On the day the former first lady of the United States of America and present Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was marking her first year on the job, she chose to breathe hard on what she characterised as the unbelievable and rampant corruption, and the criminality of the Nigerian ruling class.
"The failure of the Nigerian leadership over many years to respond to the legitimate needs of their own young people, to have a government that promoted a meritocracy, that really understood that democracy can't just be given lip service, it has to be delivering services to the people, has meant there is a lot of alienation in that country and others," said Mrs. Clinton, on Tuesday January 26, at the Dean Acheson Auditorium in Washington, DC.
The Secretary of State pointed at the indices 0f the decay in the country and said: "the rate of illiteracy is growing, not falling, in a country that used to have a very high rate of literacy in Africa. The health statistics are going the wrong direction. The corruption is unbelievable," adding that "when I did a town hall in Abuja, people were just literally standing and shouting about what it was like to live in a country where the elite was so dominant, where corruption was so rampant, where criminality was so pervasive."
Echoes from the past
During a visit in August last year, Mrs. Clinton was highly critical of the Nigerian leadership, branding the situation in the country as "heartbreaking."
"There is no doubt that when one looks at Nigeria, it is such a heartbreaking scene we see. The number of people living in Nigeria is going up. The number of people facing food security and health challenges are going up... because the revenues have not been well managed," Mrs. Clinton said at a town hall meeting she attended in Abuja.
In addition, as if to confirm what the U.S. thinks about the country, a senior U.S. official travelling with Mrs. Clinton said, "Nigeria is at something of a political crossroads. Its last elections approximately two years ago were deeply flawed."
A softer Clinton?
At a time that all takers seemed to have found every excuse to heap their junk on Nigeria, on account of the alleged failed attempt by a Nigerian youth, Farouk Abdulmutallab, to blow up a plane as it flew into Detroit Airport on December 25 2009, Mrs. Clinton was modestly gracious and even helpful.
"In Nigeria, which is, as you know, evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, about 75 million of each - Christians predominantly in the south, Muslims predominantly in the north - there has been an accommodation that has enabled Nigeria to survive politically," she said.
Although the Al Qaeda Terrorist Network, funded by America's most wanted man, Usama bin Ladin, has claimed responsibility for the foiled operation; and the American government has added Nigeria to its list "Countries of Interest", Mrs. Clinton's tone was more on the social dislocation in Nigeria and of the lack of vision of our leaders.
"I do think that Nigeria faces a threat from increasing radicalisation that needs to be addressed, and not just by military means. There has to be recognition that in the last 10 years, a lot of the indicators about quality of life in Nigeria have gone the wrong direction" Mrs. Clinton said.
It was also not all gloom and doom from Mrs. Clinton, who also used the opportunity to woe friends for her country.
"You want to live in peace and safety and feel good about yourself and be part of a community that you can be proud of, then turn away from your society and your family and come with us. And that can be a powerful message, whether it's a gang in America or an extremist organisation in Nigeria.
"And part of what I've been trying to tell leaders in all of my travels is that we're not just lecturing about human rights or good governance or anticorruption measures because they're our values; we think they are absolutely essential to the long-term survival of a lot of these governments and the societies and the political systems," she said.
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