IN November this year, People and Politics with Ochereome Nnanna will mark its 30th anniversary, if God permits. Another name for this column should be Nigeria Watch. We have watched this country move steadily down the ladder due to poor leadership, except for the bright spots under the second term of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the three years of the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua and four of the five years of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Right now, we are at the lowest rung of the ladder. In 1999, the notion that jihadists, terrorists, armed herdsmen and bandits would overwhelm this country would be unimaginable. But it is happening right before our eyes. The painful consequence of our inability to defend our territorial integrity is that hunger has taken over the land. The armed criminals have seized our farmlands and our farmers cannot feed us as they used to.

About 25 years ago, Nigeria was riddled with an external debt burden of over $30 billion, mostly owed the Paris Club. Obasanjo hired our best economic experts and we liquidated the debt with $12 billion proceeds of oil boom. We even had what was called an Excess Crude Account, ECA, where we dipped our hand when there were revenue shortfalls. When the all Progressives Congress, APC, arrived with its army of cankerworms, palmerworms and caterpillars, Nigeria started dying. We cannot even produce our OPEC oil quota, let alone talk about “Excess Crude Account”.

For the first time ever, a worldwide oil boom has been going on behind our back because of massive oil thefts and divestments in our upstream sector. We have to borrow or print naira just to meet our basic needs.

Nigeria is no longer what she used to be, and the world out there knows that only too well. Nigerian troops fought victoriously in Burma during the Second World War under British colonial rule. Nigeria fought in the Congo just after independence and distinguished herself. Nigeria led the ECOMOG forces to restore order and democracy in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire during the General Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha regimes.

But today, the same Nigeria chickened out of its quixotic threat to invade Niger Republic and restore the corrupt regime of Mohamed Bazoum to power. Imagine if President Tinubu and his co-travellers were adamant and invaded Niger while we could not even defend ourselves from ragtag terrorists and bandits forcing starvation on our people? The same democracy we were huffing and puffing to go and restore in Niger could certainly have collapsed in Nigeria by now!

Something ominous happened in the past two weeks or so, and it seemed to escape the observation of our government. In a bid to save his country from being overwhelmed by powerful criminal gangs, the (now former) Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, went to Kenya to seek military assistance. Kenya, for goodness’ sake! What is Kenya’s pedigree in international peacekeeping or peace enforcement, compared to that of Nigeria? Almost zilch!

If all were well with Nigeria, Henry would certainly have come to us. We have stronger historical ties with Haiti, as majority of its citizens have Nigerian and West African ancestries. In 2012, Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake, and Nigeria responded with a $1m donation. Then Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, travelled to Haiti and donated $200,000.

But this time, Nigeria is too sick to help, so Haiti turned to Kenya. World’s number one military super power and next door neighbour, America, pulled out its Embassy staff from Haiti and offered $100 million to Kenya to send troops. The same USA which was pushing Tinubu and his ECOWAS cohorts to invade Niger Republic and restore democracy, ran away from Haiti, same as they ran from Saigon, Vietnam (197) and Kabul, Afghanistan (2021).

Mind you, Haiti is in the hands of powerful street gangs which successfully broke jails, assassinated President Jovenal Moise in July 2021 only yesterday forced PM Henry to resign. Let’s keep on playing hide and seek with our own criminal gangs and jihadists until Haiti and Sudan happen to us.

The other failure signal was what I call the “Tinubu and Sons” episode. President Tinubu and his sons, Seyi and Yinka were part of Nigeria’s delegation to the Qatar investment talks. Before now, Nigerian president’s children were sometimes heard of, but hardly seen. Whoever heard of President Shehu Shagari’s children between 1979 and 1983 when he ruled? It was Gen. Babangida that made his wife a celebrity First Lady, which his successors (except Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar) copied. Tinubu’s son Seyi, hangs around Aso Villa, including the Federal Executive Council, FEC.  Tinubu is treating his family members as “government officials”.

We are going to see even more daring stunts from that end. When I saw the Qatar delegates list, I became convinced that Tinubu is building up his children for political power. A Tinubu may be the next governor of Lagos State in 2027 when his political power will be at its apogee.

Tinubu has proved his savvy at state capture. What he did in Lagos, he could (attempt to) do with Nigeria! The only former leader who tried what he appears to be doing now was the late Gen. Sani Abacha. Abacha’s ambition was to transform to a civilian president using his five registered political parties as his vehicles. Before his first son, Ibrahim, died in an air crash, he was a strong and visible presence, but mainly in the business and social sectors. But he was already more powerful and influential in his father’s government than most military generals. Abacha was building up towards the Muammar Gadaffi (Libya) and Hafez Assad (Syria) dynastic models.

We have a rough ride ahead.