About Ayo
Ayo Ojebode is ordinarily a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He's now a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, Holland. At NIAS, he’s trying to complete a research on media and the memory of dictatorial rule. To him, Holland and its people are a pack of paradoxes –simply complicated; lavishly frugal; attractively disgusting. Therefore, they attract keen attention and frank comments.
In my last piece, I celebrated Dutch simplicity, as opposed to the Nigerians’ vulgar display of wealth and affluence. My focus was on the Dutch person - not on the Dutch government. From what I have seen, the Dutch government, like other governments, also takes vainglorious decisions. In this column, I will focus on two vanity projects of the Dutch government.
The first is the Rotating House in Tilburg. It is five metres wide and ten metres tall. The house has four wheels and the whole structure has been put on rails on the Hasselt Roundabout. It takes the house 20 hours to make a complete circle. There’s nobody living in the house. It wouldn’t be possible anyway, since it has not been decorated and furnished.
The Rotating House was said to have cost €400,000.00 excluding VAT. The flowers in the garden surrounding the house were dead when I passed it by. The garden itself and its dead flowers cost a few thousand euros. Maintaining the House costs about 13,000 euros annually. If you add up all these figures, you come close to the cost of a whole school complete with boarding facilities in some African countries. Just so you know: the Rotating House is an art project.
Project number two. You probably have heard of the North/South underground railway line in Amsterdam. That project has become a scandal in Holland. Although Amsterdam is a relatively small capital, with a very reliable transport system, the Dutch government thought the city needed underground lines — to be able to compete with Paris and London, maybe! The underground project began in 1970 and is yet to be completed. All the four lines are up and running except for the North/South line.
The construction of this prestigious seven-kilometre line was estimated to cost €1.4 billion euros in 2002. But as the tunnels were being dug, surrounding houses began to crack and cave in. This led to loud protests and condemnation. Work was temporarily suspended. Then the project was re-estimated. The new cost? €3.1 billion! A newspaper described the Amsterdam underground project as a “bottomless pit”. Pity the taxpayers whose earnings are dumped into this pit.
These two projects are some of the obvious proofs of the prodigal tendencies of the Dutch government. The Dutch people (as well as Wikileaks) surely know many more.
Vanity projects fuel popular anger against the government. Is it any wonder that the Occupy Amsterdam movement is waxing rather than waning? I do not fully understand all the demands of the Occupy-ers. I do know, however, that if the government would adhere to the same principles the Dutch are famous for – frugality, fiscal discipline - the thousands of unemployed Occupy-ers would have a decent job.
White, black or of mixed race, all politicians are the same. The only difference may be that in Holland, the citizen has at least the vanity projects point at. In Nigeria, we hear of the billions of naira being spent, but hardly ever see any projects.
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this is serious!!!
I am not surprised after all, all animals are equal. Same goes for politicians. Don't forget that "they" believe in the dominant paradigm even as they continuously design a democratic-coated government for us or what shall we call the construction of a project for a people who have not signified interest or need for it!
i strongly believe that politicians are the same everywhere but it depends on the desire to positively affect people that drives those who genuinely serve without wasting tax payers'money.
I've always known that it can't be all paradise with Netherlands. But I'm glad for the objectivity of this write]up. It goes to show the Adamic nature of "man". "Mam" has a single definition regardless of race and colour. It is evident in our thinking and dispositions.
man is a product of "waste" remember we were made from waste product(dust). It is just that certain waste spending could be justified. I won't be surprised if that mobile toilet, sorry, mobile building has technological devices that monitor events in that axis, besides oyinbo man doesnt fabricate such ideas without cogent reasons. I just pray that God will make it impossible for our Government here in Nigeria not to buy that kind of idea. I have witnessed cars being stolen, home appliances not excempted, human beings, ahh! that one na business especially when the prospect is a foreigner. Mobile house in Nigeria? i won't be surprised if i sleep in my House at Ota Ogun State and later found myself in Igboora the next day as a result of housenap.
Well, the Dutch govt began such nonsense after their people have been supplied with basic items thing they need for daily living. In Nigeria, people are dying out of lack and yet we have a govt that is more profligate than the prodigal son. The Dutch leaders have their problems but our leaders are PURE EVIL!. They wreck schools and send their kids abroad; they wreck hospitals and travel abroad for medicare; they wreck all public facilities and then go elsewhere to spend the money they make from it. At least, the Dutch leaders don't run away from their mess.
Ara Adesanoye captures it all! Selfless and sincere (altruists and patriots) people are stocked in the concentric pipe of governance... until the pipe is burst, then we will get it right. Welcome home, Oga!
Can anyone now tell me the uniqueness of democracy other
Than the people practising it? There is nothing that makes
Democracy the best system of governance. It is only the
selfless will and sincerity of the people that helps. Even the
Military era in nigeria was not as bad as this. Therefore, if
Politician are the same everywhere, then those developed nation
Attained what they are today due to selflessness and sincerity,
Not because of the system but the people. Will we ever get it
Right?
Can anyone now tell me the uniqueness of democracy other
Than the people practising it? There is nothing that makes
Democracy the best system of governance. It is only the
selfless will and sincerity of the people that helps. Even the
Military era in nigeria was not as bad as this. Therefore, if
Politician are the same everywhere, then those developed nation
Attained what they are today due to selflessness and sincerity,
Not because of the system but the people. Will we ever get it
Right?
Can anyone now tell me the uniqueness of democracy other
Than the people practising it? There is nothing that makes
Democracy the best system of governance. It is only the
selfless will and sincerity of the people that helps. Even the
Military era in nigeria was not as bad as this. Therefore, if
Politician are the same everywhere, then those developed nation
Attained what they are today due to selflessness and sincerity,
Not because of the system but the people. Will we ever get it
Right?
Can anyone now tell me the uniqueness of democracy other
Than the people practising it? There is nothing that makes
Democracy the best system of governance. It is only the
selfless will and sincerity of the people that helps. Even the
Military era in nigeria was not as bad as this. Therefore, if
Politician are the same everywhere, then those developed nation
Attained what they are today due to selflessness and sincerity,
Not because of the system but the people. Will we ever get it
Right?
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