly,
in view of the backwards slide in virtually every facet of national life which
Nigeria experienced in the past 12 months, numerous worthy nominations were
received for the various categories of the Awards on offer. The fact that the
current regime of President Buhari is already prosecuting two of the past
Awardees in the ‘Worst Minister of the Year’ Awards category – Mr. Abba Moro
(Interior Minister for Interior) and Mr. Mohammed Adoke (former Minister of
Justice) should serve as indication that our Awards cross political divides. It
is only hoped that actions are taking much earlier to right wrongs being caused
by the awardees.
The Worst Corporate
Entity.
Buoyed on by
a palpable desperation on the part of governments to attract and encourage
Foreign Direct Investments, corporate entities in Nigeria cashed in on the
already weak regulatory mechanisms to exploit the population assured that they
can get away with blue murder as the governments would generally look over
their crimes/faults under the guise of not scaring away investors
The usual
culprits were there once more: British American Tobacco (which in 2016 had the
sole distinction of continuing to market its lethal product with more
aggressiveness in Nigeria whilst at the same time launching a public advisory
to its users in its home-country to desist from consuming cigarettes), the Oil
Conglomerates which continued with their lethal production practices that would
have earned their Executives long spells behind bars in their home-country’s.
This year
however, a new kid gets on the block, from an industry that is fast gaining
importance and usage with our youthful population. The Awardee for this year
treats local regulations with disdain; when caught with its hand in the till,
greases palms to minimize fines levied; is under investigation for discrepancies
regarding its foreign remittances and cash outflows; charges its users
arbitrarily and has one of the worst consumer helplines in the globe.
South African
headquartered Mobile Telecommunication Nigeria
(MTN), is the Worst Corporate Entity for Year 2016.
The Worst State
Governor/Agency
In a year
when several State Governors converted huge largesse’s received from the Federation
Account in the forms of bailouts to personal uses whilst failing to pay State
employees and pensioners or even execute any tangible infrastructural projects,
nominations for this category of the Awards was naturally validly varied.
One Governor
choose to sink beneath the bounds of civility in maladministration, reducing
the population over which he governs in a state of drunken stupor, wondering
how they could have missed all the tell tale signs prior to allowing such a
sleazy character access to their States treasury and administration. From
forcing civil servants and pensioners to sign unto documents forfeiting sizable
portions of their salaries in order to get meagre sums; to criminally
substandard public infrastructure works (severally collapsed tunnels and
buildings); to destroying the traditional and cultural heritage of the people;
and grabbing .lands belonging to entire communities for self use; the recipient
of this year’s Awards in this category has become a serial awardee, having won
the awards twice in the past three years.
The Worst
State Governor is Imo State’s Mr. Rochas
Okorocha.
The Worst Federal Minister/Agency
From its
delay in appointing his Ministers, it was quite clear that Nigeria’s current
ruling regime, though it had plans to acquire power as can be discerned from
the aggressiveness with which it pursued the cause, simply had no plans for
governance. This lack of preparedness has manifested in very poor performances
by the Federal Ministers and Agencies. The catalogue of misfortune seems
endless. From a Lawyer who was appointed Minister for Works/Power/Housing who
is clearly out of his depth as he is clueless about the fundamentals of the
issues of the Ministries over which he superintends, to a Finance Minister
whose novice status in national economic management and fiscal issues is
glaring, to a Technology Minister who has set his sights on producing pencils
(Yes PENCILS for writing) for the year 2019. Never have we received such
multiplicity and diversity of nominees for this category of the Awards.
One Minister
however outshone his colleagues in terms of his idiocy, cluelessness and
general lack of understanding of his role. A Minister who once questioned what
the country’s soccer team was doing being stranded in the United States in a
scheduled pre-Olympic training and wished the team remain abandoned in the US;
a Minister who followed up such infamy by revealing that the Federal Government
did not anticipate the female national football teams successes at the African
Female Nations cup – and as such there was no provision for the teams allowances
following their victory at the tournament.
A federal agency
was particularly outstanding in the number of nominations it received for this
Award. An agency that inherited relatively modest operational guidelines and
modalities, that always tried to do things by the books had decided to throw
caution to the winds and was openly partisan and incredulously partial in its
activities. The Independent National Election Commission (INEC – also known
commonly as the Inconclusive National Election Commissions on accounts of the
high number of inconclusive elections it had recorded within the short period
of its current leadership) has severally, by its opaque umpire role in
elections it has thus far conducted, pushed several Nigerian States to a
precipice and likelihood of violence.
For the
first time ever, we have joint winners of an award under this category. The winners
of the Worst Federal Minister/Agency are: Mr.
Solomon Dalung (Minister for Youth & Sports) and the Independent National Elections Commission
(INEC)!
The Worst Nigeria.
At his
assumption of Office in May 2015, the Nigerian economy was rated the fastest growing
and largest economy in Africa. By spectacular dint of policy summersaults,
vindictive posturing, self-debasement before the international community, palpable
ignorance of economic principles and outright cluelessness, the fortunes of the
Nigerian contraption was meteorically reversed to an economy in recession, spiralling
inflation, the local currency broke all records in the negative directions,
unemployment rates skyrocketed and capital flight exceeded all known bounds as
all and sundry sought to escape from an impending collapse.
On the social
and political fronts, the tenuous fabric which created a semblance of unity of
purpose was recklessly shredded as this character pronounced and displayed
outright hate for sizable segments of the population, thus engendering separatist
agitations across the land; At the same
time, rampaging gangs of vicious herdsmen, buoyed on by the cloak of seeming invincibility
accorded by support from federal security and military operatives, exterminate
and commit atrocities at will without any fear of being called to account.
As a result
of this characters terrible rulership, the only light Nigerians are seeing as
they are stuck in the tunnel is that of an oncoming train. At current rates, something must give come
2017.
The recipient
of the Worst Nigerian Award for Year 2017 is the current head of Nigeria's ruling junta,
Mr. Muhammadu Buhari.
The ignoble Baddies trophy:
No comments:
Post a Comment