Tears for Bayelsa

AS results of the Bayelsa State governorship supplementary election trickled in yesterday, I reflected on the desperation for power in that small but rich state and really came to tears.

While Governor Seriake Dickson, was momentarily my comrade in tears as he wept openly over the reported death of scores of Bayelsans in the course of the violence that attended the polls, my own lachrymal glands broke for the living. I mourn the dead! But I mourn the living more! For, in all of these, they are the biggest losers!

Bayelsa, oil-producing, small state with high revenue intake from the federation account and other sources ought to be one of the better-developed states of Nigeria today. Of course, this is far from the case. As a result of poor or, at best, average leadership, most of the people are still poor, infrastructure is third-rate, education is hardly available for the majority, good healthcare is hard to come by and Bayelsans are practically stuck in their swamps.

Of course, a passive people are never without a share of the blame. When their leaders seek power, the question: to what end, never seemed to be asked by the people or, when asked, never received any coherent answer. Nothing, therefore to hold the so-called leaders down to! Indeed, safe the 1999-2003 spell, the governorship of Bayelsa has been the primary assignment of godfathers and sundry potentates who pitch their selfish interests against one another to pick who best would serve such. No contest of ideas! No vision available for interrogation!

Once Goodluck Jonathan was picked for the vice presidency, he wanted someone else to succeed him as Bayelsa State governor but the likes of Edmund Daukoru, in power then as petroleum minister, fought hard to impose his assistant, Timipre Sylva, on the state. If there was any concrete idea or vision Sylva espoused before taking the reins, apart from just becoming the governor, such certainly did not get much life while his reign lasted, primarily because there was none.

Of course, it was The Almighty at His humorous best or in His penchant for a good laugh at the folly of humans, as my late grandfather would describe it, who propelled Jonathan further than even he, with his renowned good luck, could ever have imagined. Assuming the presidency after Umaru Yar’Adua’s death, one of the first tasks he set for himself was to have his pound of flesh, have those who once humiliated him eat in abundance and in public the same humble pie once rammed down his throat. In settling for Seriake Dickson and thwarting all attempts including pleas to let Sylva be, therefore, it is doubtful if the interest of Bayelsans was ever in consideration. And it is doubtful if Dickson had any long-term plan for Bayelsa beyond just replacing Sylva, beyond the usual token gesture of building some roads, fixing some bridges and patronising his godfathers in order to stay in their good books for re-election.

No doubt, it is the same dearth of grand ideas, an extreme poverty of standard political choices that was on display at the bitterly contested election of Saturday.

Who, among the two contestants, both of whom have had a chance in power, articulated any grand vision for Bayelsa? Who, between the duo of Sylva and Dickson, did not demonstrate such desperation for power for its own sake, as would make service to the people secondary? Which was why the level of violence was so high.

Members of the Nigerian ruling elite love to claim Lee Kuan Yew, the late visionary leader of Singapore who built his country from scratch into one of the most prosperous and peaceful nations, with a clear vision and unwavering dedication, as a role model. But, pray, which version or even which chapter of his famous book, ‘From Third World To First,’ something of a guide on visionary leadership, do they read? For there is nothing in most parts of Nigeria to show that Lee’s ideas have found a fertile ground in our elite’s mind as they should.

Nigeria’s leaders often tout, shamelessly, building a few roads, paying staff salaries, catching thieves or stealing smarter, and other routine duties of government, as visionary governance. But when I remember a simple conversation between my humble self and a senior colleague a few years ago in Hyderabad, India, the embarrassment of such narrow-mindedness goes beyond measure. We had endured the chaos of that city for a few days until the last but one day when we were driven on what I considered one of the best roads I had ever seen anywhere. Of course, I instantly concluded and remarked that the road must be a ‘federal’ road built by the central government of India. Laughing himself to tears, my senior colleague, who had engaged some senior Indian officials in some discussions earlier in the day had some information for me: roads like this are not for even states, but for local or county governments to build.

If you are talking of a road or a tunnel under the sea, a pathway to space or a speed train around the world, you may see the central government’s hands in such. It was a way of saying that such mundane matters were a bit beneath larger tiers of government. Rather, a grand vision of the country’s position, in some specific years, within the global power equation, policy and infrastructure for dominance in technology, in space exploration and medicare, and in a world still within the realm of dreams, are more likely to engage provincial and national leaders. States and central governments, of course, still build roads but only as part of a well-designed vision of making a state or the country an indispensable regional or global hub for something grand. Not the spasmodic monuments to visionlessness, even planlessness, largely informed by patronage and pecuniary benefits for a few, that abound in almost all parts of Nigeria today.

Also, take a look at Dubai!

These are societies built on grand dreams of a future followed with concrete, calculated and steady actions, the likes of which Bayelsa needs but which are so harrowingly lacking. Of course, Bayelsa is metaphor for the whole of Nigeria or at least the entire states of the Niger Delta. Indeed, with its terrain, creeks similar to Singapore’s, and with all the money that has accrued to Bayelsa over the years, how come no leader has dreamt beyond the routine and attempted a mini-Singapore or Dubai in that corridor?

It would probably be incorrect to say some development has not come to Bayelsa since oil money started flowing in there. The problem is the very low value for so much money, a devaluation occasioned by leadership without vision.

Then, there is avarice of the worst kind. What environmental degradation caused by oil exploration begins, the parasites in power and their rent-seeking acolytes complete. What the difficult terrain makes expensive to build, the elite makes unattainable by looting.

Hence, the signature spectacle of Bayelsa and much of Nigeria is an obscene display of ill-gotten wealth by a few in the midst of abject poverty for the majority; a state where nature, which gave the oil, and the elite are in a relay race to finish off the people.

The fight for power therefore cannot but be so fierce and violent in such a state.

Now the election has been concluded and the winner will soon take the oath of office. Those who were killed, may their souls rest in peace, are gone, sacrificial lambs for the ambitions of demagogues who would do anything for power. But those who are alive have no comfort either.

They are indeed the ultimate losers.

Because I doubt if genuine vision would inform the leadership in Bayelsa, with someone dreaming of a miniature Dubai or Singapore, for instance, designing a plan for and beginning the work, step by step, to create it. I believe Nigerians have resigned themselves to an unfortunate fate of politics without ideas or governance without vision. And the people’s impoverishment is certain to continue while tokenism reigns.

Many of our leaders are not just bad politicians, they are very bad persons, feeding fat on the people’s resources, using the same poor people as shield to protect their fiefdom and sending them to death in the battle to keep their hold on power. As they do this, they make Nigeria a worse place for all!

Suffice to say that the political grudge match between Seriake Dickson and Timipre Sylva may have produced a winner and a loser but the ultimate losers are Bayelsans who may not be well served as the struggle will surely continue for dominance, with its attendant recriminations, pettiness and trampling upon the people. There will, of course, be little thought for the future and no visionary governance.

That, for me, is the real reason to shed tears in torrents.