A double-faced society

By Sunny Oby Maduka (DSM) Ph.D

“The danger of a docile society is that it can create rooms for double standards and decaying moral values, joyfully energized by the leaders, and the objective is to falsely give the citizens the right to complain about their unprecedented miseries.” — DSM.

I want to sincerely appreci­ate Mr. Dele Oyewale for a well-encapsulated article titled: ‘A tale of two nations, one sane, the other insane!’ The piece was simple but fully packed with content that was admirable and reflex­ive. A comparison between a sane and an insane society truly gal­vanised this message of mine today. It’s like adding value, or a rejoinder to my last week’s article titled: ‘When Insanity Becomes Sanity.’

The sad reality is that our leaders are arrogantly display­ing double-faced insanity as a vital part of their governance system. Despite all the cries of poverty, hunger, and insecurity, our leaders are still living lives as people who are happy with their creation of two societies. It’s not a new phenomenon to notice that Nigeria has already been knifed into two groups, those who live in luxury and those who are pover­ty extraordinary.

Sometimes, I kept wondering if most of our leaders who travel abroad ever witnessed the kind of leadership that is engraved with humility and patriotism. A situation where leaders don’t have to harass their citizens, sim­ply because, they are embarking on certain constituencies tours. It’s a serious mental health issue for leaders to travel to their vil­lages or states with a war-like commando entourage.

A situation where the secu­rity agencies could flog and in­timidate the people as enemies, meanwhile, are so overzealous in protecting the real enemies in leadership.

How can one describe a situation where the same peo­ple who are being oppressed and harassed are double-faced be­cause of some crumbs of food? One would like to ask if these same citizens were ever gathered to­gether during any electioneering period. These are the same citi­zens, who are embraced warmly and treated with uttermost re­spect and dignity whenever there are campaign rallies.

How come these same citizens have suddenly become enemies after each election? The same citizens who didn’t attack or kill those candidates on vari­ous campaign grounds are now considered enemies after each election. The candidates freely offered handshakes to the citi­zens, and in most cases, no secu­rity agencies are allowed to intim­idate or harass the electorates.

One wonders how the same ordinary person of a few days ago who begged for votes never reciprocated after being elected. The ugly scenarios are express­ly and impliedly glaringly volca­nic, as those who ought to serve the people will become masters, while the citizens, who ordinari­ly ought to be the masters, are reduced to slaves. My problem becomes very worrisome when impunity is elevated as an offi­cial function against the citizens.

A few days ago, I traveled to Imo state, and to my greatest surprise, I saw a convoy of a local government chairman of more than ten cars with securi­ty architecture that parked all the motorists along the route. It was disheartening when citizens were subjected to certain impuni­ty and nepotistic governance systems. As a leader, you should understand that you are not an extraordinary person. The only difference is that you are a peo­ple’s mandate that should lead from the front. Leadership is all about service to humanity and not an imposition on a master and others. Unfortunately, the sit­uation is getting worse everyday, and with the security agencies adding value to such impunity behaviours of our leaders.

A situation where the security agencies ought to be an instru­ment for the protection of all citizens has become more of a few individuals capture. In fact, on one of the occasions that a Governor was invited as a guest to an event, the number of vehi­cles that served as the convoy was beyond description. Amongst the convoy vehicle was an ambulance that was directly following the Governor’s main vehicle. This is how far we have degenerated as a society. I don’t want to believe that most of our politi­cians are either heart­less or just Satanists; otherwise, why must a sane person trav­el abroad, observe the best of the living standards, sanity, and good governance sys­tem but be so heartless to come back home to in­flict pains amongst his or her citizens.

The South East Governors don’t have any single reason not to have a workable road/rail network. The South East Eco­nomic Development Commission (SEEDC) or Strategy has been propounded by me since 2012 at a Summit organised by Odimma Igbo at Awka, Anam­bra State. There was a working/syndicated paper availed to the five states delegates. Assuming the FGN didn’t come up with the SEEDC, we will still be encumbered with an individ­ualistic State economic agenda.

The double-faced insanity is the reason why most states are opposed to the proposed new tax law. The double-faced insanity of the tax reform bill is more of a sinister financial coup d’etat of sorts, cleverly orchestrated to bring other states and regions under a certain cunning servi­tude of Lagos State. We are all aware that Lagos was a former capital city of Nigeria, with most infrastructural facilities and eco­nomic activities designed and implemented by FGN. This has created an economic comparative advantage for Lagos state, there­by, leveraging all forms of finan­cial benefits against other states.

Lagos State is a hub of seaport activities, as many ports are sit­ed there. That means that almost all imports and exports trade in­flows and outflows will generate massive revenue for the state. The result will be that, Lagos State will pocket all other states, especially on the VAT “reform” bill. The implied objective will be to redirect the majority of those hu­mongous monies into the Lagos state financial coffers. Of course, we may pretend that Alpha Beta be­comes a confluence that’s being controlled by one man, who indi­rectly holds the key to the Lagos state purse.

A typical example of a double-faced society is where state resourc­es are cornered by individuals whose only products and services to the nation are politics and an im­punity governance system. If we are going to a new system of resource derivative, then let all the states control their resources and pay a certain percentage of their respective resources reve­nues to the FGN. Why single out VAT as the only revenue deriva­tive, but crude oil, gas, and solid minerals resources are still being controlled by the FGN?

That’s the height of the double faced. Society. For example, most corporate entities have their headquarters in Lagos State, and as such, all manners of taxes will be pocketed by Lagos State. Most gigantic projects being embarked on by this regime are cleverly packaged to favour Lagos State. The secretly but infamous Lagos – Calabar coastal highway project that was awarded without much public competitive bidding will be expensively tolled in favour of the concessionaire with the head office in Lagos State.

This project is heavily funded by FGN to the detriment of other States, of which rail networks of billions of Naira are still being expended. Presently, although I may be wrong, Lagos State is gradually being funded with the same momentum as FCT, and the annexation of the other states by Lagos State is becoming a fact.

Nigeria is becoming more of a status symbol between the cit­izens and leaders, and sadly, Ni­gerians are being tossed around, as the leaders are on the rampage to destroy Nigeria through impu­nity and nepotistic governance systems. It’s just a quick remind­er for us to ponder, while I come in peace.