by Eze Eluchie
The Worst Corporate Entity:
After
considering the horrendous looting of national resources which virtually
ensured that foreign exchange earned from the sale of crude oil (which accounts
for over 90% of Nigeria’s income) and other governmental sources, was spirited
away before it ever got to the shores of the country, former Military Dictator
of Nigeria, Ibrahim Babangida once confessed, during his stay in office, that
he had no idea what was sustaining the Nigerian economy. The looting has
continued, albeit more vicious. The simple answer to Babangida’s wonder, was
that the resilience, dexterity never-say-die attitude of the average Nigerian
Taking
cognisance of the lax governance structure, absence of effective corporate
regulatory and enforcement mechanisms and a hapless citizenry benumbed and
incapacitated by extreme lack, thus unable and unwilling to challenge adverse
situations, many corporate organizations have taken it upon themselves to extort,
hoodwink and milk the Nigerian public. From the confectionaries, to the
brewers, to the private educational institutions and various manufacturers,
every corporate entity seems to be perfecting long fangs with which to deepen
their capacity to suck the Nigerian consumer dry.
One
industry, in Year 2017, exceeded all others in terms of their dubiousness and
adverse impact on the Nigerian citizen and the Nigerian state at large.
With shylock
interest rates (usually over 34% interest on loans), rates repayable only by
persons involved in drugs or human trafficking ventures and guaranteed to ruin
any legitimate business; dubious hidden charges mostly imposed by fiat against
their customers; and deployment of quasi-criminal loan recovery tactics and
techniques that would have in other saner climes earned the Directors of such
Banks long spells behind bars, amongst other unorthodox practices, the Nigerian
Banking industry has proved a clog in the famed entrepreneurial spirit of the
Nigerian. The apex banking agency, the Central Bank of Nigeria, which has
enormous regulatory and administrative powers over the Banking industry,
compounds the situation with it’s Mafia-like secretiveness and lack of
transparency, collusion with public officials to siphon huge sums out of
Nigeria and a destructive regime of multiple extremely diverse foreign currency
exchange rates which overnight, in one fell swoop, create US Dollar
millionaires – encouraging mediocrity above merit and ultimately deepening the
destruction of the Nigerian economy.
For the
harms its actions, inactions, dubiousness and opaqueness caused Nigerians in
Year 2017, the Central Bank of Nigerian
(CBN) is hereby awarded the Worst Corporate Entity for Year 2017.
The Worst State
Governor/State Agency
In a year
when despite collecting billions of US Dollars from the Federation Account
under the guise of ‘Paris Debt Refunds’, several State Governors owed their workers’
salaries ranging from 5 months to 15 months, and during which some State
Governors had devised the quasi-criminal practice of forcing the States civil
servants to sign (under duress) and as a condition precedent to collecting
their monthly salaries, contract papers forfeiting huge percentages of their
due wages to the State; a year when the amorphous entity known as the Nigeria
Governors Forum (NGF) has been severally exposed as a conduit for money
laundering, illicit transfers and unconstitutional misappropriation of public
funds; it is clear that with so many Governors qualified for the pathetic award
as the Worst Governor of the Year, it would take a spectacularly devious,
craftily disingenuous and a character whose negatives extend beyond his States’
borders and probably to the international arena, to clinch this ignoble title.
None other
fits this Award than a character who has raised deception in governance to an
art, deployed nepotism, cronyism and good old plain lying as cardinal tools of
governance; admitted in own words of being pushed to the brink of insanity by
the enormity of responsibilities of the Governor of his State; embarked on
large-scale land thefts for self and dependants using the instrumentalities of
the Office of Governor as subterfuge and spices up the rot by erecting
sculptures of all manners of discredited and discreditable characters from
across the country and beyond to spite the peoples of the State he governs who
are widely respected as a people of integrity, academic excellence and culture.
The winner
of the Year 2017 Worst Governor is, for the 3rd tie in a row, the Imo
State Governor, Mr. Rochas Okorocha.
The Worst Federal Minister/Agency
The cacophony
of misfits which characterized the appointment of persons to the various
Federal Ministries, it was clear that right fro the very onset, the sufferings
and disaster Nigerians are having to live through was very much expected. From
the Medical Doctor who serves as the inister for Labour and Productivity, to
the Attorney who presides over the Ministry of Power/Works/Housing, to the
Supermarket Cashier who presides over the Ministry of Finance and the vital Transportation
& Aviation Ministry handed over to a man whose ain qualification was having
lavishly used the treasury of the State over which he had presided as Governor
to fund the President electioneering campaigns, Nigeria was viciously shepparded
(within the first 12 months of this present government) into economic depression
from which it is finding most difficult to extricate itself.
The Federal agencies
and parastatals, taking a cue from the quality of their supervising Ministers,
tended to outdo each other in incompetence, dereliction of duty and generally
contributing to the sorry position Nigeria and Nigerians find themselves amongst
the comity of states.
Based on the
often reiterated position that the present administration would frontally tackle
the cankerworm of corruption which afflicts the Nigerian society, and the
reality that incidents of large-scale corruption has gained momentum and
frequency with the public clearly discerning a partisan slant in the so-called
efforts at addressing corruption – a slant that unfortunately accords those in
the ‘preferred’ partisan divide, immunity to perpetuate mind-boggling looting;
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has epitomized the disconnect
between professed goals and reality, societal expectation and failure in
service delivery by our Governments which has combined to relegate Nigeria to
its sorry state in all global indexes for development.
The Worst
Federal Minister/Agency Award for Year 2017 is hereby bestowed on the Economic and Financial Cries Commission
(EFCC).
The Worst Nigerian
In other
climes, when the people are pushed to the wall by the graft of their rulers,
there is always a backlash from the population to remind those charged with
their affairs that there is a cost for maladministration of public affairs and
poor governance.
From the
reaction of Tunisians to the seizure of the wares of Buazizi and his subsequent
self-immolation, to the reaction of the Togolese public to misrule by a psudo-monarchical
dictator, and the ongoing reaction of Iranians to slight hike in prices of basic
household needs and food items, there is always a commensurate reaction by the
people to hardship inflicted on them by their rulers.
In the face of
the worst devaluation of our currency, destruction of the national and
individual economies, forced destitution of our peoples, colossal failure of
the state to protect the citizenry from armed bandits resulting in decimation of
our populations, wastage of our youths leading to mass exodus from the country of
the vibrant segment of its population, the Nigerian public has remained complicity
comatose. Hedges of religious and ethnic divides which have been waged between
the various peoples of the country has served to blind the population to the need
to rise in unison against their albatrosses.
For failing
to rise and free ourselves from shackles which weigh us down, the Nigerian civil society is hereby
bestowed with the Worst Nigerian Award for Year 2017.
Picture: Worst
Governor Award winner for the 3rd year running – Mr. Rochas Okorocha
of Imo State.
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