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As Nigeria clocks 59 on Tuesday, 1st October, 2019, millions of Nigerians insist that there is no cause to celebrate.

They lament that thousands of lives have been lost as a result of the insecurity in the land, while widespread hunger and poverty have taken root in millions of homes. Corruption is not abating, even though the Federal Government claims to be winning the anti-graft fight. In this interview the Founder Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke opines that those who benefited from the bad governance in the country have cause to celebrate Nigeria’s independence.

Excerpts :

Nigeria will be 59 on October 1st, is there any reason to celebrate ?

Celebration is of two fold, celebration with fanfare and glamour, as a result of chains of achievements, in terms of basic amenities and infrastructure and competitive human development index, that should be almost at par with that of the developed countries. The other side has to do with sober reflection, whereby the wailers will bring us back to how to regain our lost strength and wasted opportunities. The wailers will need to continue to challenge us on the need to make amends to minimize the weaknesses and possible areas of threats for Nigeria, we have lost all virtues, while dancing naked in the market of shame. For example, education was very functional at a time, we were pressing for independence, with emphatic no to colonialism. Collectively we forget about our ethnic differences and shunned tribal sentiments to have our way to the reality of independence on October 1, 1960.

We started with the parliamentary system with a federal system of weak center, to give each region, the liberty to develop on their own, capitalizing on the peculiar value chains, which could be summarily transformed into the North for hides and skins and groundnut pyramids.

The West, with cocoa and coffee among other agricultural products, while the East was known for the best quality of coal,as well as palm produce.

In the area of mineral resources, bitumen and asphalt of the best quality as well as other mineral, resources like gold, lead and various rock types for cement production. What about iron and steel ? The regional management of this, made Nigeria excel with high export index, making our currency to be above the Dollar and at par with the Pound Sterling.

Development became competitive with the West as a pacesetter of development in functional infrastructure. For example, the cocoa house as one of the tallest buildings, the Liberty stadium, WNTV and WNBS, network of good roads and in the area of human capital development,with the first woman drive a car, in the person of the late Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, who championed the cause of women.

The first Chief Justice of the Federation from the West and we have the history of Herbert Macaulay been the early and First Engineer. All these series of achievements were replicated in the North and in the East, making the nation be project focused for the development of the country.

Emerging politicians were with ideological goals, unlike these days, when service in office is been replaced by self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment.

How did we now find ourselves in the appalling situation ? This could be ascribed to the following observations :

After independence, we reverted to our ethnic and tribal inclinations, losing focus of the unity of Nigeria and resorting to al under hand methods in power sharing.

Nigeria experienced 29 years of military rule, during this period the economy was battered, while ideological goals were lost.

The economic profile became jeopardized with ever increasing poverty indices, 15 per cent in 1966, 28.8 per cent in 1983, with subsequent characteristic arithmetic progression of 42 per cent, 54 per cent, 65 per cent and in 1999 at 70 per cent.

The economic class lost that of the middle package through the political regime of poverty and the upper regime was now controlled by less than 2 per cent, who govern, through kleptocracy, deviating from the normal norm of justice, equity, divinity, peace, sustainable development, security, transparency and accountability demanded by democracy.

Under these conditions, the celebration of Nigeria’s 59th independence anniversary would be ridiculous to those in the international community, which had expected us to be a role model for other countries in Africa, in terms of good governance.

Let us be reminded of the fact that the environment in which democracy could thrive, includes when there is the culture of having respect for the fundamental human rights of the people. If we are to go by the experiences in the land, human rights violations abound in various forms leading us into a poor environment of endemic corruption and impunity or institutional indiscipline.

Derisively too, when we claim to hold elections, it is yet to be free and fair, though winners do emerge. Worse still, there is fundamental ethnic coloration the way we treat the emerging leaders.

In the religious terrain, those with contrary religious beliefs are bickering, while development continues to suffer.

Unfortunately, the cost of governance is always too high for the overhead to consume the budget, while capital projects continue to suffer from set backs.

Nigeria’s image abroad has continued to be questionable while insecurity at home does not justify government’s defense of Nigerians held in jails, decapitated or been tried for various drug offenses.

The process of reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation after the civil war had a carry over of lapses which has resulted in several agitations and secession threats, with all the groups hiding under the guise of restructuring.

Beneficiaries of the lapses in governance are now owners of universities, without having anything to do with academics, but are into it for commercial purposes.

Various projects were built in other African countries and abroad by the cabals and cartels at the expense of the welfare of all Nigerians, majority of whom live in poverty in the midst of abundant natural resources.

Was President Donald Trump not right about his definition of Nigerians and his perspective about Africans ?

Nigeria needs total overhauling.

The dominant philosophy of the present time is '' What I possess is mine to use  as I wish''.

The enormous wealth of the King were handed back to God. God made the provision for the King's wealth.

This example, has to a great extent influenced people to do same.

Our houses of worship ought to attract the most suitable and the best.

For they thought to say something about the grandeur and majesty of God.

King David in his times, asserted that building temples is no more important than being the kind of person whose life reflects the glory of God.

Indeed, there is no place where God's kingdom cannot be found at work, home, leisure and the Church among others.

Human experiences of life cannot be divorced from the divine. God is involved in the whole of it-happy and sad, good and bad.

The Kenyan government has disclosed that about 2.6 millon citizens face starvation in 23 arid and semi-arid locations in the country.

The government made this disclosure through it spokesperson,Mr. Cyrus Oguna.

The government said that of the number  623,000 were children  while 69,000 were  pregnant and lactating mothers, who were at risk of malnutrition as drought ravages the regions.

It noted that Turkana was the worst affected, with 250,000 children aged under five in Turkana North, Turkana South and Laisamis sub-counties experiencing acute malnutrition,while Another 200,000 in Turkana West and Turkana Central, Baringo, Tana River, Samburu and Moyale were  faced critical malnutrition.

“Eight out of the 23 counties are severely affected by drought and require urgent enhanced relief food assistance. They include Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, Marsabit, Tharaka-Nithi, Isiolo, Embu and Kitui,” the government spokes person stated.

Nigerians have expressed disappointment over the failure of the Federal Government to check the soaring prices of food stuff in markets across the country.

They lament that the high cost of the food items such as rice, tomatoes, pasta among others have made most citizens to opt for items like ‘’garri’’ in particular, coco yam and maize among others.

Millions of Nigerians are now of the belief that the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration in the country is nonchalant and insensitive to the hunger and poverty situation in millions of homes in Nigeria, even though most political office holders and government officials are currently benefiting from the closure of the country’s borders in a sizable number of states.

They passionately appeal to the powers that be to reverse the present order of things in the markets, as a step towards rescuing millions of Nigerians living in hunger and poverty.

The All Workers Convergence has berated the Federal Government for commencing the payment of the new national minimum wage to workers on Grades levels 01 to 06 while negotiations for other grade levels are still ongoing.

According to the National Coordinator of the AWC, Comrade Andrew Emelieze, ‘’the labor movement in Nigeria has been challenged and so they must wake up from their slumber, the recent payment of junior officers in the core civil service, is a wake up call to the Nigeria labor movement.’’

‘’Apart from the fact that what is paid is more of an award, reason been that labor does not have any agreement with government on the final template, therefore the payment is just like an award to the Nigerian workers. It suggests a government that is trying to rubbish the labor movement in Nigeria and divide the rank and file of the Nigerian workers, therefore labor must wake up and face reality and equally stop all forms of romance with government’’, Comrade Emelieze concluded.

The get rich quick syndrome has caught up with Nigerian youths and adults alike, and this has resulted in an unspecified number of unresolved cases of advanced fee fraud, ritual killings, armed robberies and other get rich quick crimes.

Distraught parents and guardians are helpless, even as law enforcement and security agencies, who are saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives and property, have rather been more or less accomplices in these criminal acts

Indeed, a section of the elite and the political class are a different set of accomplices, whose roles in these crimes have heightened the insecurity in the land.

In this interview the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafuadeen-in-Islam Wordlwide, Porf. Sabitu Olagoke opines that the elite in society are,to a very great extent, to blame for the get rich quick syndrome among the youth and it would only take a miracle to reverse the ugly trend.

Nigerians. most especially the youth are increasingly getting involved in get rich quick crimes. What do you think is the cause ?

The get rich quick syndrome has been with us over the years and it featured some bad elements of the then Nigerian decent society, in an environment of the era of discipline. At this period we began to learn about some elderly people becoming wealthy in society without commensurate work value in their hands.

The society’s suspicion drove them to realize that such people must have joined some secret societies, which makes it imperative that after death certain parts of their bodies are severed for recompense.

Another version, is the use of human beings for rituals, most especially one of their children or kinsman.

The cat would eventually be let out of the bag, either after protracted illness or sudden death after a short life span.

The reaction of members of the society to the mysterious end of these people

resulted in the placing of emphasis on the essence of discipline in their children, with the traditional philosophy of work as an antidote to poverty.

This was the basis upon which our educational foundation were built, with the hope that graduates even of secondary schools, who might not be capable of furthering their education would be able to support their lives with ready made work to justify the little knowledge acquired.

Unfortunately, people in high places started the bad culture of self-enrichment syndrome, against all odds of possible heavy penalties for breaking the ethics of the profession or the organization.

This was what led to the first coup in Nigeria, led by 29 year old Kaduna Nzeogwu, whose team struck because of what they term as 10 per cent corruption, in government and business circles.

The profile of poverty indices due to corruption and state of impunity xrayed by experts, put them into rising profile of 15 per cent in the first republic, 28.8 per cent in the second republic.

Babangida and Abacha era put it to the maximum of 65 per cent, while the fourth republic failed woefully to control and checkmate these orgies of corruption, to start at 70 per cent, which attracted people’s attention because of its uncontrollable nature, despite all the state apparatus on anti-graft exercise.

Psychologically, human beings are born robotic as education is for refinement, at least 20 per cent level from the classrooms, while the environment take 80 per cent charges to make or mar the animal called man.

If negative influences overwhelms man, he returns to the beastly level of operation.

Unfortunately in Nigeria, education is dysfunctional, with all the domains of education rendered ineffective.

For example, apart from the literacy advantage of education from the realm of affective domain, attitudinal rectitude is supposed to be critically addressed to be responsible for character building of any graduate produced.

Unfortunately, it is paradoxically ironical, to note that the so called enlightened elite, who we regard as educated, are to a great extent responsible for all the fraudulent acts in the society, not minding the oath of allegiance, loyalty and discipline already sworn to before taking up any appointment in the scheme of action building.

Equally unfortunate is that corruption and impunity have for long found their ways into the Judiciary, where the era of incorruptible Justices seem to have gone for good and profanity has replaced sacredness on matters concerning the house of God making justice, equity and divine interventions to elude the society. Hence the travail of poor practices in governance.

For our youth, they are products of these unfortunate circumstances and except through miracles, it would be very hard to produce children, who will not inherit the blood of timocracy and the culture of get rich quick syndrome. This is because the environment is hostile and all agents of socialization for the support of even growth of children have been broken down to pieces.Again, unfortunately, whenever we want to have any change of government, political manifesto is always absent with no ideological goals in place. Hence, our failure to address all these problems.

Sad, enough, vote buying has replaced the ethical principles of the conduct of elections, making the society to remain pawns in the hands of any emerging government, that would prefer self enrichment at the expense of the welfare of the people.

For sanity to reign therefore, we must put in place visionary leaders, who will be ready to sacrifice everything it takes to deliver.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation  has ranked Kenya second  in Sub-Sahara Africa, behind South Africa in its Global Innovation Ratings report.

The report also state that Kenya has overtaken  other countries in matching  their level of innovation to general economic development.

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKuat), Moi University, Kenyatta University, Strathmore University and University of Nairobi  are among other private and public research agencies  in the contributors list.

Both Jkuat and Moi University’s technology assembling plants are two major  innovation milestones achieved by the country. The plants have earned the two institutions multi billion-shilling international and local tenders.

These institutions are saddled with the responsibility of  assembling and configuring  of the digital devices currently being used in the 2019 national population census.

The institutions also pioneered the implementation of the Government’s digital literacy program and are key to the achievement of the Big Four Agenda.

The report ranks  Switzerland as the leading innovation hub in the world., while Sweden ranks above the US at second position.

South Africa, number one in Africa are ranked 63rd in the world while  Kenya is 77th and Mauritius 82nd globally.