It will not surprise most Nigerians that Nigeria has since 2007 been labeled a "failed state" by the international organization known as the "FUND FOR PEACE".

In 2008, 177 States made the list of failed States. Out of these, 35 were classified as "alert", 92 grouped as "warning", 35 as moderate and 15 as sustainable. Nigeria also made the list of "20 worst states" in 2008 while only Africa produced eleven of the 20 worst failed states in the world.

Political commentators and journalists have described failed states as Nations that have failed and fallen short of some of the basic and fundamental conditions and responsibility of a sovereign state.

Some of the characteristics of a failed state are:

(1) Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions.

(2) Inability to provide reasonable public services

(3) Widespread corruption and criminality

(4) An absence or a sustained limitation of the growth of democratic institutions.

The signs are ominous for the survival of the Nigerian State and it will take strenuous, patriotic and determined efforts on the part of its Leaders to liberate it from the group of failed states.

It is necessary to examine Nigeria’s entry into the league of "failed nation" The first characteristic is the "erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decision" and this is very germane to the Nigerian situation.

Nigeria’s political party structures and systems have made it inevitable for legitimate authority (which must normally reside in government and its leaders) to be splintered into various interest and partisan groups.

For instance President Shehu Shagari’s Government of 1979-1983 did not have any atom of internal control but was manipulated by the party big wigs and the General Olusegun Obasanjo led military which ceded power to it in the controversial 12 2/3 election of 1979. In fact during President Shehu Shagari’s era, some of his ministers were more powerful than him.

The issue of erosion of legitimate authority of state was reversed during Obasanjo’s rule from 1999-2007. While Shagari adopted the power splinter approach, Obasanjo preferred the integrated and consolidated power approach. For Obasanjo, Power and Authority were absolute. And like Benevolent Despots of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, Obasanjo hired and fired his Ministers and Advisers only referring to the National Assembly as mere formality.

President Umaru Yar Adua’s tenure is a rehash of the Shehu Shagari era. The only difference is that there is now a stronger cabal that has completely overpowered, overawed and taken over the governance of Nigeria from President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

In the three situations cited, the erosion of legitimate authority is very glaring. The Governments since 1979 (excluding aberrant and abnormal military regimes) have not in the spirit of untainted patriotism taken populist oriented decisions as a result of the erosion of the Nations Legitimate Authority.

The second characteristic of a failed nation in this review is the inability to provide reasonable public services. These include Electricity (power), water, Public Health, Roads, Education, Food, Housing, Employment etc etc.

I do not know of any country that can equal Nigeria’s failure in the provision of basic public utilities and services. Maybe Haiti and Yemen may come a close second and third. Nigeria with a vast population of 154.9mn (UN’s 2009 figure) cannot readily tell how many wattage of electricity it uses.

All the guesses come between 2000 – 35000 mw, while South Africa with a population of about 50mn has the best power programme in Africa with over 50,000mw.

Nigeria’s record of bad road networks will find a place in the “Guinness Book of Records” if awful statistics are revealed. Car manufacturers too should be alerted to make caterpillar – type of car models for Nigerian roads.

As for potable water, only about 5% is provided by government. Nigerians have decided to fend for themselves by providing water by digging wells and boreholes but most of these are not even potable. The United Nations has over the years invested billions of dollars for the provision of potable water for all Nigerians but all these funds have gone into private accounts in foreign bank vaults.

Most Nigerian leaders do not just care about public services like education, employment, housing, food, health. Services in all these sectors in Nigeria are either moribund or non existent. Education is reserved only for the rich as affordable public schools are intentionally under funded and encouraged to go on long strikes for as long as four months to pave way and swell admissions in private universities which are owned by the political class including Governors and sitting Presidents.

The Nigerian Government has no defined Housing policy while countries all over the world encourage mortgage firms and banks to finance organized housing schemes for its citizenry. The nearest to a housing policy in Nigeria is the building of Estates and selling same to corrupt government officials who have stolen government money to pay for such houses.

Our public health system is in shambles and pitiable disarray. Our teaching Hospitals are unequipped and in a sorry state. As the Private Hospitals (some of them owned by Government officials) expand, the public ones shrink in quality and service, thereby making access to health service a preserve of the wealthy alone.

Today in Nigeria all Government officials and those who cannot afford the expensive health care system seek medical treatment overseas even as near as Ghana and South Africa.

Even our own President Umaru Yar’Adua is spending his 3rd month in a Saudi Arabian hospital as no Nigerian hospital can handle his medical condition due to under funding and lack of basic medical facilities.

Nigeria depends mainly on imported food materials for survival even when it has greatest potentials to feed herself and part of Africa. In 1999 when President Coliseum Obasanjo took over, a 50 kilo bag of rice was about N2, 000.00, but he immediately negotiated with Dangote and made Dangote the sole importer of not only rice but of every other food item you can think of. And the price of rice was pegged then at an impossible N6000.00 per bag. Do not question me if a certain percentage of this money found its way into the President’s bank account. But at the appropriate time all the sins and wickedness of President Olusegun Obasanjo shall be recorded in the chronicles of the wicked and Nigerians will wonder with mouth agape at the wickedness and bestiality of a man who ruled Nigeria for 8 years and became one of the richest men in the world.

Nigerian Governments have always paid lip service to employment as Government believes that Nigerians are hardworking people and they can “find their way around” and manage to survive. President Barack Obama of America only on Wednesday 27th January 2010 announced to a cheering National Assembly that his Government will make jobs his number one focus and priority. The American President knows that only jobs can lubricate the economy of a Nation.

The 3rd characteristic of a failed state is the level of high breed corruption and criminality. Most Nigerians are surprised and some even shocked that there are other countries more corrupt than Nigeria as grouped by Transparency International. Nigeria’s corruption is today legendary as exemplified by a sitting president building a university of technology in the open glare of the whole world.

Criminality is a follow up to unchecked corruption. Unresolved riddles of high profile political killings is the order of the day in Nigeria. The cold-blooded assassination of our former Minister for Justice and Attorney General Chief Bola Ige is of relevance here.

The 4th characteristic of a failed state is an absence or a sustained limitation of the growth of Democratic Institutions. These include the Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative arms of government, the Electoral Commission, Rule of Law, Civil Society and all other institutions that made democratic norms to flourish.

In Nigeria these democratic institutions are at best moribund. The Executive has a mortal grip on both the legislative and the Judiciary. For instance Nigeria’s ruling Party the Peoples Democratic Party has threatened “anti-Yar’Adua” lawmakers that they would not be eligible for re-election into the National Assembly if they don’t support the invalid and comatose president.

The Judiciary is not different. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo flagrantly disobeyed court orders and had great influence over court decisions. The Judiciary has not helped itself in even purely judicial matters. The case of the Late Dr. Tunji Otegbeye will suffice here.

Late Dr. Tunji Otegbeye sued his wife for divorce in a Lagos High Court in the year 2001. About Sept. 2009 when Dr. Otegbeye died, the matter was still pending in court. A very good example of “justice delayed and justice denied”

The story of Ghana’s beautiful democracy must be told here. Ghana won Independence from colonial rule in 1957. A bloody chapter of Military coups followed. But since President Jerry Rawlings introduced multi-party democracy in the 1990s, Ghana’s opposition parties have twice won power through successful elections. But in Nigeria, the chairman of Nigeria’s ruling party, the PDP, has announced to the whole world that his party will monopolise power for the next 50 years. All PDP victories since 1999 have been through massive rigging, arson, murders and assassinations as confirmed by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua himself when he said his electoral victory in 2007 was greatly flawed.

In Africa, Nigeria has the most appalling record of woefully organized elections and this has not excluded even small local government bye elections. But by far the most urgent and most current reason why Nigeria should be declared a failed state and a pariah state by the international community is the current leadership vacuum rocking the country. Today is the 68th day that Nigeria’s president was flown to a Saudi Arabian hospital for treatment. The President has neither empowered his deputy to act nor even informed the National Assembly as required by sections 144 and 145 of the 1999 Constitution.

A very powerful Cabal has completely taken over the governance of Nigeria as both the Information and External Affairs Ministers declared that they have not seen, heard from or even spoken to the President since his medical odyssey 68 days ago.

Most rumours suggest that the president is in a coma, or on life-support machines or even clinically dead. The head of the cabal and Nigeria’s Minister for Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Micheal Aondoaka on 27th Jan. 2010 declared without shame that the President was now fit to rule. But if the President is now fit to rule, where is he ruling from? Why can’t Nigerians see their President who according to the Attorney General is as fit as a fiddle?

The world is watching Nigeria. Declaring her a failed state is just the beginning of diplomatic sanctions to be expected. Yemen – the poorest Arab nation is also on the radar as the world prepares to declare it a failed state due to the strength of Al-Qaeda operations in that country and a total lack of social services.

Nigerians should team up with Pastor Tunde Bakare and other well meaning Nigerian Elders to retrieve Nigeria from this path of darkness, madness and destruction.