Welcome the Duke of Calabar!

You see, there is something fundamentally wrong with the Nigerian state. No matter what you do in Nigeria, it won’t stick because of murky backgrounds, stretching back to pre-independence days. There has to be a structural adjustment; a review of the ethnic and resource control issues in Nigeria. I have no doubt in my mind that, there are some that have put in their best in this outgoing administration, but the environment they operate in renders their efforts void because certain oppressive underpinnings are in place - that take way any effort.

Take for instance the drug and food situation in Nigeria. For years hospitals and traders wrecked havoc on Nigerians, sending many to an early grave but the corrupt authorities turned a blind eye preferring the little dole they received - in turn many died: seaports and airports were turned into graveyard transits: that is why I am firmly committed against the perpetrators and beneficiaries of corruption. In my university, I met a governor’s child who paid most probably more fees than the father will earn in three months, not to talk of accommodation, feeding etc. Yet Google the state the father presides over, and you’ll be amazed at the strength of corruption in the state.

Thanks to the internet everyone can now voice their opinion or events as they truly are without the punitive reach of the Nigerian state, much to their utter disappointment. Even this newly found freedom has come under severe strains but still, Nigerians in blogs and newspapers like http://www.leadershipnigeria.com/ where people are free to voice their views on Nigeria, reveal a country at tenterhooks and present a spectacular scenery for those of us in the diaspora intent on knowing the happenings in our homeland. Though one must point out these forums host libelous people who roll out out-of-sync views but nevertheless a picture of instability and massive discontent and simmering uprisings like the type envisaged by some in the Muslim world against their governments, perceived to be at loggerheads with Islam.

In this present dispensation we have had to endure mass death in the Niger delta and the Middle belt, incompetence, misused oil funds, raped hopes but nevertheless there has been few flash points from individuals who I believe point the way Nigeria must go.Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State, the good-looking, impressionable young man, has thrown in a new dynamism in Nigeria with his groundbreaking projects.

Cross River State, home to the Efiks, has produced personalities like Professor Eyo Ita, Etuborn Oyo Orok Oyo and Magaret Ekpo. Calabar the capital of the state was the first capital - from 1893 to 1906 - of the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. Marry Slessor arrived Calabar in 1878 from the United Free Church of Scotland.It was here that Nigeria’s first president Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe attended the historic Hope Waddel Training Institute.

To understand the history of Calabar is to understand Nigeria’s history. The history of old Calabar enlightens us about the obsession of our ancestors with the mythical, the superstitious and practices that seemed in keeping with their religious proclivities - and our slave trading past.Calabar has always been a factor in Nigeria’s history.

It is not surprising that the people of Cross River will indulge in throwing off the garb of oil dependence and launching into a non-oil dependent dispensation. Ghana recently posted huge returns in tourism, bolstered by American migrant inflows. Recently in a conversation with Mauritians they revealed that their little island off South Africa, gets its money from ‘tourism, tea and sugar!’Duke has had his own fair share of criticisms, but nevertheless he is a pointer to the direction many long after.

Nigerians to my mind are not dull people. There are people in Nigeria who produce things. I even hear that mobiles phones are now being cloned. I have met Nigerians in my sojourn abroad who commanded responsibilities.The Dukian concept is an outspill of years of compression and repression. It is a recognition of the malady inflicting Nigeria and a deliberate attempt to stray away.

The Dukian concept contends with the reductionist concept that revels in the maintenance of the status quo; Dukianism urges a conscientious movement towards a sustainable ideology.

‘Tinapa is conceptualized to be a world-class integrated business resort. It is to be implemented under the Private Public Partnership (PPP). Located by Calabar River, and contiguous to the Calabar Free Trade Zone, it is the realization of an exciting dream - the first integrated business and leisure in resort in Nigeria.Calabar, with her natural potential for tourism, through the unique vision of Tinapa, will be transformed into a global trading hub reminiscent of great international free zones like Hong Kong and Dubai.The complex will provide international standard wholesale emporiums, integrated shopping complexes and product distribution elements supported business tourism and entertainment facilities. The locations of these, in close proximity to Free Port on the east-west trading routes, provide exciting opportunities for Tinapa to serve…,’ says the Cross River State government’s website.

The Tinapa dream captures a dynamic, complex ingenuity that will rebound into the future of Nigeria and serves as the single most pivotal highlight of this present civilian administration.
Just today, while at the Leadership newspaper website, I came across corruption allegations against the Kogi state governor. I constantly come across corruption allegations against Nigerian heads, not to talk about the unresolved Petroleum Trust Funds, but there are people who have put in their best into a system begging for continuity and development and this to me is the single most daunting challenge that should occupy the thoughts of anyone aspiring for presidency.

We have seen people in authority come and go and some of us are not deceived. No matter what anyone does it would never equal the efforts put in by Duke and some others in revamping the system and so the game must be raised below par. Right now I see a murderous rat race to the presidency to lay hold on oil wealth. In secondary school economics I was taught the theories of supply and demand: too much demand , price increases; less demand, price decreases.

In Nigeria the demand for presidency is incompetently high - requested by people who have rarely distinguished themselves in any field. Too much demand competing for a commodity: demand outstripping supply. Nigeria is terribly uncultured politically – we have still not shed ourselves of the violence in the first republic. Nigeria is a country where power is sought with gung-ho fanaticism, where blood inevitably flows for selfish reasons. I came across a fellow I knew recently, who vanished during the primaries. Upon my inquiries about his whereabouts during the period, he confided, he returned to contest in the primaries in his region. Unable to carry on, the winner of the battle deposited money to him to ‘assuage any injury’. ‘Everyone must be killed for there to be development; everyone is corrupt,’ he sounded apocalyptic.

These president wannabes, in a bid to gain relevance have joined the opposition and caught many gullibles in their fake pieties. And it shouldn’t surprise anyone: before President Olusegun Obasanjo, came on stage the second time he ‘lamented the worrying state of Nigeria.’ We now know better. When he leaves he will do the same: a vicious hypocritical cycle bind. Somehow a sense of caution is missing. Their mission though written in cryptic ink bears an unmistaken quest to protect sectional interests.

The Vanguard newspaper in its editorial today says: ‘Nigerians have endured unnecessary hardship since 1999 because their Governors with the connivance of the powers in Abuja elected backwardness, and at best a blurred future, for the country.Many of the charlatans who have presented themselves for these offices are definitely deficient and grossly incompetent to steer Nigeria to the future its people desire and deserve.The ravaging poverty in the land has reduced the people to a state of the helplessness never before seen in these parts, at a time of unprecedented revenue from oil and gas. Yet the obscene opulence of the campaigns, is another reminder to voters to be careful in choosing who manages the country from May 29.How sad it is that prudence, accountability, selflessness and the interest of the public are no longer worthy attributes for office. What happened to the trillions of Naira that the States got from the federation account in the last eight years? Is it enough to prance about on campaign podium and make new promises when the ones made eight years ago have not been fulfilled?It is more disheartening that with the poor performance of the last eight years, candidate after candidate pledges continuity of the programmes of the departing administrations. What future is there then for the country?’

To the Duke of Calabar: you have towered above those in Nigeria, who among the festering rot have sought whether genuinely or not, to bring some sanity, showing Nigerians can, if they desire, unravel detrimental infrastructures. Your print on our sand will reverberate.