Both the Economy and the Violence are growing

When I started this blog, my intention was to build up to the centenary of Amalgamation, which was this year, 1st January, 2014.

A lot of things happened in the interim, in my life and in the life of the Federal Republic, and as you may have noticed there was no blog post commemorating the date. In fact, I have not posted anything since last year.

And it is difficult to restart.

What does one say? Even in times when things are more predictable (for lack of a better term), it is always difficult to sum up the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in whole or in part, using something so simplistic as words or sentences. What do you say? If only it were possible to telepathically transmit the sense of something, but even then, how to make sense of Nigeria, Africa or even of the Earth?

Nigeria's GDP-rebasing project, which looked like it would never end, finally concluded and Nigeria leap-frogged South Africa to be recognized as the biggest aggregate economy (measured by GDP) on the African continent.  There are even suggestions (see video courtesy CCTV-Africa below) that the rebased figures still underestimate the size of Nigeria's economy:



On the other hand, I have frequently said on this forum that the Fourth Republic (1999-date) is the second-most violent period of our history behind only the years 1966-1970.  Think about that for a second.  The only period of our history more violent than the present one, is a 4-year stretch during which there was an ultra-violent coup, an ultra-violent counter-coup, widespread mass killings, and ultimately a two-and-half year Civil War.

What is particularly concerning is the violence of the Fourth Republic has been on an upward trajectory. With each passing year since 1999, it has gotten worse. What is happening now is just the worst part of a trend that has shown no sign of abating. It is all nice and good to blame Goodluck Jonathan, and I certainly think he has a big share of the blame, but this all started long before his "lucky" ascent to the Presidency, and to be quite blunt, every arm of all three tiers of the Fourth Republic administration share in the blame. Nor is the blame restricted only to those who govern; the so-called "opposition" are as much a part of the problem.

From time to time on this blog, I point out that I warned about this in an essay I wrote 11 years ago in 2003 -- even then it was already clear that the ever-rising violence was going to get out of hand, and that the various private armies and militia groups were getting dangerously well-armed and acquiring ever greater capacity for violence relative to the official security institutions.

The two-facedness of the politicians was also clear then -- they refused, and still refuse to deal with vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the security space, because they themselves maintain illegal militia and private armies (not to mention alliances with private armies on contract around election time ).  One of the great problems with law enforcement reform in Nigeria is the people constitutionally responsible for reforming law enforcement are people who would be in jail if our law enforcement worked. The same is true in the public security space writ large -- it is like asking a fox to make sure the henhouse is secure.

This isn't really a problem unique to Nigeria. Many, probably most global and national institutions are run by individuals and interest-groups whose individual and group "strategic interests" ensure that the institution in practice facilitates whatever it is that it was theoretically set up to prevent.

But let me not digress to far off the point of this my "return" post.

The good news is good news because if we ever get around to the process of decreasing the amount of bad news, we are going to need to stand on the strong platform provided by the good news.  And there is no stronger leg to stand on than the leg of a large and growing economy.  That is the thing about the Federal Republic of Nigeria .... even in our darker moments, you cannot but notice that the potential good things are so extensive that if harnessed properly they would swamp the bad things.

But there is much to talk about, and hopefully I will speak more frequently.