“No form of society can be reasonably stable in which the majority of the people are not fairly content.

People cannot be content if they feel that the foundations of their lives are wholly unstable.” -James Truslow Adams (1878-1949)

ECONOMIC prosperity, peace and progress are the rewards which the people get in return for their commitment to the tenets of the ‘Social Contract’. Hence, the economist Dr. E. Schumacher (1911-1977) posited in his book “Small is Beautiful” that, “call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation of man, peril to the world or to the well-being of future generations as long as you have not shown it to be “uneconomic” you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow and prosper.”

We need no econometric synopsis and catechism to know that the corrupt disposition of the Nigerian Leadership at all levels right from 1960 till date has left the Nigerian masses anaesthetized, indurated, castrated and asphyxiated by the scorching pangs of poverty.

This is against the back drop of the fact that Nigeria is the sixth biggest producer of oil in the world. It has earned trillions of petro-dollars from 1956 when oil was first discovered at Oloibiri, Bayelsa State, till its commercialization in 1958. The economic strangulation of Nigerians has been pursued and still being pursued with robust gusto by the ruling class right from independence, so much so that, it is now the fundamental objective and directive principles of state policy. The quintessential entrenchment of poverty in Nigeria has become our National anthem, pledge and motto.

The Nigerian project and by extension the African agenda has been a still birth, a gridlock and a cliffhanger running in concentric circles because of the intravenous incapability of Nigeria to create a leadership focus. Existing statistical data show that Nigeria is cascading down the horrendous economic quagmire of weird poverty. In 1970, then 10years after independence, Nigeria was ranked 37th in the world with per capital income of $1, 00 U.S. dollar. But today, at more than 54 years after independence Nigeria is ranked the second poorest country in the world with a yearly percentage income of $300 dollars.

Poverty in Nigeria is catalytically fueled by the bane of corruption which has become our national ethos. The political leadership is unrelenting and religiously devoted to the god of corruption. The trial of corrupt government officials, right from independences till date is always manipulated and now still being manipulated. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, syndicate has rendered the EFCC, ICPC and CCB etc. impotent through the spider web of judicial intrigues. Nigerians are consigned to the ineluctable fate of dreadful poverty, economic objurgation and arrested development.

The long hand of corruption will definitely accentuate the gross darkness over shadowing our nation. The activities of politicians are so unthinkably bad that we hope that their inability to learn from the lessons of history will not turn the hands of our political clock backwards to the road to Yugoslavia and the Hobbesian state of nature manifested in a revolution, youth restiveness, communal clashes, riots, political unrest, religious schism, secession and Rawlings-like killing of the past and present leaders.

At over 54 years of independences, we need no political clairvoyant to know that the Nigerian nation is gallivanting and junketing in the cauldron of self-destruct, and like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead. Nigeria is clinically nuanced in a morgue and it can only be brought back to life through a Lazarus-like miracle.   It needs an economic revolution, moral rearmament, social reinvention, leadership ablution, religious repositioning and political renaissance to rekindle it back to life.

Otherwise, all the laudably lofty ideas of NEPAD, SEEDS, NEEDS, PRIVATIZATION, CURRENCY REDENOMINATION, MICRO AND MACRO FINANCING THROUGH SMES, NIGER DELTA MASTER PLAN, DESOPADEC, AGRONOMY, COMMUNICATION, EDUCATION, POWER DISTRIBUTION, WATER PROJECT, ROAD CONSTRUCTION, HOUSING AND MEDICAL PROJECTS etc. will continue to be a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

The challenges of the times and the quantifiable targets for government are captured in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDGs represents a global agreement setting out key standards that nations should achieve by 2015.

The goals include the following: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieve Universal Primary Education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

Finally, Nigeria will continue to steeple chase in the crevices of backwardness and arrested development unless the monster of corruption is given a gruesomely lethal blow through the introduction of the “DEATH PENALTY” for corruption misdemeanors.

The legal logistics could be worked out. Nigeria cannot make meaningful economic progress unless we rededicate ourselves to the nuts and bolts of nation building. The grotesque salamander-like assassinations, armed robbery, suicide and the unpatriotic characteristic of the Nigerian will continue to be on the ascendancy unless there is an economic exorcism to deracinate the Nigeria nation from the wicked incubus of poverty, this must be the Holy Grail of our match to nationhood. Late John F. Kennedy corroborated this position when he said, “if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

A word is enough for the wise. The 2015 elections should precipitate a time for sober reflections. The statesman Franklin Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) said, “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that build from the bottom up, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” If Nigerians vote in a corrupt leadership and government, they have themselves to blame.

Mr. Bobson Gbinije, a social critic, wrote from Warri, Delta State.