Animal farms and banana republics

This post has nothing to do with Honduras' extinct region or state, agronomy or agriculture, or even the famous outdoors clothing label called Banana Republic.

Do you remember reading the social-satirical book called "Animal Farm", ostensibly written in 1945 by one 'George Orwell', but actually penned by Eric Blair, a British expatriate who returned from the Indian Bengal?

No, the subject of this post is my own country Nigeria and the ongoing political and economic shenanigans there, as I see it, and from my own point of view.

You are very welcome to add your comments and express your own observations; so, respond, if you so please.

I have often thought that the main problem with Nigeria is the fact that the government has failed to keep a close eye on its citizens, who therefore are left to their own devises.

That is why anyone who has a mortal moneybag as a local godfather can literally bloat his or her authority out of all proportions to the real legally conferred level of political or economic power.

So, many live beyond their means and nobody wonders why, except for those who flock to where the pasture is greener as hangers-on waiting for the crumbs of insight into how to best the government lackeys, for the cash or kind gifts due to those who are experts at paying homage to the perceived high and mighty, and to find a way to finagle some of those glaringly ill-gotten wealth being displayed with utter contempt for the rulers of the country into their own pockets.

Why has the federal government-in-name-only failed to do its job? Simply put: Civil Servants and government appointees usually do not deserve the position they occupy because the Quota System and National Character principles have made nonsense of the rule of law and the spirit of merit.

To be frank, you may have detected a bitter twist in my blogging tone today: yes, many people are suffering because of the incompetence, insincerity, and selfishness of just a few people, who nobody really can say what makes the person in question stand out so much that he/she is entitled to occupy a sensitive post without actually doing little or no work at all!

The jobs are there to be had but many millions are unemployed because most of those in positions of authority in both the keep the employment or job-creation doors closed in order to hide from public view their snouts buried in the national truffle.

So, these people without names - yes, our so-called 'vibrant' press corps have failed to name in a timely manner the closed circle of personnel perennially being recycled from one post to another since independence from Great Britain in 1960.

That is why our stock market has crashed, thousands are stuck with share certificates of practically no value - a shareholder during the US Great Depression was much better off because Nigerians are so used to hardship that even the nouveaux impoverished cannot even contemplate suicide for the sake of their eternal optimism in the face of unbearable and untold financial ruin, unlike the case abroad in the 1930's.

Now, the latest buzz word is Islamic Banking! What's that? Simply that the bank takes an equity stake in your company or project instead of paying interest on a loan, as a precondition for loan approval.

There is nothing wrong with that, except of course that there already exists a similar facility arrangement in the names of NERFUND and the SME loan scheme, which has oodles of cash still stashed away and undisbursed to businesses in dire need of a financial lifeline because the controlling banks and their employees and relatives have effectively cornered the federally allocated funds for their own private use!

I could just go on all day and all night about all that is wrong with my country right now, if the necessary changes can be made by a few honest men in the right positions of authority.

However, let me just conclude by saying that the US government under Mrs. Hillary Clinton's State Department - pleas pardon my hurried phrasing because my power source will soon go off - has done very well to reject outright the diplomatic credentials of the latest recycled diplomat into the hallowed office of the Nigerian Ambassador to the USA.

Agreeable or not, depending on your political or fanatical camp, this particular case is an example of how some of these washed up academic political types worm their way quietly into positions of authority that benefit only themselves and not their fellow Nigerians.

Can you imagine that many so-called Nigerian legal experts are still saying that the US diplomatic rejection of the proposed ambassador was wrong?

Perhaps, since knowledge is known to be in a constant state of flux, the rather pompous and self-aggrandizing term "expert" should be replaced by the more competent and truthful terminology "specialist" for people in the professions, as long as they remain current and relevant, in my humble opinion.

For the love of honesty, the man was probably just looking for the chance to free his son, currently being detained in a US jail on charges of rape, on the grounds of diplomatic immunity!

Surely, that should have been obvious to the obviously very few and lazy legislators and hard-work averse inept security personnel who screened and recommended him to our dear President Yar'Adua?

And now, after scattering our collective financial fortunes on the floor of the national bourse, they want to sell us corporate bonds at fixed interest rate?

Give me a break! What happens to the interest payments when some of these companies, which found it an uphill task to pay regular dividends and were accumulating huge management deficits and inefficiencies for decades, go belly flop?

I think that i have enough problems right now sourcing for the money to pay my children's school fees than to waste my limited income on a bottomless officially ignored and tacitly approved pyramid scheme.

Now, my rant is over, for today... Cheerio.