MONDAY LINES THE CRISIS OF YORUBA’S FUTURE Lasisi - TopicsExpress

MONDAY LINES THE CRISIS OF YORUBA’S FUTURE Lasisi Olagunju Ulli Beier: There was a short time in Nigerian history — between Independence and the first military coup — in which we lived through a period of great optimism. Financially the people of Nigeria were relatively well off, and they assumed that with independence, things were going to improve steadily. In the West, people believed in the benefits of universal free primary education. They were proud of being the “First in Africa” to have set up a television station. The University of Ibadan was functioning and had a good reputation. Night life was boisterous; people could afford to go out, drink beer and listen to really good bands. Even in Osogbo, which then had 120,000 inhabitants, one could hear three or four bands at weekends. The Yoruba Travelling Theatre was booming. A decade after independence, Biodun Jeyifo counted about a hundred Yoruba theatre companies —all managing to survive somehow off their performances. People actually preferred the theatre to the movies. But then, those were the days of Ogunde, Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo and the Orisun players. Where in the world could you find a comparable constellation? Wole Soyinka: There was ferment! Ulli Beier: There was no official planning; little government interference. It was a natural growth. If you now think back to this period, how do you view it with hindsight? Why does it appear to us now as a “golden age” rather than a mere beginning? (From Ulli Beier in conversation.) Hmmm. Really. Why would a period that was supposed to be our beginning appear to us as actually the golden age? If the take-off of an aeroplane is the only memorable moment of the flight, then that journey is not just a farce, it is a tragedy. When a people have nowhere else to turn to with pride but the past, then they do not need to be reminded that generations after that “golden era” have all failed. And I am not talking about Nigeria now. I am talking about the old Western Nigeria from Ikeja through Benin to Sapele. Nothing can be more devastating for a pupil whose reputation of being the constant first in class is shredded by a distant competitor. Ex-governor Peter Obi of Anambra State got me thinking. Two weeks ago, he was giving an account of his eight years stewardship and he announced some figures: N75 billion as credit balance in the state’s accounts and no debt over-hang. That figure, he said, included balance in savings and in investment. Then the big one: Anambra State under him invested in bonds issued by other state governments. Since he made that statement, I have not heard anyone say he lied. It was a combination of these that actually got me thinking —Anambra State that was not paying salaries post 1999, pre-2003; Anambra State of war and lawlessness in Chris Ngige era; the same Anambra that was home of violence and inexplicable crimes. Obi said the state he was leaving behind was not owing anybody a dime; rather, the state invested in bonds issued by other states! Then, I remembered that out of the six states in the South-West, only one has not gone to the Capital Market to take money through bond issuance. What has that told me? It means that my South-West is indebted to South East’s Anambra State — and that is serious. I know some partisan fellows will say ‘and so what?’ They can say so because for such fellows, the only reference they make to the past is using it to cover up the eczema of today. None of the founding fathers of Western Nigeria would ever imagine that a day would come when Yorubaland would owe Iboland. Some international financial experts have warned that the current craze for bonds by African countries, including PDP’s Nigeria, will soon lead to what they call “Eurobond curse” just as the continent is wracked by “resource curse.” Some queer commentators would say the warning was directed at national governments. At the state level, the alarm bell should really sound louder. A recent report quoted Joseph Stightz, a Nobel prize-winning economist, as warning that “the financial sector loves to find people to prey on and their most recent prey are governments in developing countries.” The same is happening at the domestic level. Cash-strapped state governments should know that there are no friendly financial institutions. They are in business to make money and it does not matter how. I do not know what economics is behind the current craze for bonds. Some are even saying bonds are no loans. What are they? Gifts? Won’t they pay back? And at what interest rate? They would even pay costs of the transaction — they call it ‘issue costs?’ Are there consultants packaging these bonds? If there are, who are they? What are their fees? Yorubaland currently suffers unprecedented, unfortunate and insulting, venal shut-out in the affairs of the PDP Federal Government. The alternative regimes in the states ought to give reasons for hope, not debt over-hang. Nothing should be done by anyone to bond the race to a future of criminal servitude. Governments have to provide amenities, yes. But have we forgotten what our ancestors said about he that eats benefits derivable from a child even before that child is born? Exactly what Niyi Osundare described as “eating tomorrow’s yam today ”! Western Nigeria started solid in the 1950s through the early 60s. Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his stellar team gave the West a solid foundation. They made their people first in Africa without hanging ‘slavery bond’ on their collective neck. But after them, what have we had? Public debt, private wealth! Whatever intervening disaster can still be remedied if only we resolve today to make the future more golden than the great start. We cannot do that by mortgaging the future to bonds of bondage.