Home-and foreign-based blame game

Also published in Daily Trust

In Nigeria where hardly anybody admits his portion of responsibility for our collective failure, people play the blame game thereby losing the much needed focus on the real issues bedevilling the country. Though Nigerians tend to play this game in roadside hangouts, academic, media, and political circles, as well as corridors of power of course, I find it particularly interesting when it involves home-based Nigerian government employees versus foreign-based Nigerians.

Though they both agree that the political leadership is primarily responsible for the mess in the country, the foreign-based consider the majority of the home-based equally guilty of facilitating corruption at all levels of government; a charge the home-based vehemently dismiss, and instead regard the foreign-based as mere armchair critics who could not stay back to confront the challenges and instead fled abroad from where they claim to propose solutions to the problems back home.

In other words, they regard them disconnected from the reality in the country hence unable to fully appreciate the circumstances on the ground, which by implication, according to them, renders their analyses largely inaccurate and their solution proposals largely unrealistic. Besides, they regard them as mere opportunists who, should they find themselves in the positions of responsibility, they would equally steal as much as they can and perform as poorly as or even worse than those they criticize.

Interestingly enough, ever since the country’s return to democracy in 1999 many so-called Nigerian foreign-based experts who have returned back home ostensibly to contribute in national development endeavour, have in most cases actually failed to resist the temptation of the largely corruption-friendly working environment in the country. Also even the few who are righteous enough to resist it have failed to deliver due to the frustrating working condition in the country.

This argument rages particularly on the Internet where information and ideas of all kinds flow freely. By the way, this is not bad per se; after all it is only through free exchange of ideas that problems are addressed.

Anyway, even though government employees in Nigeria are of course largely as corrupt and incompetent as the political office holders, it is obvious that the home-based critics, including the anti-corruption activists, hardly criticize them the same way they criticize the political officer holders. This is even though they (i.e. government employees) obviously collaborate with the political officer holders to maintain the status-quo of thievery and impunity in government administration, and indeed the culture of mediocrity that defines the ridiculously little they deliver.

Incidentally, as I have always maintained, the average government employee is as corrupt as the bribe-taking policeman on the street, or even worse, only that the latter has earned his notoriety due to the sheer crudity that characterizes his approach, while the former robs the public quietly at the stroke of a pen, and in the privacy and comfort of his office.

In any case, it is clear that, the two parties maintain different yardsticks of measuring excellence and mediocrity in public service delivery. For instance, the level of sufficiency or efficiency of a product, finished job or service in Nigeria that may impress the home-based may not necessarily impress his foreign-based compatriot. This is because; having endured and indeed practically come to terms with disappointment over bad governance in the country for several decades, the home-based consciously or unconsciously lowers the bar of his expectation from the system, as a matter of course. He consequently tends to be excessively impressed by any measure of growth no matter how insufficient, inefficient or negligible compared to the huge resources available that, if properly invested, is enough to provide much more efficient and indeed sustainable service, product or development.

Whereas the exposure to the culture of efficiency and excellence inherent in organized and progressive countries enjoyed by the foreign-based inspires him to rightly or wrongly adopt that standard as the yardstick of measuring government performance including the government of his home country. Also he expects to see similar standard in all aspects of national development endeavour back in his home country. Therefore, his resultant disappointment inevitably evokes his frustration especially considering the fact that, his home country has all it takes to attain the same level of efficiency, and indeed the potential to go even beyond that level, for that matter. This is why he hardly gets impressed by most of, if not all, what his government back home flaunts as achievements.

By the way, though one does not necessarily need to live in a progressive country to realize how much Nigeria lags behind and indeed what it exactly needs to do to get it right, yet a wider exposure to what obtains elsewhere is certainly an added advantage for him to experience and appreciate what good governance means in reality. He would also realize that all the excuses given by the successive failing leaders in Nigeria and their apologists over the decades to cover up their incompetence and failure to deliver are mere pretexts, and that they simply lack political will to tackle the country’s crises, and that government employees are equally guilty as the political officer holders, while the general public is largely not that keen to affect a change, either.

We must refrain from playing this game, for it will never help matters. We must stop looking for scapegoats. We have to recognize our individual and collective responsibilities towards our collective fate, so that we can eventually achieve the reform we badly need.