NIGERIA: Years of bad governance contributed to the 'deplorable' state of the aircraft in which more than 100 people died on Sunday, writes Kieran Cooke in Lagos
A plane crash in Nigeria on Sunday, in which more than 100 people are reported to have been killed, is being seen as yet one more indication of the management deficiencies and serious decline in standards blighting Africa's most populous and potentially richest country.
Government officials who have visited the crash site near the capital, Abuja, say the condition of the ill-fated Boeing 737 aircraft, operated by one of the many private airline companies that have sprung up in Nigeria in recent years, was "deplorable".
At one time Nigeria boasted of having one of the the best air safety records in Africa: now it has one of the worst, with four crashes in a little over a year.
Last month 10 of the country's most senior military commanders were killed when their aircraft came down, also on a flight from Abuja.
This latest tragedy could have serious political implications for the government of President Olesegun Obasanjo in the run-up to what are expected to be closely fought and possibly violent national elections next April.
Among those killed in the crash was Mohammadu Maccido, the sultan of Sokoto in northern Nigeria and the spiritual leader of the country's estimated 70 million Muslims.
One of the main issues in the coming election - which will vote in a new president, state governors and MPs in this country of more than 130 million - is whether the mainly Muslim north or the predominantly Christian south will have ascendancy in government.
But the underlying issue in political and economic life in Nigeria is corruption. Transparency International, the non-governmental body which monitors global levels of corruption, rates Nigeria among the world's most corrupt nations.
In power since 1999, President Obasanjo, a retired army general, has repeatedly stated that his top priority is the fight against fraud and monetary mismanagement.
"We will turn Nigeria from a pond of corruption to an island of integrity," says Mr Obasanjo.
There have been some successes. In 2002 the president set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to fight corruption at every level.
That commission says it has so far recovered more than $5 billion (€3.9 billion) in stolen state funds and successfully prosecuted more than 80 people, including some of those involved in infamous internet-based fraud schemes emanating in Nigeria through which gullible foreigners were persuaded to part with bank account details in return for taking part in spurious financial transactions.
Institutions were also targeted: in one such fraudulent scheme a Brazilian bank was inveigled into investing more than $240 million in a phantom airport project in Nigeria; five people, including prominent businessmen, are now fighting jail sentences.
However, despite the much-trumpeted anti-corruption moves, government critics say Mr Obasanjo, who failed earlier this year to have the constitution changed so he could contest the presidency for a third term next April, has been using the fight against corruption as a pretext for a political witch-hunt against his opponents.
Vice-president Atiku Abubakar, who did not support the president's attempt at constitutional change, has had corruption charges laid against him, fomenting a bitter and very public row between the two most powerful political figures in the country.
Corruption allegations have been made against many of Nigeria's powerful state governors. President Obasanjo's opponents say recent moves imposing emergency powers in a state run by one of the president's critics are a sign of things to come: violence will erupt and the president could use the breakdown of law and order as a pretext for postponing elections.
Meanwhile, corruption is still evident at every level. At roadblocks, police extort money from motorists, at airports often payment of a few dollars ensures bags are not searched. Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil producers, yet an estimated half of its people live on less than a dollar a day. In a process called "bunkering", thousands of tons of crude oil is regularly illegally siphoned off and sold on the international market.
Meanwhile, services and institutions which were 25 years ago among the best in Africa, have gone into rapid decline. Public highways have become pot-holed deathtraps. Adequate medical services are only available for the privileged few.
Most residents of Lagos, a city of between 13 and 15 million, have no proper water supply or sewage system. Power is often more off than on. Students from all over Africa once flocked to universities in Lagos and elsewhere; now Nigerian students go to Ghana or further afield for further education.
"It is all so, so sad," says Ogaga Ifowodo, one of Nigeria's leading poets. "What were once fine universities have become neglected, cash starved relics." Ogaga, who, as a refrain in one of his poems, talks of "Oil is my curse, oil is our doom", wonders if life in Nigeria will ever improve.
The EU and other international donors insist that better governance in countries such as Nigeria is a vital prerequisite for development and a key condition of further aid packages. Overall economic performance has improved, largely thanks to the more than doubling of oil export prices over the past year.
In April Nigeria became the first country in Africa to settle debts with official lenders, paying off nearly $5 billion. Yet Dr Ngozi Okunjo-Iweala, the respected former World Bank vice-president who, as finance minister, engineered the debt settlement, has been pushed out of office. More seriously, escalating tensions and kidnappings of foreign workers in the Niger Delta, the main oil-producing region, threaten oil production - the source of more than 90 per cent of Nigeria's revenues.
Earlier this month Nigeria marked 46 years of independence from British rule. There was little in the way of celebration. "After all the initial hope, we have been badly governed, our people have been abused," said an editorial in one newspaper. "We pray for a new beginning."