Common Sense

There Are No Drivers In Lagos

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

…..one of the vehicles that was supposed to be behind my car did the diagonal turning and collided with an oncoming lorry. There was another accident- two commercial buses collided with each other and an okada passenger flew between the 2 vehicles just before they collided. This is Lagos..!

There Are No Drivers In Lagos

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By Adeola Aderounmu

On my recent trip to Nigeria, l could almost not believe what l saw on Lagos roads. I knew that driving in Lagos had always been a hassle and that some people have ignorantly or maybe stupidly concluded many years ago that if you can drive in Lagos, then you can drive anywhere in the world. That notion is not only misleading; it is also very dangerous.

If driving in Lagos on the other hand means that you can drive anywhere in Nigeria, then l can generalize that there are no drivers in Nigeria. I took time to observe driving in my area and on major roads in Lagos. Not one person driving on Lagos roads that l saw passed the simple driving tests that l conducted.

One of the most amazing, yet disturbing discoveries l made was this: not one driver in Lagos knew how to turn left at a junction. In normal driving, on a two-way road, you drive to the end of the road whilst keeping to your lane, then you make a curve (like going around the last quarter of a circle or ring) to turn left. I did not see one driver in Lagos do this turn correctly.

To make left turns, all the drivers in Lagos made diagonals. They don’t even make it from their half of the road. Long before the actual turning point, as they approach the junction, Lagos drivers make long diagonals that put them head to head with the oncoming vehicles.

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The first time l observed this anomaly, l actually thought it was just a silly driver who was impatient.

Later l found out that everybody drives that way. Commercial vehicle drivers and private car drivers, drove the same way. This is the standard for driving in Lagos.

One day, l had a passenger at the back seat in my car. He said he thought l was driving straight-on after he saw that l actually turned left at a junction. He was not used to drivers using the full length of the road to the turning point before making the turn. He said l would get tired of my sane driving, but l never did because l wasn’t trained to drive like an insane person.

Every time l am making my normal left turn, there are other vehicles, between 1 to 3 that make the turn before me while l am at my normal driving. They think they are good drivers or that they are smarter in getting ahead.

In this essay, l cannot include the menace of the motor-cycles as commercial transportation means in Lagos. Let us save the discussion about that pestilence that is unleashed on Lagos for another time.

As a result of foolishness, recklessness and not-knowing-how to drive of almost all Lagos drivers, I was a witness to at least 3 accidents whilst l drove in Lagos.

Another day whilst l was doing my normal omoluabi junction-turning, one of the vehicles that was supposed to be behind my car did the diagonal turning and collided with an oncoming lorry. How many accidents on Lagos road are due to wrong driving?

This dangerous diagonal turning was one of the most obvious indicators of wrong driving by Lagos drivers that l observed and it remains a major cause of head-to-head collision/accidents at road junctions.

There was another accident due mainly to bad driving that was so serious that two commercial buses collided with each other on 23 Road in Festac Town. It was like a movie when an okada passenger flew between the two vehicles before they collided and he somersaulted on the road. The motor cycle and the okada-driver slided long the road like the movie was not about to finish yet.

In fact, the other useless and reckless driving of Lagos drivers are too numerous to elaborate here. But generally, it is a crazy situation on Lagos roads with human and vehicular traffic forming a permanent compound mess.

More of my observations below.

Lagos drivers do not know how to drive on lanes (but they can claim that most roads are not marked with lines and they’ll be right at that). Still, what happens to straight line driving? What l saw was that most of the drivers in Lagos do not even know about driving on a lane.

Once the roads are not marked, they are driving from right to left to center, just anyhow they like. They fill available space on the road and collide too easily with one another.

Lagos drivers do not keep the distance. There should be at least 5 meters between 2 cars on the road. For some vehicles, the distance behind them should be 10 meters if they have risk of rolling backwards or if they vehicles used for deliveries, having haulage facility/equipment trailing behind them.

In one accident, I saw an okada driver fastened to the back of a jeep and he could not detangle his motor cycle. It was so confusing; l did not even understand it even as we drove past the conjoined vehicles.

Lagos drivers do not use or respect the indicator light that shows when you when you change lanes or make a turn. 99.9 % of Lagos drivers do not look out for indicator lights. When you indicate a turn with your light and hoping that someone is using their brain on Lagos road, you have just made yourself a target for an accident and probably an untimely death.

Rather than using your signs, you and your passengers have to bring your heads out of the car and try to have contacts with the reckless drivers on the road and beg them to let you change your lane or to turn right or left.

In general driving on Lagos road is still very much an insane experience. It may not be the biggest problem in Nigeria but it is surely a significant part of public health question and analyses. It is either the people bring madness to the roads or the roads make people mad. Whichever way you view it, it is bad and sad.

On Lagos roads, there are no rooms for respect and courtesy. Everybody looks angry! People are not driving or behaving normally behind the wheels. Everybody is in a hurry and everybody believes that they should not give room to another driver. It’s as if everybody is chasing the same thing or the same thing is chasing everybody.

In all these negative brouhahas, one begins to wonder about the roles of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC. This agency must be really rotten and inefficient. They are not working. How can they explain the acquisition of drivers’ licenses by all the bad drivers in Lagos? Have all these crazy drivers passed through any driving school? Have they been tested theoretically and practically?

In Lagos the dangers and evil on the road are so numerous that coming back home to your house in the evening is considered an everyday miracle.

So what are the ways out of this hydra-headed problem that has grown so big that it is now the norm to be drive anyhow-you-like in Lagos. Where do we start from in this country where everything has fallen apart and into pieces?

One can also question the roles of the bribe-loving police force in all these extreme dramas, thrillers and horrors on Lagos/ Nigerian roads. They are constant on the roads, pointing their guns at ordinary citizens as if there is a war in Lagos. But their primary concern is their filthy pockets.

The police, the FRSC, the people and even the state government  and its other transport agencies are all contributing their own quotas to the madness and complexity on Lagos roads. Everybody is claiming right, everybody is neglecting their duties and obligations and everybody is doing the wrong thing.

When Nigerians return home from Europe and America with their drivers’ licenses that were earned like war trophies, they are insulted and humiliated to the extent that the authorities make many of them to acquire the Nigerian license that are obtainable without undergoing driving tests.

In their ignorance, the men of the FRSC and the police turn down hard-earned foreign driver’s license. I heard they don’t even recognize international driver’s license. Really? Of course, they will accept the bribe that follows the argument on this.

During my stay in Lagos, l spent a substantial time shouting at some motorists and educating them on a few things that l saw them do wrong. Yes, l did that sometimes when l was behind the wheels and sometimes when l took my usual long walks along the streets.

Constantly proving that l was right, l just refuse to leave my lane for the stupid oncoming okada motor-cyclists and other drivers who really do not have any business on the road. I was hardly in a hurry, so that turned out well.

The first lesson in a driving school says: plan for your journey. That particular lesson will cure about 50% of the insanity on Lagos road. Where are people rushing to? They will overtake you with the narrowest of margin beside you or in front of you! What are they chasing?

There are rush hours and heavy traffic in major cities across the world. But the cars keep rolling. In Nigeria, the traffic stands still not only because of bad roads, but also because of bad driving and total absence of knowledge about safe driving.

So if the people plan their journeys, if drunkards are removed from the roads, and if the roads become motorable say 100 years from now because Nigerian roads are still among the most dangerous road in the world today, maybe more than 90% all the accidents on Nigerian roads will become preventable. Lofty goal l guess.

The traditional custodian of Lagos and the governor of Lagos, where do you go from here? Lagos drivers don’t know how to drive. They just move the vehicles. They need help and deliverance. You need help too because right under your watch, Lagos has fallen apart.

 

aderounmu@gmail.com

 

all images taken by Adeola Aderounmu

Reflections

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

When l was 8 years old, my class teacher Mrs. Nwaoha taught me the importance of merit in attaining positions whilst handing me my first experience of taking responsibilities outside my home. Her approach continues to influence my thinking to this day.

Reflections

By Adeola Aderounmu

Aadeola_March 2016

Usually l write my random reflections annually on July 12 to mark my birthday. In recent weeks l have written sporadically in this column (View from Scandinavian in the Nigeria Village Square).

I have not been able to keep to the schedule of publishing every Sunday.

There are explanations for this.

One is that sometimes one feels the urge to just take it easy during the weekend when the week days have been intensive and tiring.

Second is that sometimes l listen to the news from Nigeria or I read the newspaper and then l found out that what my friend told me is true: the more things change in Nigeria, the more they stay the same.

As a columnist it is becoming more demanding to write about Nigeria in order to keep the content fresh or valid. It is hard to do this.

The problems that Nigerian columnists wrote about in 1980 are still the same problems that we are writing about today.

Nigeria has failed to develop or evolve.

We have not been able to change or raised the standard of our discussions to issues that challenge our growth or development because Nigeria is not growing or developing in comparison to several countries with high standard of living and high life expectation.

We are stagnated on economic issues as the value of the Naira remains a disgrace to the country and the people.

In far away places including America, Nigerians have been placed in strategic positions to help the country remain progressive in various ramifications.

However in Nigeria, for more than 50 years, we convert our economic gurus and scientists to fellow political criminals as soon as they arrive on the political stage.

We don’t move forward.

In politics, at a time that the world is discussing migration politics and politics of job creation, we in Nigeria are still struggling with counting of ballot papers.

Nigeria is a disgrace to Africa when it comes to conducting elections.

Recently it was in Kogi State and last week it was in Rivers State where people in this century and age went about killing fellow human beings just because they were asked to cast their votes.

In 1980 whilst I was in primary 3 my class teacher thought it was time to appoint class representatives who would be good ambassadors of her class. She adopted the merit system.

She based her arguments on performances during classwork and related activities.

It was a peaceful exercise. l emerged as the class captain and Foluso Agboola emerged as the assistant class captain.

It probably wasn’t a democratic process but it is an integral part of democracy, that merit would be considered a factor in producing candidates.

We were rewarded with positions because we deserved it.

Before that process I had seen boys since l was 6 years old or less fighting for place and supremacy and l have no idea how or why they thought they had to fight to claim authority when they have not shown that they are responsible.

Mrs. Nwaoha cleared things in my head forever. Merit first.

In 2016 the Federal Republic of Nigeria cannot conduct elections that involve ordinary counting of votes.

The people of Rivers cannot conduct themselves orderly. They went about committing murders and arsons rather then fishing out men of character and integrity like civilised people.

I weep.

In several essays l have written of the times l wept for Nigeria in my private moment and it is not a joke or make believe. Sometimes l had cleaned tear drops from my laptops.

If an x-ray can reveal a bleeding heart, the beam light should come to my chest.

Nigeria makes me sad.

Stories like those associated with the beheading of politicians and the massacres of citizens in River States are devastating to my health status.

I think about where civilisation has brought mankind and what Nigerians are doing to themselves. I’ll been insensitive and inhuman to hold back my tears.

Stories from the north are not news. The traumas of my childhood just became incurable as l wrote in a previous essay.

I don’t think that Boko Haram or terrorists (individuals or government) anywhere in the world represent the true species of humans. I long for a new biological classification of the animal kingdom. The world needs a new Carl Linnaeus.

The fuel scarcity in Nigeria is still unbelievable. Nigeria is naturally endowed with this resource. I have no words to flog the curse of the black oil. Huge disappointment for the black race is an understatement.

Power supply does not trip off in many countries around the world. Nigerians are undoubtedly among the smartest and most creative people under the sun.

Hence, it is hard to find an answer to the question: why do Nigerians have almost no electricity at all in the country?

Femi, my smart friend in Stockholm, gave an insight, it may be an answer.

He said that even if Nigeria decides to provide electricity on 100% supply mode, the infrastructures are not there to sustain it. O dear!

If that be the case, what about spending the next 2-3 years putting the infrastructure in place and constant power supply for ever more? Is that rocket science too?

I called this essay reflection and my intention was to make it short.

One can be hard on self if the issues and problems with Nigerians are taken too hard/harsh.

Whatever, it will always make me sad to see all the possibilities for growth, for development and for making Nigeria a paradise yet that the useless political class and the thieving ruling class have decided that the status quo shall be sustained.

I could definitely go on to reflect or complain. They want us to be tired of doing this. If we get tired, things might even get worse for the voiceless and the downtrodden in Nigeria.

I wish that good roads, good schools, good hospitals and modern infrastructures will be developed in every local government and every state in Nigeria.

I wish that as many people as possible will know and experience quality life style before they bid the world goodbye.

It is sad to see people who have lived all of their lives in extreme poverty whilst the country Nigeria has the potential to be the best place in the world.

The people paid severely for bad governance and mismanagement.

They are still paying and when restructuring the political system and realigning the country regionally or on true federalism are not even mentioned as probable solutions, there is little hope that we will change the lines of discussions soonest.

aderounmu@gmail.com

 

What About Us?

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

When only few people are protecting the rights and interests of the common people, the cleavage in the society becomes deeper. We against them become instinctive and the survival of the fittest mode of existence becomes even more brutal.

What About Us?

Adeola Aderounmu

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In an earlier essay All They Ever Wanted written in July 2012, l explained what the common Nigerian people hoped for.

I stated that the common people will always be there and all they will ever want is the good life.

In today’s Nigeria the ordinary people are fading out of the picture.

The good life in Nigeria today is measured by wealth only. It is a very sad situation.

You have to actually be a very rich person to get some (not even all) of the basic things of life. Most of them you provide for yourself- water, electricity, quality education and so on.

Name it!

In extreme cases, you’ll build or fix some of the roads that lead to your home using your hard-earned income or labour.

There are evidence that point to the quick disappearance of the middle class in Nigeria.

I don’t know if it is a good or mixed news that middle class is also fading away from places like the United States where poverty is also rife.

Globally, the statistics released recently are scary.

What has worsened the plight of the common people in Nigeria is not just the near absence of the basic things of life, but also that very few people are speaking on their behalves.

When we speak or write, we get shut down by those who think they are doing well and that life is a competition rather than an experience.

The advent of the social media, just like the discovery of oil in Nigeria, may become a curse for the common people in Nigeria.

If caution is not taken, the social media will be dominated by mainly heartless souls who probably rake in millions of Naira monthly to represent their paymasters in good light whereas the true plights of the masses are akin to crimes against humanity.

When the hijackers have not been the E-rats, they have been the lucky ones who now belong to the new definition of the Nigerian middle class-at least in their own opinions.

For, the gap between the have and the have-nots and the differences between comfort and the tragedy of poverty in Nigeria are profound.

Last week l stated that the people need to know the difference between civil responsibilities/patriotism and taking sides with the government.

Government have obligations, and not favours to the people and the country. Government should not be praised, but checked.

When only few people are protecting the rights and interests of the common people, the cleavage in the society becomes deeper. We against them become instinctive and the survival of the fittest mode of existence becomes even more brutal.

Worse still, when the people continue to think that their hopes lie in prayers rather than actions and forceful demands; the social disorder appears to be irreversible.

Several factors have contributed to the establishment of Nigeria as a flashy, but failed country.

All the monies that have been looted in Nigeria since time immemorial are enough to make every household in Nigeria a potential multimillionaire family.

Even 500 million dollars returned to Nigeria should have a profound impact on us, the people. It should. But we don’t feel it.

Rather, tax for common things like bank deposits have crept into our existence. What have they done with the taxes for more than 55 years?

But money alone is not the true measure of a good life.

People actually want to work so they can earn decent livings.  People will like to see trust and commitment of government to the common good.

Think about the entire infrastructure that could have been erected.

Think about the jobs that could have been created. Think about the health sector, education, road, environmental policies, power supply and many more things that the government owed the people.

What about the manufacturing industry?

Just think about it.

Please think about it next time you compare what your kinsmen have stolen with what the others have stolen. Why would anyone calibrate crimes against humanity?

Think about it next time you think that those in government today are not as criminally minded as those before them. Did they not participate in the common rape of our common wealth since 1999?

Since 1960?

Where do you want to start from and where do you want to end just to realise that we the ordinary people are out of the equation?

Is it the environmentally-damaged South or the terrorist-infected North?

Think about your foolishness in defending any form of looting or criminality in government.

Think about the consequences of the unity of the Nigerian politicians and military gangsters in misruling Nigeria because of their personal gains/ambitions.

When you speak for them or when you stand on the same side with them it cannot be that you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.

Why are you not on the same side with us, the people?

Why are you right? What makes the rest of us wailers?

I am a common Nigeria. So, what about us?

We put our hope in the Nigerian government in terms of providing better life for us after independence in 1960.

What about us?

Who is going to fight for us now that the value of the dollar has been taken to the sky? Who is going to fight for us when the prices of petrol and gas at the stations are beyond us.

Who will talk for us when we are all called wailing wailers because we have different points of view to your pay masters or families in government?

Is it just enough that you are doing well?

Did you think that we are on planet earth for a race or some sort of competition on who fares better?

What about us?

Our dreams? Our future?

Our aspirations?

What about the place of our ancestors, our homes?

What about our children?

What about us?

aderounmu@gmail.com

The Road To Perdition?

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

Buhari is enjoying the rape of the Jonathan administration whilst his friends and cronies in the Halliburton international scandal are having dinner with him daily. What a scandal! What a shame!

The Road To Perdition?

Countries that are rated as best performers or least corrupt around the world do not have leaders who have declared their assets. They do not have to. They have functional media and investigative journalism that reveals anomalies in wealth acquisition and properties that are not correlated with earnings.

They have a tax system that monitors property. They have a police system that monitors private and public citizens. The judiciary works and the entire system, mostly, is functional.

halliburton

I stand to be corrected that in places where such systems operate and work for the citizens, that they are not better gifted intellectually than Nigerians or even Africans. So if one argues that Nigeria cannot have such a system after 16 years of democracy, it will be a submission to the nonsensical white supremacy or self-acquired inferiority complex.

Heads up now you Africans!

Assets declaration (especially if it is constitutional) is a useless distraction. Only a thief or one who plans to be a criminal or a system that expects criminals in government will encourage such a stupid clause in the constitution. Imagine that there is also an immunity clause in the Nigerian constitution. Is that not a contradiction?

Declare your assets but you will not go to jail even if you have stolen them. Recently I asked why criminals are the politicians we chose in Nigeria.

When a man declares his assets without further explanations on how he acquired the assets, then the asset declaration is even useless. You have a house in London. Is it your family’s inheritance? Is it a gift from the Queen of England? Did you save so much money as a civil servant or you did a business that was so profitable that you were able to afford it?

In non-abstract mathematics, answers are useless without the processes or methods to show how you arrived at the answers. Even medical research findings must come with methods and procedures.

Declaring one assets does not mean that one is a not a criminal or a public treasury looter. In a rare case that one is able to save all the excess salaries and greedy allowances that the (criminal) politicians in Nigeria pay themselves while the ordinary citizens crawl in penury, it still does not make it fair. It’s all nonsense and ingredients!

One thing that the Nigerian people ought to know is that the system of government even now under Buhari is still built on deceit, lies and obvious propaganda. It is shocking how loyalists to any government pick up one tiny detail or some pieces of deceits and mould it to extreme achievements.

Is this where you want to be as a (sleeping) giant of Africa? Seriously, is this the life you choose to live?

Nigerians need to wake up from the state of permanent slumber. They need to wake up from government-induced comatosis. For once they should try to follow up on events, activities, investigations, promises, remarks, comments and all that affect their lives.

Nigerians tolerate a lot of nonsense and they are easily taken for rides by their governments-federal, state and local. It pains so see that those who benefits from a prevailing government of the day or still looking for that opportunity to partake in the looting or sharing of any part of the national cake help to propagate deceits or to close the chapters on matters of national interest.

When the problem starts from the top, it is hard to nip it in the bud.

Buhari’s government has been boxed into a corner. It is several of Buhari’s personal friends and Buhari himself who have destroyed Nigeria such that even after 16 years of the so-called democracy, Nigeria remains in LIMBO.

Buhari is setting more bad examples of how not to govern if Nigeria is to rise again. Nigerians were deceived to think that a saint has emerged. The first test of Buhari’s anticorruption crusade was to show all his friends in the Halliburon scandal the road to kirikiri. He failed.

What did Buhari tell the judiciary? What has he been doing to the police? They have failed to arrest and start the prosecution of all the criminals in the Halliburton scandal. Buhari is rather enjoying the rape of the Jonathan administration whilst dinning daily with his international criminal friends. This is a shame! It is a scandal out of measurable magnitude!

All the Halliburton criminals that have visited Buhari in Aso rock must have gone with one message or the other. Could those messages include a blackmail of revealing all the financial mess involving Buhari when he was petroleum minister and when he was in charge of PTF? Do all Nigerian rulers live with criminal tags hanging over their necks?

Nigerians do not follow up on issues that affect their lives negatively. They do not follow up on the issues that should be brought to logical conclusions so that lessons can be learnt and life can be better for all. Nigeria has a pool of criminals now generally classified as UNTOUCHABLES.

The Nigerian media is so useless in this regard. The brown envelope syndrome is as old as Nigeria and the media outfits today are controlled by one political godfather or the other. The rest belongs to the PDP or APC-alignment. There is almost no free press within Nigeria or on the web. He who pays the piper is the common slogan for almost all of them.

There are ways to bring some degree of sanity to the government while some of us are still waiting for the ultimate political solution. Citizen responsibility and patriotism are lacking in Nigeria. Once a man is ok, the others can rot for all he cares. This attitude is killing the spirit of the country.

One man will say that Buhari is less corrupt than Jonathan. Another will say Abacha stole more than IBB. Then one will conclude that Obasanjo is their Baba. They are all speaking on tribal sentiments or based on what they or their families have benefited from all the useless dictators. I say all of them are criminals.

Until that day when tribal marks are taken off political criminals or military gangsters, Nigeria as a country may remain on the road to perdition.

Since Nigerians have refused to fight a common war for the good of all, the country remains in disunity. It remains in the hands of those who know nothing about positive governance and how to make a mighty country out of all the abundance of wealth and human resources scattered in all the nations that make up Nigeria. This is one of the greatest tragedies of modern era-that a country so blessed parades some of the poorest people in the world.

Before you forget Nigerians, please remember that a criminal built a first-class hospital in Akwa Ibom but went abroad after sustaining injuries in a road accident. When he comes back, ask him why he went abroad after building a first-class hospital in his state.

More importantly, put him and his contemporaries on trial. It is time for them to account for their time in power. Don’t forget the man who made a website for N78 m in a world where wordpress.com is still free!

One governor called Amosun sacked some teachers and educationists in western Nigeria for doing their jobs. Have the teachers been recalled? If not, all the people living in that state are fools! Their children’s future will remain in jeopardy and they may be on the road to perdition.

So many governors cannot pay workers’ salaries and they have not been impeached or even resigned out of shame. Nigerian wonder!

One governor budgeted N200 m for prayer warriors. Adamawa is definitely under a spell if that money has not been recalled to build houses for the homeless.

I recall an outgoing season of madness in Nigeria and I know that as September is running out, Nigerians are stuck with a boring Buhari-reality show. One day the members of the stain-free executive will arrive on a saintly mission as we have been told.

If they miss the opportunity to work with the lazy, money-sucking National Assembly to restructure Nigeria politically so that it becomes governable again, the road to perdition will acquire more turns.

aderounmu@gmail.com

6 Jonathanic Years Of Waste

/ Adeola / 1 Comment

At this time in Nigeria’s history no change or transformation will be complete without a lasting political solution. I hope to continue to write again about Nigeria but only under a new dispensation, otherwise it will not be worth it.

Six Jonathanic Years Of Waste

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

As l write this article, the main opposition party in Nigeria the APC seems poised to win the 2015 presidential election. Everyone is waiting for the official results to be announced by the electoral commission-INEC.

In 2010 when Umaru Yar Adua died l wrote an article on my blog lambasting all his supporters who were creating obstacles that could disrupt the smooth emergence of the vice president Mr. Goodluck Jonathan as the next president of the federal republic of Nigeria.

At that time l was enraged that democractic principles could be thrown away if Mr. Goodluck Jonathan was not allowed to continue as the president of Nigeria as stipulated by the constitution.

My support at that time was for the continuation of an imperfect mandate.

During his short reign as the president of Nigeria Umaru acknowledged that he became the president of Nigeria through a fraudulent process. He was probably swept off his feet by the PDP rigging machinery courtesy of Obasanjo and Ibori.

The PDP which emerged as Nigeria’s ruling party under Mr. Obasanjo in 1999 until the time of Yar Adua’s death was already a great disappointment.

To the chagrin surprise of ordinary Nigerians, after the military left in 1999, corruption was re-entrenched in Nigeria’s civilian reign just the way it has always been since independence in 1960. Nepotism became rife and the dividends of democracy stayed mostly with the politicians, their families, their friends and acquaintances.

Mostly too, the business of governance was neglected as the presidency, the executive members of government, the ministers, the governors and even local government chairmen raked in monies into their personal accounts in Nigeria and abroad.

Crude oil production and marketing became complete mafia affairs. Subsidy scam, pension scam and employment scam escalated with time. The diversification of the economy was put into coma.

There were occasional pockets of good news but overall the expectations of more than 90 m Nigerians who live below the poverty level and unsure of the next meal remain largely unmet. They continue to suffer and continue to live hopelessly even to this day.

It was against this backdrop of disappointments that Nigerians gave a popular support to the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. They thought he was a new kid on the block.

But they got it wrong. If the track records of political office holders are relevant in Nigeria and the laws correctly enforced, Goodluck Jonathan would have been a prisoner at the time he was contesting for the office of the presidency.

This is because he had used his wife as a front in looting the funds that belong to the people of Bayelsa State when he was deputy governor and later governor.

Goodluck Jonathan was not fit for any political office. This is actually true for more than 90% of Nigeria’s politicians. Many of them are criminals waiting to plunge the state and national treasuries. So it is not as if Gooldluck Jonathan is an isolated case.

When Goodluck Jonathan started his own mandate in 2011, it suddenly became clear that the largest black nation in the world had been handed over to a clown. Goodluck Jonathan is not only clueless, he is also grossly incompetent and lazy.

The ridiculous nature of politics in Nigeria in the hands of fraudsters cannot be overemphasized.

The fact that the Nigerian National Assembly could allow such a disaster on Nigeria reveals that national assembly is also full of individuals who are after their own selfish interests. To call them criminals too is fair enough considering that their inactions have continue to send children, unprotected people, the elderly and the several other categories of Nigerians to their early graves.

Where lies the hope of the common man and the ordinary people in Nigeria?

Since 1999 the return of civilian rule in Nigeria has revealed the criminalities of civil administrators and their actions and inactions together have contributed enormously to crimes against humanity.

Since 2011 Mr. Jonathan did absolutely nothing to curb corruption.

His antecedents provide a useful base for comparison. He was corrupt as a deputy governor and later governor. He allowed all the corrupt people under him to flourish. He released murderers from prisons, he pardoned convicted persons and he embraced them publicly. Jonathan promoted drug dealers and put them in position of authority.

Jonathan’s affinity for criminals and crimes has no bound.

The latest were the re-enthronement of a thug one Mr. Fayose as the governor of Ekiti and a known criminal Mr. Obanikoro as a minister of the federal republic of Nigeria.

Mr. Goodluck Jonathan up till now is the worst president Nigeria has ever had. The previous political and military rulers are all crooks and corrupt people. But Goodluck Jonathan took corruption to a new dimension. His simply laid it like a spreadsheet program.

They should all been prosecuted and it is never too late to recover Nigeria’s stolen wealth.

A president who does not understand that stealing is corruption is a source of international embarrassment to Nigeria and Africa.

Goodluck Jonathan does not also understand the importance of courtesy and decorum. The way his wife have been screaming, crying and lately campaigning across Nigeria adds to the embarrassment that his family brought to Nigeria.

Mrs. Jonathan graduated from the looter of Bayelsa to the looter of Aso rock and she runs her mouth faster than her brain cells.

The Jonathans have not represented Nigeria in good light.

Nigeria is blessed with courageous people and some of the most brilliant and sound minds in the world, yet the country always manage to bring insane people to serve in public offices as politicians.

The process that produces the likes of Jonathan and his lousy wife has also over the years produced thousands of similarly unfit people in various public and political offices.

This is one of the sources of the challenges that Nigeria faces. Wrong people who should be receiving counselling and psychological supports have been elevated to run politics and policies.

The lack of electricity, the lack of functional public schools, the lack of good roads and the absence of social justice did not start with Mr. Jonathan. Under him things that did not start with him just went down the spiral curve.

He is always emphatic about these issues and he is always repeating the obvious- that Nigeria’s problems did not start during his administration. He is so clueless not to even take one issue head on and solve it as an evidence that he can perform.

It is not only the oil sector that is in tha hands of mafia, even Nigeria’s electric power sector has been sold to the mafia. Billions of dollars were spent by the wasteful PDP government since 1999 when Obasanjo came to power but the power generation became worse. It can only be criminals who stole the money and left the work undone.

The population of criminals in government increased in the last 6 years because Jonathan had no plan and no clue about what governance is all about. It may also be that he got too drunk often like he did in Addis Ababa and forgot the task before him at the AU meeting.

I long for a country where social justice will reign.

One day l hope the judiciary arm of government will ressurect and that the police will become the institution it should be. My hope for Nigeria is that no matter the political party that any politician belongs to, that they will never be protected from the law by any form of immunity.

My hope is that Nigerian politicians, the mafia in the oil sector and in other sectors hindering the progress of the country through corruption will all be brought to their knees at the court of law, to face justice and to return looted monies.

My hope for Nigeria is that a day will come when crazy people will be bundled out of political and public offices so that normal, unright people with sense of responsibility and accountability will start to run things.

In many countries around the world, it is those few sane people in government that have kept the system working. Unfit people are never elected and they are bundled out through due process when they have been errorneously put in public office.

Nigeria can become that country where the best brains, the trusted hands and the brilliant public administrators can be saddled with nation building. The judiciary must work so that when brilliant minds become criminal minds, they can be quickly shown their room numbers at kirikiri.

At this time in Nigeria’s history no change or transformation will be complete without a lasting political solution. Nigeria must return to true federalism or regional government. The power at the center even if the judiciary is working must be removed and made unattractive.

Politics cannot be a business adventure for lazy or criminal minds and the task before a government and the people as well is to make politics unattractive for those who think that it is a means to acquire wealth for themselves and their unborn generations.

The emergence and the reign of Goodluck Jonathan were an insult to the intelligence of the Nigerian people and to Africa in particular. He and his wife brought Nigeria to ridicule and together with the loads of corrupt people in the government they made Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations.

Under Jonathan Nigeria remains as one of the most corrupt country in the world.

I will hope that the 2015 elections bring a new government. It will be interesting to see the other side of the coin.

Without a change of government through another political party we will not be able to know if the 1999 to 2015 pdp years was an avoidable waste.

In subsequent essays l want to evaluate a new government at the national level because the PDP is a known disaster.

I hope to continue to write again about Nigeria but only under a new dispensation, otherwise it will not be worth it.

aderounmu@gmail.com