Deporable State of Nigerian States

I had set out today to write about flood, the latest natural-cum-man-made disaster now sweeping through the country. As at the last count, no fewer than 10 states had come close to drowning in water while the Red Cross said the flood has killed some 148 persons across 21 states.
But then, I decided against writing about flood because I would be accused of insensitivity to the plight of fellow Nigerians if I said all I feel about it. For one, I have already seen a little bit of politics creeping into it – so much so that states which recorded what would pass like normal rainfall are now taking photos and posting on internet (and everywhere) claiming to have been flooded. Those who were genuinely flooded are exaggerating the extent of damage. One particular state claimed that about two million people were displaced.
Yes, and we all know what figure the entire state turned in at the last census. Now, I can’t genuinely separate reality from positioning for the Ecological Fund. It appears every state is trying to paint a more pathetic picture than the other, in order to attract bigger financial intervention from the fund. Now many states which just witnessed regular rainfall are reporting flood. Those who poured refuse into their own drainages and therefore, stopped the free flow of rain water, have had the water diverted into their homes. They too, are now reporting flood.
The truth is, apart from some of those who were in the direct line of the deluge from Cameroun, the floods are essentially a fallout of our own pour hygiene and less-than-desirable handling of solid wastes. In fact, if any of those states witnessed the kind of heavy, non-stop rain that fell last week in Lagos, by now, we’d be talking of whole states being submerged or that an entire government house has been swept to another state by flood. Yes, Idris Wada, for instance, would just walk out to the front balcony of his office to discover that his Lugard House has floated into a new neighbourhood near Asaba.
Fashola and his commissioner for the environment, Tunji Bello, must be kicking themselves for taking proactive steps by investing billions of naira in clearing drains, opening up channels and handling of solid wastes. Or else, by now, they too would have posted photos of flooded Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Ikeja and all on internet and begin positioning for Ecological Fund. Now, I feel Jigawa did not probably make enough noise the other time when the entire state was flooded by water released from the dam in Kano.
But the painful part of it is that I can almost swear that if and when intervention funds are released from the Ecological Fund, little or nothing of it would reach the poor people who are suffering today, having lost everything to the rampaging flood. Like, I said, I would not be angered into writing about the politics of flood. I have more annoying things to write about Akwa Ibom, where I had gone to attend the annual conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.
Of course, the anger was not just in the eye-opening facts that emerged from the various papers, as speaker after speaker dissected the security realities of today’s Nigeria. No. my anger emanates from what I saw in Uyo, the state capital – the new Gilgal, as the governor would have us believe. Now, if you are looking for good reason to stone your governor, visit Uyo. If you’re a state lawmaker looking for impeachable offences to nail your governor, visit Akwa Ibom and you’d come back with a long list, convinced that that your governor has just been wasting everyone’s time all these years.
You’d see that street lights can actually keep working long after they are commissioned and everyone’s attention is turned away. You’d see that it does not take a 16-year rolling plan (from Obasanjo to Yar’Adua and down to Jonathan) to put a standard power plant in place. You’d know that there is no myth about getting gas to power thermal stations, or channeling flood water off the streets soon after every downpour. That you don’t have to plan for eight years to build a runway and then hope for another eight years to build the tarmac – through proxy.
That the entire airport can be completed in two years from scratch to finish. You’d also discover that, unlike your state, where the governor invites CNN and Aljazeera to the commissioning of one foot-bridge after four years in office (and then, six months later, invites all the local media to the re-commissioning of the same footbridge), in Akwa Ibom, they complete some 100 or more projects and then invite one relevant figure to come commission them.
Here, commissioning of projects could take a whole week – with new projects being commissioned every day. It is indeed, very annoying. Yes, unlike Paris, which you see and die, when you see Uyo, you’ll get angry. Angry with those who run your own state. Angry that some people would see all these and still go on asking; what have the oil producing states done with 13% derivation. Angry that some politicians, for want of what to say during electioneering campaigns, would look us all in the face and lie that nothing is happening. It is even more annoying for those of us who had visited Uyo once or twice before the present dispensation.
But of course, you have every course to be angry, because, in Akwa Ibom, an angry man, called Godswill Akpabio, is in charge. So, as the KIA car that was taking us from the hotel to the airport made its last turn into the parking lot, images of the Uyo we were leaving behind came flooding back in my mind’s eye. Standing a few hundred metres away was the new MRO building that was already at an advanced stage of completion.
I tried to place it side-by-side the impression of the planned checking-in counters we had seen at the equally novel cinema mall, the first-of-its-kind e-library, the underground drainage, the crisscross of flyovers, smooth, strong, pothole-free roads, (Yes, those types of roads that our primary school headmaster told us were macadamized roads), the street lights, the new government house, the massive stadium (where Arsenal FC of London has already been booked to play the opening match) and the tasteful finishing to all of them.
It is almost unbelievable that this was the same Uyo that I visited in 2002 or even some four years earlier. But one thing came out very clearly: if you are doing well as a governor (or any public office holder for that matter), you don’t have to pay anybody to sing your praise. How do I mean? As contributor after contributor spoke about the state of hopelessness in the north, nearly all of them made the exception of Jigawa state and Governor Sule Lamido.
Incidentally, there was no representation from the state – either by way of membership of the guild or a functionary of the state government. When we discussed roads, Jigawa featured. When the talk shifted to security Jigawa was mentioned as a haven of peace and tranquility. Of course, it was like a lone star when the issue of social security for the downtrodden stratum of the citizenry came up. Virtually everybody agreed that what was going on in Sule Lamido’s state was beyond the political zakkat regime many governors in the north were claiming to have instituted. So, the transformation of Uyo was not just about oil money, 13% derivation etc.
For if it was, states like Ekiti would never be mentioned in the country’s development equation. Ekiti which currently ranks 35th on the league table of federal allocation, is not necessarily No. 35 on the development scale. If we say Akwa Ibom, like Rivers, and to some extent, Ondo, are doing the great works they are currently doing by simply riding on the crest of jumbo allocations from the federation account. And that Fashola’s Lagos is leveraging on the strength of internally generated revenue, what then do we have to say about states like Anambra, Gombe, or even a state like Jigawa which has neither oil nor internally generated revenue?
Has anyone bothered to find out how Sule Lamido has managed to literally squeeze water out of stone? How has Jigawa, in the last five or so years, managed to rank amongst the states with high level of infrastructure development? If you were from some of these other states, where nothing seems to be happening, you’d almost want to stone your governor, for just sitting on his butt all these many years and doing nothing.
But since everyone, like the editors at the conference, is now preaching against violence, I think stoning your governor would not be a nice idea. You could just disown him. But please, get angry.