Essay
By Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN.
INTRODUCTION
THE last instalment of this series started off with the spectacular failure of
former President Muhammadu Buhari, and moved on to lament about the
disappearance of our societal values; continued with how Nigeria has
borrowed her future, pays for darkness and concluded with the tragedy of
the desertion and relocation of industries. This episode starts by posing the
question: whether we have always been doomed? It is answered in the
negative by recalling notable achievements by some eminent Nigerians. It
moves on to a discussion of Nigeria as a failed State, illustrating it as a
place where insecurity reigns supreme. Enjoy.
HAVE WE ALWAYS BEEN DOOMED? NO!
NOTABLE ACHIEVMENTS BY NIGERIANS
BRITISH Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin once notes that the University
of Lagos was one of the world centres of expertise in her specialist field of
chemical crystallography. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, had the first
world class computer centre in Africa. The University of Ife had a
notable pool of expertise in nuclear physics. Our premier University of
Ibadan had an international reputation as a leading centre of excellence
in tropical medicine, development economics and historical sciences.
The Saudi Royal family used to frequent UCH for medical treatment in the
sixties. The engineering scientist Ayodele Awojobi, a graduate of ABU
Zaria, was a rather troubled genius. He tragically dies of frustration
because our environment could not contain, let alone utilize his talents.
Ishaya Shuaibu Audu, pioneer Nigeria Vice-Chancellor of ABU Zaria,
collected all the prizes at St. Mary’s University Medical School London.
His successor in Zaria, Iya Abubakar, was a highly talented Cambridge mathematician who became a professor at 28 and was a notable
consultant to NASA. Alexander Animalu was a gifted MIT physicist who
did work of original importance in superconductivity. His book,
intermediate Quantum Theory of Crystalline Solids, has been translated
into several languages, including Russians.
Renowned mathematician Chike Obi solved Fermat’s 200-year old
conjecture with pencil and paper while the Cambridge mathematician
John Wiles achieved same with the help of a computer working over a
decade. After the harsh environment of the 1980s IMF/WB structural
adjustment programmes, the Babangida military dictatorship undertook
massive budgetary cutbacks in higher education.
Our brightest and best fled abroad. Today, Nigerian doctors, scientists
and engineers are making massive contributions in Europe and North
America. Prof Philip Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Award for his
work in super-computing. Jelani Aliyu designed the first electric car for
American automobile giant General Motors. Olufunmilayo Olopede,
Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, won a McAurthur
Genius Award for her work on cancer. Winston Soboyejo, who earned a
Cambridge doctorate at 23, is a Princeton engineering professors
laurelled for his contributions to materials research. He is Chairman of
the scientific Advisory Board to the Secretary-General of the UN.
Washington University biomedical engineering professor Samuel Achilefu
received the St. Louis Award for his invention of cancer-seeing glasses
that is a major advance in radiology.
Kunle Olukotun of Stanford did work of original importance on multi-
processors. National Merit laureate Omowunmi Sadik of State
University of Binghamton owns patents for biosensors technology. Young
Nigerians are also recording stellar performances at home and abroad. A
Nigerian family, the Imafidons, was voted “the smartest family in
Britain” in 2015. Anne Marie Imafidon earned her Oxford Masters’ in
Mathematics and Computer Science when she was only 19. Today, she
sits on several corporate boards and was awarded an MBE in 2017 for
services to science. Recently, Benue State University mathematician Atovigba Michael Vershima is believed to have solved the two centuries
old Riemann Conjecture that has defied giants such as Gauss,
Minkowski and Polya.
Another young man, Hallowed Olaoluwa, was one of a dozen “future
Einstein” awarded postdoctoral fellowship by Harvard University. He
completed a remarkable doctorate in mathematical physics at the
University of Lagos age 21. While at Harvard he aims to focus on solving
problems relating to “quantum ergodicity and quantum chaos”, with
applications to medical imaging and robotics. Another Unilag alumnus,
Ayodele Dada, graduated with a perfect 5.0 GPA, an unprecedented feat
in a Nigerian University. Victor Olalusi recently graduated with such stellar
performance at the Russian Medical Research University, Moscow, and
was feted the best graduate throughout the Russian Federation. Habiba
Daggash, daughter of my friend Senator Sanusi Daggash recently
graduated with starred rust in Engineering at Oxford University.
Emmanuel Ohuabunwa earned a CPA of 3,98 out of a possible 4.0 as
the best overall graduate of the Ivy-League Johns Hopkins University.
Stewart Hendry, Johns Hopkins Professor of Neuroscience, described the
young man as having “an intellect so rare that it touches on the unique…a
personality that is once-in-a-life-time”. There is also young Yemi
Adesokan, postdoctoral fellow of Harvard Medical School who patented
procedures for tracking spread of viral epidemics in developing countries.
Ufot Ekong recently solved a 50-year mathematical riddle at Tokai –
University in Japan and was voted the most outstanding graduate of the
institution. He currently works as an engineer for Nissan, having pocketed
two patent in his discipline. This is only the tip of the iceberg. If our system
were not so inclement to talent, we would be celebrating a bountiful harvest
of geniuses in all the fields of human endeavour. This is why the correlates
between our gene-pool and national development are so diametrically
opposed. Unfortunately, the success stories are the exception rather than
the rule. This is because, we are becoming a failed state.
NIGERIA AS A FAILED STATE
Has Nigeria really become a failed State? What is a failed state, anyway? A
failed state is one whose political or economic fabric has become so weak
that the government loses control. In such a state, basic responsibilities of
government that make the state sovereign are absent, as they no longer
function properly. Such a state is so fragile that it can collapse anytime,
because it becomes incapable of exercising authority over its peoples and
territory, nor protect its national boundaries. Such a state merely provides
minimal public services, since it lacks organizational and administrative
capacity to control its people, territory and resources. Suffering from
crumbling infrastructures, poor utility, educational and health facilities, a
failed state loses legitimacy both in the eyes of its citizens and the comity of
Nations. State institutions collapse; control over internal security
deteriorates. Indeed, such a state is divested of a monopoly of the
legitimate use of violence; whilst it loses capacity to protect its citizens,
fundamental rights, and defend civil, political and economic rights of its
populace. It manifests in lack of observance of rule of law.
Most failed states are in Africa; a handful in the Middle East and Asia. An
example of a failed state at some point in time was Somalia (now one of
the fastest developing nations in Africa), when rival warlords ravaged the
land. Another is Afghanistan, which harboured the deadly terrorist group,
Al-Qaeda, under the Taliban. Thus, a failed state can be determined by all
or some of the following indices: her weak economy, porous defence
capability, lack of transparency and poverty-stricken workforce; high
infant/maternal morbidity and mortality rate; high level of illiteracy;
malnourishment, orphanage, child labour, congestion; where organized
crime and black market control reign supreme; where a country is largely
dependent on imported food; where it cannot respond to natural disasters;
and where there is no clear order of business and commerce, with a weak
currency dominating.
In the case of Nigeria, we punch miserably below our weight in the
hierarchy of world economics and politics. None of our institutions come.
near the top 500 in the World Universities League Table. An estimated 50%
of our people live in extreme poverty, with Nigeria besting India Youth unemployment hovers around 45 percent (70% for the far North). The poverty is heartbreaking; our per capita GDP is less than $3,000 as compared to Singapore’s $55,252. We have the worst road carnage record
in the world, with more than 20,000 lost to road accidents annually. We
wasted over $18 billion on the power sector and our people still live in
darkness. The state governments are virtually bankrupt.
INSECURITY REIGNS SUPREME
In terms of security, Nigeria is becoming a killing field. The daily slaughter
ritual in Nigeria that has turned the Nigerian geographical space into a
killing field is not only criminal, but also smacks of total abdication of
governance by the current government. It is most cruel, hideous, horrific,
inhuman, dastardly and barbaric. The latest theatre of the absurd is Plateau
state, where hundreds of innocent and helpless Nigerians, especially the
most vulnerable (children, women and elderly), have been mindlessly
hacked down in cold blood. Nigerians have become “walking corpses” or
“the living dead” (apologies, AyiKwei Armah: “The Beautiful Ones Are not
yet Born”). The government that appears overtly overwhelmed (if it ever
cared at all), wrings its hands in utter helplessness and blames everything
and any one, but itself. PMB says he can only pray to God for miracles.
The Commander-in-Chief (C-in–C) in saying this, breaks the heart and
freely donates to the citizens, helplessness and hopelessness. What is the
military there for, since the Police has been overrun? Sections 130 (2) and
215 (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as
altered, make the President the C-in-C of both the Armed Forces and the
Police. Never before, or after the three year bloody Nigerian fratricidal civil
war has Nigeria witnessed such barefaced butchery of innocent souls in a
most horrendous manner that portends ethnic cleansing and genocidal
tendencies.
The entire security architecture of Nigeria has been greatly compromised
and doctored. The Nigerian Constitution (section 14 (2) (b), makes the
welfare and security of lives and property the primary purpose of
government. Any government that cannot protect its citizens is not worth
being called a government by any description or appellation. We have
become a laughing stock before international circles. We make merriment
and hold political rallies on the cold graves of hot steaming blood of
innocent Nigerians. We wanted to win the world cup at all cost, amidst
vengeful slaughter of fellow Nigerians. But, God is a just and righteous
God. He does not tolerate injustice, wickedness. He does not condone
unearned adulation and hero-worshipping: The Bible: Job 34:12; Col 3:25;
Deut 10:18; 32:4; Isaiah 30:18. The Holy Quran: 5:8; 16:90; 59: 22-24. Die
hard politicians are already busy, politicking about 2019, while our citizens
are daily massacred in cold blood. A governor that is supposed to be the
Chief Security Officer of his state is nothing but a mere toothless crying
bulldog, having been stripped of such luxury of controlling powers by
sections 215 (4) of the Constitution. This section enthrones a behemoth,
elephantine and immobile Police Force at the center, with the governor at
the mercy of the IGP and president. That is why I have, over the years,
consistently and persistently clamoured for true fiscal federalism that allows
for state Police and community policing. From Agatu, Naka and Agasha in
Benue state, Demsa, Suwa and Burukulu in Adamawa state, Riyom,
BarkinLadi and Jos in Plateau state, to BirninGwari, Dangaji,
UnguwarGajere in Kaduna State; from Izza, Wudula, Blakule and Darajimal
in Borno State; to Takum, Shaakaa, Donga and Ntule in Taraba State; to
Maraban –Udege Village, Aisa and Aguma in Nassarawa State; from
Ugbona, Okpella, Odiguetue and Igiode in Edo State, Nigeria knows no
peace. Things have fallen apart. The falcon can no longer hear the
falconer.
THOUGHT FOR WEEK
“As a nation, we will only become the shining light to the world with the
emergence of more and more role models worthy of emulation by all” (Fela
Durotoye).
LAST LINE
God bless my numerous global readers for always keeping faith with the
Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project, by humble me, Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, FCIArb., LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt, D.Sc.
kindly, come with me to next week’s exciting dissertation.
15th February, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: former President Muhammadu Buhari
