AS WE MARK 53RD INDEPENDENCE...LET'S GET IT RIGHT! By Czar Wisdom Omógbóláhàn Mofólúwasó Kòkúmó Babs-CFR

If I were President Jonathan, I would have called on my National Sevurity Adviser-NSA that morning (yesterday) after the news of the death of the 40 students of the College of Agriculture, Gujba, Yobe state to ask if he knew that the onslaught was coming, if he says he had no idea, I would probably have fired him right there and then. I would have cancelled the media chat in their honour. In fact I would have been in Yobe that same yesterday to commiserate with the people and encourage them and give them hope that their suffering would soon end. If only I were president Jonathan, I would have adorned myself in the toga of the Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta who jettisoned the 68th UN Summit to commiserate with his country people on the horrendous attack of his country by the vampires. If I am told I can't go there because of security reason, I would immediately fire all the Service Chiefs. Rather than engage in frivolous Media Chat which amounted to nought, smiling, laughing and further prevaricating facts on matters arising. It only shows an insensitive and non-responsive government action to its immediate quagmires.

That's just by the way though. In a couple of hours from now, this entity called Nigeria will have clocked its 53rd day of birth. That figment-turned-realty-of-the-flirtatious-copulation of the two love birds-Lord and Flora Lugard is less than 48hours away from its independence celebration. But we ask subtly, in the last 50 years plus, how how far have we faired? In all facets of human endeavours and in juxtaposition with the achievement and advancement of our contemporaries, particularly, our sister West African country of Ghana. How better are we in terms of education, economy, social life (which is inclusive of welfare and social security), technology et al after 5 decades of existence? Those issues that have hitherto been the basis for military incursion, how far have they been checkmated. Like in the words of late Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, his statement on why they struck. "...The aim of the Revolution Council is to establish a strong united and prosperous nation, free from CORRUPTION and INTERNAL STRIFE. Our method of achieving this is strictly military but we have no doubt every Nigeria will give us maximum cooperation..."

History has shown that each successive military incursion has been blamed on deep-rooted corruption by ouster governments but then, have we been any better? Except under the brief stay of late Gen. Murtala Rahmat Muhammed and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) where we witnessed some level if sanity. When are we going to get it right? The corruption seems to have graduated consistently from Pre-nursery to primary school, and then to post primary school and finally to tertiary institution. As it is, the menace of corruption appears to have completed its Masters Degree programme in Nigeria! And in consonance with what our amiable president, Goodluck Jonathan opinionatedly expressed during his Presidential Chat last night on the oil and gas sector being the focus of all eyes, only a week, I got a privileged information as to how the sum of $51million (approximately #8.16billion) disappeared rom NNPC account till date and nobody knows its whereabouts! Strangely strange you would say, but the truth remains corruption these days appears to be our idiosyncrasy as a nation.

The president may have said corruption is perhaps not the greatest problem of Nigeria (at least amidst the current higgledy-piggledy social security), the fact remains it (corruption) is one of the most infested hydra-headed cankerworms feasting on us as a nation. Aside the fact that in our 50+ years of existence, our nation is still plagued with erratic power supply, social imbalance, political kleptoparasitic tendencies, economic stagnation, educational backwardness. By tomorrow, it will be 90 days that teachers in the public higher institutions of learning have been on work stay-off, yet as it is, it's all talks, no action. Not even those in the confederating states are exempted. And like the president rightly asked somewhat rhetorically, the involvement of state chapters of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the ongoing strike action. This whole friction is about federal government-owned universities. One wonders the involvement of their state counterparts or could be a case of SOLIDARITY strike, am just asking.