By Douglass Anele
Yet, that does not mean that all socio-political revolutions are useless or that reform is always the best option. In a decadent country like Nigeria, if members of the ruling elite are impervious to the yearnings and aspirations of the people and continue to behave as if the entire country belongs to them, the case for radical change becomes more compelling. Now, has the ruling elite in Nigeria been sensitive and responsive to the welfare of Nigerians?

There is no doubt in my mind that since independence, and especially after the civil war in 1970, Nigerian rulers have emasculated the people through incompetent, corrupt and mediocre leadership. The ogre of corruption by politicians reared its ugly head during the First Republic and eventually led to the first military coup in January 15, 1966. It gathered momentum during the regime of Yakubu Gowon. But the degree of corruption and ineptitude

during Gowon’s era pales into smithereens when compared with what came afterwards.

For instance, the military dictatorships of Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and Abdulsalam Abubakar could be described as the beatification of what the bohemian Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, called authority stealing, a sobriquet for corruption in high places. The administration of Babangida, to my mind, was the worst among the three because, apart from garlanding corruption, Babangida took Nigerians through a futile political rigmarole which culminated in the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections.

Naturally, the human and material costs of his legerdemain still weigh heavily on Nigerians, especially on the downtrodden who have continued to bear the brunt of misgovernance since independence. When Olusegun Obasanjo took over from Abubakar as civilian president in May 29, 1999, there were hopes in certain quarters that he has the experience, knowledge and grit to put Nigeria back on the road to sustainable development. Obasanjo did a few things right, but did many wrong things.

The setting up of the EFCC and ICPC was good. However, greed, corruption, nepotism, sacred cowism and lack of vision militated against his efforts. By the time Obasanjo left office after eight years of arrested development, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became president.  The late Yar’Adua was not a very good choice, because he was a man of fragile health saddled with the difficult challenge of providing good leadership for the country.

Apart from obeying court orders and reduction of impunity in governance, the late president did not improve on what Obasanjo left behind. After his death, Goodluck Jonathan took over power. For now, Jonathan is not performing to the level Nigerians want. His fundamental weakness is the inability to break away from the iron chain of entrenched interests and cabals whose major preoccupation is primitive accumulation.

The president lacks  determination and moral wherewithal to challenge the status quo and bring about social transformation. Right now, the country needs a transformational figure badly, but Jonathan is not the one. I have surveyed briefly the weed-infested landscape of Nigerian leadership to prepare us for the central argument of our discussion – that what Nigeria needs for rapid development is a benevolent dictator with the will, intelligence and determination to break with our odious past and perform the painful surgical operation required to heal Nigeria.

All the three tiers of government have been compromised by gross incompetence and corruption.
The executive at both state and federal levels is thoroughly corrupt. The legislature which ought to put the executive in check is so neck-deep in authority stealing that very soon, if care is not taken, Nigeria will be bankrupt.

The saddest aspect of all this is the inability of our judiciary to rise to the occasion and deliver judgments that would save the country from sliding further down the dark tunnel of nothingness. We now have agbata ekee judges who write judgments to favour the highest bidder. Corruption is alive and thriving in the judiciary.

Therefore, now that it has become the last hope of the rich and the influential and no longer the last hope of the common man, it means that the apparatus of government has lost the moral authority to demand total allegiance from oppressed Nigerians.

The major reason for the existence of government is protection of lives and property of the citizens and provision of conducive environment for the optimum development of their productive powers. For decades, Nigerian governments have not fulfilled this mandate. Hence, we should be bold in articulating options that could rescue the country from collapse. I know that many people will fault our arguments in favour of benevolent dictatorship for our country at this time, considering our painful experiences with Babangida and Abacha.

But then, we are talking about a dictator who combines decisiveness with benevolence, discipline with fairness, incorruptibility with incomparable desire to help the poor and the oppressed. Of course, we have never had such a leader.

Buhari was disciplined and decisive. But he was not benevolent, and could not rise above the entrapment and narrowness of vision flowing from his Hausa-Fulani origin. The level of greed and corruption among the ruling and business elite in Nigeria is so alarming that the present system cannot tackle the problem from its tap root. In fact, the system itself is the product of greed and corruption and, thus, part of the problem whose solution we are seeking.
TO BE CONTINUED.