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By Steve Egbo

If you care to look up the word ’empowerment’ in your dictionary, you will likely see a lot of rigmarole, but in the end, you will be left with the understanding that the term empowerment simply means to support another to become better than he is, or an offer of assistance in relieving a pressing situation. Further, it will tell you that empowerment is an effort or a desire to help someone achieve stability and growth. Such assistance could evolve through various dimensions – social, economic, political, material, etc. This much captures the grist.

The word empowerment suddenly crept into our socio-political dictionary following the advent of democratic rule in 1999. Empowerment as a process of political engagement became excerbated by the steadily deepening economic and social crisis enveloping the nation. Unfortunately, this is a situation that never seems to get better, especially as each administration performed worse than the previous one. Empowerment came aboard as part of the efforts by our politicians to look good, to overwhelm us with a sense of caring, to forge an empathy with us, and to create the impression that they have the interest of the little guys at heart.

It all started as a joke, a magnanimous joke, but gradually it exploded into a national phenomenon. And it came under different shapes and guises and fanciful makeup. First they called it Poverty Alleviation Programme, (PAP). Pap is a local delicacy. But you know it does not sustain one for more than an hour after consumption. Then they changed the name to poverty reduction, and on and on.

More and more, the process of empowerment and the frills around it steadily caught on like wild fire and everybody got involved. The federal and state governments, elected representatives, members of the National Assembly and many others. Empowerment became a favorite pet project for politicians and their wives. They employed it to humor us, then to entice us, and to oil the tools of their trade and keep the atmosphere muddled and cloudy.

Their target audience were the youths – largely idle – but whom they used as thugs and killer dogs during election times. They also enlarged their efforts by seeking to accommodate the adults and the women folk in the game arrangements. Empowerment became an inducement to do their biddings and also a process of reward for services rendered. These same youths constitute their trumpeters, hangers-on, their bridal train and drum beaters and praise singers, even after elections were over. The long era of military rule was a period that drastically changed Nigeria.

As stated in the book, “Political Soldiering”, one of the most enduring achievements, albeit negatively, of the military, was the creation of the “Sycophancy Cottage Industry”, an industry that compels the oppressed to clap and dance in honor and exultation of their oppressors. This industry ensures a steady supply of willing hands to service our politicians and their endless game of frivolities.

With their empowerment projects, the politicians were able to solidify the climate of degradation and squalor which they have brought the society into. They stunt the future of everyone especially the youths and by so doing, ensure that the atmosphere of poverty and hopelessness pervades. For decades, Nigerian politicians cleverly employed the policy of “Collective Impoverishment” as an instrument of social control. And it has worked tremendously in their favor. Otherwise, how would one look at the gift of motorbikes and tricycles; wheelbarrows and shovels; frying pans and charcoal stoves, etc, as empowerment.

So, the big question one should ask is – Empowerment into what? When your Governor or Senator or Rep member gives out such items to young men of 25 or 30 or thereabouts, what has he done to their future? The recipient is now a certified shareholder in the touting industry. When a Governor gives out packs of noddles, teabags, stove and kettle as empowerment, then roadside tea making has become an industry. Many others are empowered into shoe shining and nail cutting. And when you clap and dance for these great apostles of empowerment, did you ever wonder what or where they are empowering you into?

Then you ask another vital question – what manner of leaders are these? What are their motivations? What are their real objectives? Are they just exporting wickedness or are they truly bereft of ideas? Is this all they can do for the people that elected them into power?

No doubt our rulers are destitute of integrity and principles, but is this all they can actually give back to the society that has given them so much? In this present age, is this the much the managers of the Nigerian project can think out as leaders of a 21st Century presumptive World Power? The questions are many, and very critical too. Perhaps, the most critical question should be – how did we get such bunch of fools into power? Why do we continue to romanticise their foolishness? Why do we keep tolerating their wickedness and why are we so helpless in the face of their glaring ineptitude and vicious ideas?

What has happened? Why are we here? And where are we going? Why have we regressed so dangerously? A little over half a century ago, we had leaders who gave out books, ideas, solid education and learning as tools of empowerment. We had men like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and members of their team who surrounded themselves with intellectuals and men of ideas, thinkers and doers, brimming with options on how to build a better society.

We had men who were competing with each other on creating better conditions of existence for the people who depended on them. These were leaders who inspired the up coming generations to dream dreams and to aspire towards greatness. Today our leaders surround themselves with thugs, assassins, drug addicts, drunkards and dubious intellectual wrecks, men and women who remain in constant communion with the devil.

The truth about our leaders, our present crop of leaders, is unnerving. It is as horrifying as it is tragic. They suffer from what the British neurologist, David Owen, described as “the hubris syndrome”. They are aware that what they are doing is wrong, but they deliberately convince themselves that it is right. The basic truth is that our leaders do not care. They are so callous, so unfeeling and so inhuman that while our public schools have all but collapsed, they can empower our youths with bykes, keke, shovels, wheelbarrows, hoes, kettle and teabags.

When would such youths ask rational questions? How would they attune their minds to the delicate undertakings of national development and self worth. How would they even know that their vote is their power and that they can use that singular power to change their world. How can they ask pertinent questions or demand accountability on how their common patrimony, their future, are being squandered by the VIPs of waste who have ensconced themselves in power and leadership.

You ask further, do our leaders read? Are they educated? Do they feel or understand the role of education and learning in the affairs of a modern society? Or are they just concerned with the primitive acquisition of filthy wealth. They may decorate their fanciful offices with volumes of the works by great thinkers and renowned authors and statesmen, but have they read anything, anything at all, about the great ideas captured in such works by those thinkers?

Do they understand the biographies and autobiographies of legendary figures and statesmen, of empire builders and the world’s renowns. Do they understand the great ideas these iconic figures generated and espoused. Do they care to know about the positive impacts and revolutionary changes those leaders wrought on their societies and people, or the foundations they laid for those coming behind.

Are the leaders of our country aware of those great ideas that fashion and create durable societies and enduring civilizations. Are they aware of the great ideas, the revolutionary thoughts that recreated humanity, revolutionised human relationships, inspired hope where none existed, and not only brought about a new world but changed the courses of history – east, west, north and south.

Have Nigerian leaders ever heard of what Mahatma Ghandi did for India, Winston Churchill for Great Britain, Woodrow Wilson for the United States, Mao Zedong for China, the Troskys for Mother Russia, Charles de Gaulle for France, Nelson Mandela for South Africa, and many more. These are ordinary men but who distinguished themselves through conscious determination, a life of commitment to do good and the genuine desire to lead their countries of birth from destitution and backwardness to the era of rebirth and progress and development.

This is not the time or place to talk about the ills of Nigerian leaders and their governance mode. We will continue to talk about that as time and circumstances permit. But when a government treats the the rule of law with contempt, abandons the path of accountability, closes its ears to public opinion and rides roughshod over the demands of the citizens, then the society is on a slow death-march.

When national wealth is appropriated by a privileged few, and the vast majority are ignored and condemned to wallow in hopeless poverty, struggling for the beggerly crumbs trickling down from the stables of empowerment programs, the country will continue to stagnate. This is what we have witnessed in Nigeria since 1999 and this is why our leaders and men of the moment empower us with insults and mockery. This is why they dehumanize us. The officials of such inept governments can empower our citizens with inanities and banalities. And we will gladly accept.

As we continue to dwindle and diminish, as we continue to retrogres and atrophy, as our able bodied youths, the leaders of tomorrow, continue to struggle for keke napep and motorbikes, wheel barrows and teabags, as banditry and official corruption become legitimized, with miscreants and politicians as major share holders, we must continue to seek answers to this critically invaluable question – what manner of empowerment is this? This question must be accompanied with answers. Answers that will work for us.

For until we kick out men and women who empower us with keke and whell barrow, with teabags and shovels, until we take a stand and say no to empowerment into slavery and destitution, until we summon the courage to reject their crown of thorns, our society will continue to bleed and the haemorrhage will continue to drain the life out of us.

* Professor Steve Egbo, a Consultant/Res Person, NILDS – Abuja, can be reached via 08037910012 (WhatsApp only)