Who are the ‘some’ people that are enjoying the present state of the country, and may wish to keep it is as it is? This is an attempt to answer the question “Why restart when some people are already developed and are enjoying?”
Arkad, the richest man in Babylon maintains that “No man’s family can fully enjoy life unless they do have a plot of ground wherein children can play in the clean earth and where the wife may raise not only blossoms but good rich herbs to feed her family.” Similarly, a community or nation is as strong as its capacity to own and protect its land; as rich as its capacity to extract and industrially process its natural resources for local use and external trade. This is the state of developed nations and the aspiration of the underdeveloped nations.
Yet, some people in underdeveloped nations would allow the control and use of their lands by foreigners, as long as they get shares from the robbery. They may even support the foreigners’ exploitation of their own lands by upholding the barren socio-economic system that foreigners impose on their people. These are the ‘some’ who benefit from the Nigerian and African socio-industrial bondage. This few who gain from the current state of Nigeria may not include those that have worked hard to establish their services in its harsh economic climate. Rather, they are those who live large on account of the roles they play in sustaining the faulty Nigerian system of socio-industrial bondage. Some of them include:
Foreign Companies: economic growth comes from the progress in extracting, refining and distributing human and natural resources. And those who control these means of production in a society control the state. The foreign oil companies in Nigeria will prefer that Nigerians may never know how to process the crude oil, so that Nigerians will perpetually depend on them to extract, export, refine and resell some of the finished products to Nigerians at high prices. Also, foreign electronics, textile, food and machine firms may prefer that Nigerians never learn to produce their own tools, so that Nigerians will remain dependent on their foreign firms for survival. If Nigerians can process and distribute their natural resources for local consumption and external trade, the foreign companies will lose out a whole market share. For this reason, foreign companies lobby national, state and local governments in order to retain the structure that sustains their hold on the people’s resources.
The Politicians: these are few indigenous people that are incorporated from different parts of the country and who are highly paid to represent their poor communities and districts, and who due to ignorance, cowardice or selfishness shy away for reforming the barren socio-economic system of Nigeria to a system where every community can own and use their human and natural resource to develop their lives and environment.
Civil servants: some top level civil servants aid the politicians in obtaining public funds using their technical and statistical expertise. The nature of checks and balance makes it difficult for politicians to directly take funds for private use. Instead, they create ghost projects and award bogus contracts to themselves and their friends, while the civil servants help them to justify and cover up the paperwork. Hence, through the collaboration and sharing schemes of civil servants, bankers, accountants and auditors, these funds are obtained and distributed in covens and properly buried from public scrutiny.
Union leaders: many union leaders work hand in hand with politicians to ensure that the people in their different fields of economic endeavor do not revolt too much. The union leaders ensure compliance by introducing divide and rule tactics, intimidation, threats of sack or punishment, and even murder in extreme cases.
Government allied Businessmen: these are the capitalists that use government sponsorships, contracts and waivers to import commodities that could have been produced in Nigeria. Some of them are given preferential forex rates and even specialized import license that enables them to dominate the market as strong monopolies.
Religious leaders: some Christian, Islamic and African traditional religious leaders in Nigeria still emphasize fasting, sacrifices, rituals, prayers, a lazy reliance on God, luck or miraculous magic for socio-economic revival instead of advocating for reforming the colonial system that holds people from owning and using their natural resources to produce what they need or trade. Some religious leaders even emphasize the increase in offering and tithes as a prerequisite for divine favor over education, work, and research towards local problem-solving and eventual productivity.
Traditional leaders: despite the hype of modernization, Nigerians still listen to their traditional leaders. Some of them have moved from dogmatic cultural practices to a pragmatic evaluation of the positive cultural values that can influence people’s work, education and productivity. Yet, some others remain stagnant in their old ways where they seek to intimidate, weaken or distract the people from revolting and retrieving their lands and resources for industry. Some would prefer that their citizens remain ignorant and poor so that the citizens will not rise to challenge the politicians.
The postcolonial system in Nigeria creates institutions that collaborate with their “masters” to seize and sell people’s resources to the west. At the discovery of oil, the West ensured the continuity of exploitation by supporting governments that will serve as facilitators and security guards to their resource interest in Nigeria and other places in Africa. These security-guard-governments are rewarded by the West at the cost of the people. So, the major beneficiaries of Nigeria’s resources are not Nigerians, but the foreign companies. Nigerian collaborators only get some percentage of the larger profits made by the foreign companies.
And Nigerians cannot continue to cry for the effect of colonialism years after it had stopped if some of them still collaborate with same colonial exploiters. Though some people who are in the top positions may sincerely wish to change the status quo, the machinery that is the system of Nigerian government is too big for any single person to modify. Yet, it can be addressed when there is a sincere and fearless call from a dedicated small groups of people who are ready to confront the system.