President Muhammadu Buhari |
Our leaders have left the stark
records of not sparing a thought for the suffering poor citizens. Instead of
staying at home to consider strategies for taking the blight of poverty off the
people, they are rather attracted to a life abroad at the expense of their
states or the country. This is why they travel abroad to attend birthdays of
their cronies and paramours. Some even travel abroad to organise weddings
for their children or they are guests at the weddings of their friends which
they have sponsored. In some worse cases, such travels have been used
as opportunities to negotiate how to stash slush funds in foreign
accounts. But our political leaders justify such travels as opportunities to
bring foreign investments to the country.
Still, travelling abroad is a means
of escaping from the problems at home. Our political leaders have no
problem with leaving the citizens to writhe and wither away under the
weight of the crises sired by the former’s misbegotten governance. And when
they are overseas, they do not bother to copy the good things they see there.
They do not pay attention to how through transformational leadership, what
would have been a barren country is turned into an investors’ delight. Nor do
they observe how on account of the fact that leaders live by example, the
citizens are ready to obey the laws of the country that would redound to the peace
and good of all. What our leaders are only interested in as
they travel abroad are the homes that are the exemplifications
of modern architectural ingenuity. They would come home and then loot the
treasury in a bid to replicate these architectural masterpieces for their
private use.
For a Nigerian leader who travels
to the Vatican and takes a photograph with the pope, his or her day is made.
Then such a leader would now strive to push the photograph to the front pages
of major newspapers in the country. A political leader does this perhaps
because he or she would like the citizens to know the
opportunity he or she has just got to put the name of their backwater
carrying the beautiful title of a state or country on the map of the world. It
could also be to gleefully announce to the hell-bound citizens that their
leader is on the way to heaven. For some politicians, putting
the pictures on the front pages of newspapers is not enough. Billboards must be
erected in every strategic corner of the state to announce this treasure trove.
This was exactly what Governor Rochas
Okorocha did in Imo State after taking a photograph with President Barack Obama during a visit
to the United States.
Our political leaders often argue
that their travels are to enable them to drive foreign investments into the
country. Thus they try to justify their frivolous travels by holding town
hall meetings with Nigerians overseas. At such meetings, our political leaders
would harangue their audience with the need for them to return home; to use
their professional experiences to shore up the national fortunes; and
invest their dollars or pounds in the local economy. But it is not likely that
the Nigerian audience is really fascinated by the opportunities being reeled
out. What is more likely is that the Nigerian citizens are remembering how they
lost their loved ones – parents , siblings or children – to the predatory
society they left behind at home. They would remember how some of
these loved ones have been unjustly incarcerated and how the justice system
has failed to give any succour. They would remember how they escaped from
kidnappers or the stray or deliberately targeted bullets of bribe-starved
and marauding policemen and women and they were forced to relocate
abroad. Now that the presidency has joined in the argument for the necessity of
foreign trips, it should have gone further to tell us if Buhari has any magic
wand to drive these investments home. Or, is it that once
the foreign investors see Buhari they would fall in love with him, empty
their bank accounts and bring their hard-earned
money to invest in Nigeria? Regrettably, the illusion of the ease of
securing foreign investments by our leaders travelling abroad has made us
oblivious of the necessity of keeping our house in order before seeking foreign
investors. No foreign investor would put his or her money in a hostile business
climate.
Do we really expect foreign
investments in these climes ravaged by insurgents, state brigandage and
decrepit infrastructure? If there is a right investment climate, the
president does not need to travel to beg any foreign investor to come to
Nigeria. They would come here on their own. Or, are we now saying that these
so-much cherished foreign investors are so cut off from the world that
they on their own cannot get a true picture of developments in Nigeria?
Granted that the president really
engages in these frequent travels to negotiate the release of Nigeria’s funds
stashed away in foreign banks, but as long as the environment for corruption to
fester has not been changed, the money would find its way back to those
foreign banks. We must remember the foreign travels of former President
Olusegun Obasanjo in a bid to cancel the nation’s foreign debts. He succeeded.
But the debts are back. Instead of the presidency being excited at defending
the president’s foreign trips, it should be conscious of the fact that the bulk
of the work is at home.
Now is the time for the president
to do less travelling and sit at home to solve the nation’s problems. It
is an illusion to expect foreign leaders who are faced with their own problems
to give Buhari a blueprint on how to solve the problems of his country
created by its own leaders’ greed, profligacy and short-sightedness.
Instead of attempting to justify
to the citizens while Buhari’s foreign trips are necessary, the
presidential spokespersons should find more profitable things to spend their
time on. Let the results speak for themselves. Then the citizens can decide
whether the president’s travels are worth the state resources expended on
them. (Guardian)
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