By Donu Kogbara
While debates were raging about whether President Goodluck Jonathan should or should not invite the American Government to help him rescue the abducted Chibok school girls, Senator John McCain – the Republican Party candidate who was electorally defeated by Barack Obama in 2008 – expressed the view that the US should intervene in the crisis without prior approval from our Government.

McCain told an online publication known as the Daily Beast that: “…I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan…”.

I grant you that Jonathan has not handled the Chibok drama adeptly, but I found the above comments immensely offensive, my view being that some patronising, bellicose guy named John McCain has a nerve thinking that American troops have a right to stomp into Nigeria without official consent!

Having said this, I have long felt that Nigeria will do much better if foreigners become much more involved in our day-to-day affairs on many different levels, given that we have not hitherto displayed a talent for good governance.

Since we started to rule ourselves in 1960, our country has been severely undermined by corruption, tribalism, crime, sectarian violence and incompetence.

Nigeria is one of the luckiest nations on the planet. God has blessed us with abundant natural resources. We have huge hydrocarbon reserves. We have several solid minerals in commercial quantities. We have plenty of forests that are full of quality hardwood trees. We have vast tracts of fertile land.

We are not landlocked. We have what it takes to become the maritime hub for the entire Gulf of Guinea region because we have a significant coastline.

We are not short of productive human resources either. We have millions upon millions of citizens who are smart, ambitious and capable of working hard.

Nigeria has the potential to become a REAL African Giant, a universally respected player on the international stage and a thriving land of milk and honey in which everything goes very smoothly enough most of the time.

But we are nowhere near this vision because we aren’t getting the honest, caring, efficient, altruistic and dynamic leadership that we desperately need.

I have often expressed the view that Nigerian followers are almost as culpable as Nigerian leaders because we are too docile and allow those who run the show so lousily to get away with spectacular failures and unacceptable conduct.

We complain bitterly when they steal, but do not insist that they quit stealing or be jailed for stealing. We criticise them, but do not make a massive fuss when they sidestep local facilities that are pathetically inadequate because of their negligence and then blithely proceed to provide themselves, their cronies and their relatives with superior foreign medical treatment, education, etc.

We weep and wail when they shamelessly rig elections but we do not flatly refuse to recognise beneficiaries of rigged elections – and even hail them.

We just keep bovinely swallowing the toxic s- -t that is regularly dumped on us! And it doesn’t look like there are going to be any major changes in the average Naija follower or leader’s mindset and behaviour patterns anytime soon.

Frankly, I am languishing in a gargantuan Slough of Despair at the moment and have abandoned all hope that we can govern ourselves well in the near future.

Whether they are home-trained or overseas-trained, most of our government officials perform disappointingly, to put it politely. And if I had the clout, I would ditch most of them and hire top-class foreigners – the type who possess sterling track records, formidable skills and integrity with a capital I – to handle certain public sector responsibilities on behalf of the Nigerian people.

Forgive me if I sound like a brainwashed advocate of Western neo-colonialism. But I know in my heart that I am a genuine patriot.

I grew up in London and often feel British. But I also feel Nigerian and have never applied for the British passport to which I am entitled. And I fear that Nigeria – which is floundering dangerously like a rudderless vessel – will become a complete basket case if something is not done to drag us back from the brink.

Crisis scenarios require radical solutions. And, in the global village that is today’s world, I see no reason why Nigeria should not emulate other countries that have outsourced certain top government functions to outsiders.

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, is Canadian, not English. He was hired by the UK authorities because he was deemed to be more likely to deliver a great performance than any Briton who wanted the job.

So would there be anything wrong with going a few steps further and hiring non-Nigerian CBN/INEC/EFCC bosses and non-Nigerian Ministers to work with a Nigerian President for two terms (that is, eight years) and transform Nigeria?

When I ran this idea past an equally disillusioned Nigerian friend, he said that it would never fly unless we also hired a non-Nigerian President!

What do Vanguard readers think?