The Legislative Process in Nigeria

In Nigerian, government ministers have publicly paid drivers drive them around for non-official business. In America, they would be fired from their jobs for such an act. Members of Congress do not have public vehicles assigned to them and fly commercial planes when they travel.
The point here is that on paper Nigeria has a system that is supposed to make laws in a democratic manner but that is not what happens in reality. As a master of fact, the National Assembly has a broken record. As I pointed out on the lecture in public policies, the Nigerian government is solving no problems. One cannot point to any serious policy by this government in six years in office. What exactly has Obasanjo and company done to benefit Nigeria?
Nigerian school leavers cannot obtain jobs; we have over 50% unemployment. If an American president has over 6% unemployment he is out of office. But it is only in Nigeria that folks are placed in office to do nothing. So what are Obasanjo and the members of the National Assembly doing for Nigeria other than “eating bribes” and growing fat bellies?
The outstanding educational system Nigerian inherited from Britain has fallen apart. Those of us who went to secondary school in the sixties and early seventies found American education a joke for our secondary school education was as good as the first two years of university education in America. But now, university graduates in Nigeria cannot even do undergraduate work in America. So why did the government permit our school system to fall apart.
Do we, in fact, have leaders in Nigeria or is it the case that what we have are animals governing Nigeria? One wonders. From what jungle did the leaders of Nigeria crawl out from? These people are an insult to the term human beings. They are beneath contempt. Here we have a situation where the rest of the world thinks that Africans are subhumans and are unintelligent and our leaders give them the ammunition to have that belief.
Look at the streets of Onitsha and Aba: garbage is on them. What fools govern these cities? Have they not heard about city administration, about how to tax citizens and their properties; obtain the funds to run city. The primary function of city administration is to provide water, electricity, collect and dispose garbage, pave roads and run elementary and secondary schools. So how come our city leaders are not doing these things. Are they men or animals? Ah, they see being elected to offices as opportunity to be very important persons. But very important doing what?
You are standing in line to buy food at a MacDonald restaurant and behind you is your Senator or Congressman or Governor or Mayor. He cannot jump the line. You sit down with him and chat about politics. You relate to him as you would any other person. You ask him what he has done for the state, city lately. He tells you why he should be elected to office: because of what he does for you and the state.
By contrast, in Nigeria we have semi-illiterate politicians masquerading as very important men and women. In fact, when you talk to them…and I have had the opportunity to talk to many of them…you feel like you are talking to fools. They practically know nothing about management of public affairs. All they seem to care for is being seem as very important persons and stealing from the public. The governors’ specialty is to take their state portion of federal revenue sharing and come to the West and buy multi million dollar mansions.