At the turn of the century when Ghana was part of my reportorial beat, I met very confident citizens there. And it wasn’t hot air confidence. A decade earlier on the same beat, Accra was decrepit, like Ajegunle in Lagos – totally run down and dirty.
Then, Jerry Rawlings decided to give Ghanaians dignity, even if riches were a deferred dream. He put out a brigade of street cleaners which ensured the cleanliness of much of Accra by dawn. The rooftops remained rusty and the roads porkmarked, but Ghanaians regained their mojo, and believed Kwesi Botchway their finance minister then, that they were close to economic salvation.
I liked Botchway. To him, the cup was always half-full, never half-empty; even quarter-full, not three-quarters empty. He was a perfect partner for the ebullient Rawlings and together, they lifted the spirit of Ghanaians. Compare that to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), declared that Nigerian banks were penny stocks. Overnight, this jibe took a life of its own and the banks went into a ravine from which they have not climbed out till today.
But before you accuse me of running Nigeria down, comparing her with others, let me state that peer comparisons are necessary for benchmarking progress. It is fair for me to point out too that Nigeria’s Chukwuma Soludo was a gung-ho financial general when he was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). His recapitalisation of Nigerian banks ensured that the Nigerian financial sector survived the global financial crash of 2008.
So, in those days of Rawlings and Botchway, a number of Ghanaians said to me that if Ghana had the good fortune Nigeria had with crude oil, she would do a lot better than Nigeria had done. I had no answer to that. Nigeria was truly a mess that could hardly be beaten by any other nation, and it is presently worsening its abysmal records. Just check the shutting down of her refineries so that cronies will import refined fuel; how about using all manners of insane obstacles to ensure that citizen Dangote will not run his refinery, end fuel imports and literally save the lives of Nigerians imperilled by forex-induced inflation.
Yes, Ghanaians are not saints, as I can personally testify. Along the Lagos-Abidjan highway, the Hilla Condji border, linking Togo and Ghana is the second most corrupt border after Seme, linking Nigeria and Benin Republic. And besides official corruption, I had personally been a victim of robbery at Hilla Condji. Around 2003, I was on the route heading to Accra. When the car dropped us at Hilla Condji to go through the border formalities, there was this lady in our company, a first time traveller. She was a nurse, going to Accra for a professional examination which would qualify her for job placement in Europe (japa didn’t start today).
On the Togo side of the border, one rascal joined us, and started demanding money from the nurse. I elected to defend her, and told her to keep walking straight, not minding the rascal who identified himself as areaboy. Within the Ghana side, areaboy made a physical attempt to reach the nurse, but I blocked him. He then turned and grabbed the contents of the front pocket of my shirt and ran. There were Ghanaian security men all over the place, but none gave a chase. On my return journey, Togolese security men asked me if I was the one robbed on a certain date. I said yes and they asked if I could identity the criminal. There was a short parade, and I identified the fellow that assaulted and robbed me. The Togolese returned him to custody. Then, there was the case of my friend and partner, Martin Luther, whose box was broken into in his Accra hotel room, and his laptop and other valuables stolen. The police refused to arrest and question the hotel staff that were either complicit or failed in their duty to their guest.
Yet, for every crime in Ghana, there seems to be a dozen in Nigeria, which may be a function of the population. But what would you say to deliberate misgovernance?
This week, we had trending on social media a statement made by Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), that while it costs $35,000 to export 100 tons of cargo from Nigeria, it costs $4,000 to export same from Ghana. Adesina had made the statement while delivering a keynote address at a BusinessDay event July last year. For a year, it remained in the public domain that the cost of exporting from Nigeria is almost nine times the cost of doing same from Ghana, and Nigeria’s new government which says it is mindful of the nation’s economic wellbeing has done nothing about this.
While this government didn’t create this particular problem, sustaining it is almost as bad. How did we get here, you may ask. It’s all about corruption getting gazetted into mainstream economy.
When the government clogs up the export channel with multiple agencies charged with the same functions which they execute in default, the outcome is ranking corruption. When the nation was virgin and sane, the examination of cargo, whether for import or for export was in the hands of the Customs. Then, for no cogent reasons besides expansion of avenues for corruption, virtually every function of the Customs was hived out to create new agencies. That’s how we have up to 10 agencies at the ports doing what the Customs used to do.
My friend, Chinyemike Torti, expert in commodity trade, counted them to include NAFDAC, SON, DSS, police, NDLEA, NEPC, etc. All of them are at the ports and their primary function is to extort shippers. That’s how the cost of shipping from Nigeria tops Ghana’s nine times. How can we compete with Ghana in the international market, with this self-inflicted crippling injury?
Somebody equally unravelled what looked like an enigma, concerning Nigeria’s export trade. Nigeria is the largest producer of yams globally, but she is invisible in the global yam trade. This source explains that it takes 75 days to go through the hurdles and ship a containerload of yams, by which time humidity has claimed much of the yams and they would feed the dustbins at destination. As such, Nigerian yam traders first move the commodity to Ghana, from which it takes just three days to ship out.
Tinubu said he was going to fully implement the Oronsaye report, part of which recommend the merger of these multiple agencies. But it looks like it will come after forever. After all, he had announced within his first week in office that his government would put in place palliatives to cushion the effects of the scrapping of petrol subsidy. Nigerians are still waiting for the palliatives.
DIASPORA CHRONICLES: Nigeria’s unity may start abroad
While we bicker and stone one another across ethnic lines at home, some Nigerians are busy forging a true Nigerian spirit in some locations abroad. The nation that most of us pay lip service to is becoming real to our emigrants in Luxembourg.
A Nigerian chieftain of Yoruba origins has just died in Luxembourg, and the entire Nigerian community out there trooped out to celebrate him. Van Dan, a quintessential Bendelite, told me that that is the spirit of Nigerians there. A week earlier, the Yorubas had a party there to which he was invited, and this very chieftain was so happy to see him. Van Dan says that when one Nigerian ethnic association holds an event there, half of the guests there would be of other ethnic groups. Nigerians at home may learn from them how they forged this Nigerian spirit, taking it beyond football.
Listening to Nigerians in the diaspora, you would easily come to the conclusion that Nigerian embassies abroad are a special kind of curse – home trouble – sent by malevolent spirits at home to trouble these ones that dared escape. But for a rare change, the Nigerian embassy in Brussels, Belgium, with concurrent accreditation to Luxembourg, bucks the trend. For over 20 years, this place has been a true place of refuge to Nigerians and the staff have been siblings to the emigres. Dan says the last ambassador there, Obinna Onowu, was just wonderful!
Keep a date with DIASPORA CHRONICLES next week for these unusual stories!
