By Uduma Kalu
It's normal. Every October first comes with rains. Slight shower, heavy shower, heavy rain.
But it's lost its lustre perhaps due to prolonged years of staging low key independence celebrations because, as they leaders now tell us, there is nothing to celebrate. Only deaths and sufferings.
In our days, in the midst of the rains, there would be hustle and bustle of school children, gay and happy, shouting, smiling, singing as they trooped out in their different uniforms to the local government headquarters for the match past where a local council official would stand with a salute as the school children matched past, the band playing, the hands matching swift and precise to perfection in clean uniforms.
Friendships were forged there. New dreams rose. Hopes were high. A nation, full of promise and perfection was built in the nation represented by the government officials standing at attention for the children. It was their day, the children, and government must stand up that day to serve them, in the rain, in the sun.
Today is October first but there is no sign anywhere that it is Nigeria's sixty fifth independence day. The streets are soaked and empty. No school child wearing uniform is about. There is no vehicle carrying children to anywhere. It is October first but it's silence in the streets.
What happened? I could remember it was a first October but I didn't connect it to Nigeria's independence, which is usually a public holiday. Yes, I only relate first one October to public holiday these days.
I am in the East. Here, a new consciousness has taken over the people. Nigeria's Important dates here are in decline. For example, Muslim and national holidays are just taken as impositions. Some private school students even go to schools on such holidays.
The holidays that touch them here are those that have to do with Biafra. The people here, for decades, have been agitating for their own nation out of Nigeria to be called Biafra. They have fought a war for that nation but were defeated and the republic stopped. Still, the people have continued in their agitation for it. They see that republic as their homeland where they will be free to unleash their potentials and become the superpower nation of their dream. For them, the story of Israel from exile to indestructible nationhood is their story.
It's October first. I still remember the many jobs that awaited us, not in the East. The opportunities were not really there for us in the seventies. It was just few years after the Nigeria Biafra war. And the Igbo had been removed from positions they once occupied. Their regions denied of federal presence. So even though we were matching in the independence parades with our heads high, our dreams were elsewhere for actualization. That was outside East. It was North and Lagos.
I went North. I only had my school certificate. I was young and dreamy. But what I saw in the North shocked me. Federal presence was everywhere. Their roads were wide and made by the federal government. Their state secretariat was something else. The offices were beautifully equipped. A cleaner's office looked like an MD's. The building was solid and magnificent. It was said to have been built for the state by the federal government.
The North was in power. Through it's military officials, it controlled power and the resources of the nation.
I witnessed first hand the meaning of corruption in Nigeria. Actually, corruption is a wrong word. What happened, and is still happening is clear looting of the nation's resources with a vengeance by the northern elites. The federal government statistics office says
Then, Nigeria had an economic boom and so much money was flowing from oil. The banks, postal and telephone services, universities, state and federal civil services, in fact, every aspect of the nation's economy was practically begging for employees in the north and west. Unlike in the East. We had to travel out of our East to meet those jobs.
There was the University of Maiduguri. I recall the food. It was heavily subsidized. Milk, chicken, beef, rice, all sorts of food for students. It was heavy enjoyment for us. The taps were everywhere and were all cold, refrigerated. But the University didn't have qualified hands. So people from other regions flooded there. Even students. Because the northern youths were being begged to go to school but they refused. So we from other regions filled up the empty spaces. The universities in the East were few for us. Many of us were going to school unlike in the North.
This affected manpower from the north. And it helped to breed corruption and vengeance in the country. Then, the federal government would undertake projects state governments were to undertake. This meant that the federal government allocation to local and state governments were shared by the government officials since there was nothing left for them to do.
The subsidized food supplies from NNSL , the national supply agency, meant for the people to buy at a discount were purchased by the officials and taken to their shops then sold exhorbitantly.
The post offices were not spared. The staff printed the stamps and sold for themselves in spite of the checks.
And since they didn't like to go to western schools, those with little education were given top jobs. For example, someone that attended an Arabic school, the one they liked to attend, was given a position higher than a degree holder. And they were to boss us from the south.
A case still stares at me. It was Gome. Gome was a graduate but we called northern graduate. A northern graduate meant a graduate who used political means to get his degree. The North was designated as educationally disadvantagesd region and so the standard of education for the region is seriously reduced for them. And mainly of such graduates were from Islamic schools. You can see them manning sensitive positions outside their studies such as INEC, JAMB, with the disastrous consequences.
Back to Home. Gome was Deputy Post Master General. But he he saw himself more powerful than the post master general. On fact, that is the problem with our Igbo people..
The seventies witnessed an entry of graduates into the postal services. Before then, there weren't enough graduates in the services. But early in the seventies, federal government gave unprecedented scholarships to Nigerian students to study in Eastern Europe. Many of them came back and some were absolved into the federal services.
Our people were many in postal service. They every also graduates occupying high positions. I remember some of them back from Europe and holding high positions there. They used to call themselves, ' onye Ukwu ibe m' my fellow elite.
But the North under President Shehu Shagari came with vendetta. Gome, with his Islamic degree was made deputy post master general without the requisite experience. Then an Igbo man, Ike, with an economics degree from Russia was first post master general. But Gome, with backing from the north in charge of the federal government, wielded more power than Ike. I'm fact, he sent Ike, his boss on suspension and later retired him.
They really marginalized our people. Imagine those half baked, almost illiterate people given level ten positions, far ahead of graduates worth their certificates from the south who were given level eight.
Gome was brazen. Ike was circumspect. Ike could hardly employ our people into the service but Gome, once he became deputy post master general, he flooded the place with his illiterate graduates and Islamic school leavers. How the people even came on board is interesting. Gome sent people to the villagers to come for intervi. He called the zonal post masters general to give the job applicants transportation fares, something nobody did for us. He warned the zonal bosses that if they failed to do his bidding they would be sacked. Tell, how would you recoup they money if the applicants failed?
That was how they ran the postal service aground. In fact, one of the new recruits told his Igbo boss that the new northern recruits were going to take over his job. And they did. The Igbo man was retired.
Buhari/ Idiagbon tried to stabilize things. Yes, it had its imperfections but if we have good managers under a good leader, we will know that our country is blessed. Buhari government tried to bring other to the civil service. It helped weed out old and lying hands there. There was the case of one Egedere from Bendel state. He was a very old man but he forged his age. The soldier that came to probe the postal service in Maiduguri asked him how old he was. Edegede quoted a much younger age. The soldier was amazed. " You mean I am younger than you?" He called the admin manager and asked that Edegede by retired immediately. That was Egedere was retired.
I have just given you a tip of Nigeria from the mid seventies to early eighties. The politicians then came and destroyed the rest. Shagari was a disaster followed by Babangida. Such corruption pervaded all layers of the federal government, except none. How does a country grow in such haemorrhage? It can't.
Since then, the country has been floundering. I pity the young folks here. They didn't enjoy the country as we did. The irony is the beneficiaries of that system are in power perpetuating poverty and failure in the country.
This is what an AI estimated amount looted from the country so far:
Estimating the exact amount looted by Nigerian politicians since 1999 is challenging, but here are some notable figures:
- *Recovered Abacha Loot*: Over $4 billion in cash and $2 billion in assets have been recovered from the Abacha loot from 1999 to 2022. Recent recoveries include $23 million repatriated by the US government in August 2022.
- *Alleged Ex-Governor Fraud*: 58 former governors are accused of misappropriating approximately N2.187 trillion (about $2.7 billion) between 1999 and 2024. Some notable cases include
- *Peter Odili*: N100 billion
- *Ali Mode-Sheriff*: N300 billion
- *Godswill Akpabio*: N100 billion
- *Yahaya Bello*: N80.2 billion
- *Bello Matawalle*: N70 billion
- *Other High-Profile Cases*: 14 former governors, 8 ex-ministers, and 5 senators are implicated in alleged corruption cases involving N21.63 trillion and $47.4 billion over 15 years.
- *Total Estimated Loot*: According to some estimates, Nigeria has lost over $582 billion to corruption since independence in 1960
I thank God for giving me the strength to train my children to world class. It's October first and my daughter is among Forbes 30 under 30 Summit holding in Ohio. She got the nomination on merit. She made a first class there and got elected into the public health council in the United States. If it was there, they would have denied her the merit as they denied Peter Obi, JAMB candidates from the East and so many others. With that merit, my daughter called me to say that though she was a child of nobody, she would have the world hear our name. She has just started with Forbes. On merit. A child of nobody can rise to somebody in a land of merit.
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