Nigeria: A Country that Values its Entertainers but Despises its Workforce and Intellectuals -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Do you think Nigeria is normal? Although I stubbornly hold to my opinion that Nigeria is not bewitched, I must admit, the country needs help. It is a country that has no direction. This is not because there are no directions to follow but because its rulers choose to wander around and grope in the broad daylight as if in darkness. With the current crop of rulers in Nigeria, the country is not on the path of greatness and is not even ready to dream of prosperity. Nigeria is a sleeping giant. Yes! It is not awake; and even in its sleeping mode, it is not sleeping to dream of prosperity.

Except if Nigeria would be an exceptional case, it is difficult to find a country that developed by despising, humiliating  and starving its thinkers, scientists, intellectuals, and workforce. Rulers in Nigeria do not hide their hatred for scholarship and what scholars do towards national development in terms of teaching, discoveries and research outputs. They ridicule them in public while the world incredulously watches as spectators.

In Nigeria, as I write, it pays, though disappointedly, to be an entertainer than to be a scientist, or an intellectual, or a medical doctor, or a civil servant. They are not just comparable. Entertainers are far ahead. Nigeria is a country, especially under President Tinubu, that plays with its destiny and future because it believes in amusement and frowns at serious mindedness.

In unserious nation, the serious minded are objects of scorn and are ridiculed by their rulers. If Nigerian teachers, health workers, security agents, and civil servants wonder why hard work does not put food on their tables, it is because they choose reputable professions in a country that is ruled by rulers that value frivolities. No suffering Nigerian should think the country is poor or in debt; the country is rich and in abundance. But its wealth is in few hands.

When our rulers go cap in hand in search of foreign loans, they are only being theatrical. It is just a comical display to entertain the world and make the world giggle. It is not because the loans are actually needed. Or which of the loans procured by Nigeria can anyone recall to have been used to execute any serious project to its completion within the stipulated timeframe? When a serious nation that approaches governance with sobriety takes loan, it is fixated on how to repay the loan and achieve a lot by it. However, an unserious nation would take loan, squander it, and go for more loans until it mortgages the future of its unborn population.

If you are in doubt that Nigerian government is rich but claims to be in financial crisis by always borrowing, the recent billions of naira’s gift gifted to the Super Falcons should clear your doubt. Just last week Tuesday, the Senate approved President Bola Tinubu’s external borrowing plan of over $21 billion for the 2025–2026 fiscal cycle. Can anyone explain where the (Gi)ant of Africa, which could not even fund its annual budget, suddenly found billions of naira to celebrate a trophy?

According to Daily Trust, “The cash price splashed on Nigeria’s women national football team, the Super Falcons, is enough to take care of the monthly wage bill of about 16,000 doctors, 66,000 teachers and over 78,000 lowest ranked officers of the Police Force.” This is the  angle from which Daily Trust looked at it. Daily Trust is right. According to me, looking at it from another angle, the money (roughly N150m) gifted to each member of the national football team would pay the salary of a Nigerian university professor for 25 years. If you don’t understand why many Nigerian professors, who are yet to sell their cars, could not regularly fuel them, this should open your eyes to the extent of their impoverishment.

Do you know why our nurses and doctors, who should be looking after the sick, look sick and distressed in government owned hospitals? Do you know why they are always staring at the exit door—ready to japa at any slight opportunity? What about our men in uniform? Do you know why they look unfed and need to take bribe to feed themselves and their families? Do you also know why many of us think policemen are our enemies and the Police Force needs to convince us that they are our friends? And do you know why those retired police officers are abandoned to rot after risking their lives to serve and  protect the state (Kudos to Omoyele Sowore for the recent protest)?

It is because the focus of our rulers is on those that entertain them. Those that make them compulsively shout “it is a gooooooal.” They focus on those artistes that praise them to the highest heaven. If, as a Nigerian, what you do is to protect the citizens from attacks, cure them of their ailments and diseases, or liberate them from ignorance, you need to always embark on strike to draw government’s attention to your plights. Even with industrial action, you would only be lucky if our rulers acknowledge that you exist.

To solve your problems, committees upon committees would be set up to buy time. Whey they are done, after wasting your time, you will be  told the government is broke. But to dish out billions of naira and splash them on the Super Falcons, no committee was set up. Senate approval was not even sought. Even if Senate approval was sought, we all know it is all formality.

Have you heard about the Tertiary Institutions Staff Support Fund (TISSF)? It is a renewed hope initiative. With the TISSF, many naive Nigerians and regime apologists would think, and probably sincerely, that the government is working. No. The government knows that it is only running in circles. According to the document, “The purpose of the fund is to address systemic issues affecting tertiary institution staff across Nigeria.” Let me use the language we would understand better. After subjecting university staff to pulverizing poverty, the government, instead of increasing salaries and addressing staff welfare issues, plans to give them loan. Unfortunately, many of us who struggle to  think properly are applauding the initiative. I think our poverty is not only material poverty. We now also suffer from poverty of thought. I hope the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would insist on better working conditions and focus on its 2009 negotiation. This does not require setting up any committee. It only requires action.

Come to think of it, your employer shortchanges you. He pays you what is far below you labour and your worth. He pays you a worthless salary that could neither take you home nor put food on your table. You complain to him that your survival has been miraculous—you barely manage to survive. You let him know that your salary cannot pay your house rent not to talk of your kids’ school fees. You show him your bank account statement to see how empty you are. You let him know that you are in serious debt.

Having listened to your complaints, your employer says: “I understand your plights and I know you are actually shortchanged but I have no money to pay you your entitlements, but I can lend you money.” Could there be a wicked employer than this? This employer is an enemy of progress. Only an unthinking employee would jubilate, in this context, that his employer is about to help him by lending him money.

So that university unions would fall for the bait—lure them into the trap—it is said to be an interest-free loan. It is possible that the Muslim-Muslim clerics advise the government to make the loan interest-free.

Are you also aware that health workers are on strike? The billions of naira that is spent to celebrate the Super Falcons’ trophy would go a long way to address heath workers’ demands. But it is as if our rulers are saying: “if those patients in hospitals would die, let them die. Allow us to celebrate our beautiful Super Falcons who made us shout ‘it is a gooooooal.’”

All said, the new millionaires (Super Falcons) should enjoy their millions and sleep well in their flats in the Renewed Hope Estate. No one should disrupt their peace. We are not against that. What we are against is government’s stifling of its workforce and its disrespect for intellectuals to please entertainers.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen 

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com