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With the nation’s terrorist-marred, golden jubilee
festivities sadly behind us, it is perhaps time to take
stock of our standing and assess the progress made so far or
lack thereof by the nation since her independence in 1960.
Many Nigerians had in fact done that in their own ways as
they saw fit even before the festivities got underway.
Ordinarily, a nation’s attainment of that milestone would
naturally call for celebrations. Ghana celebrated hers three
years ago with aplomb as the first independent nation in
Africa, and the world joined her in celebrating, including
Nigeria and Nigerians some of whom have now turned around to
deny their country similar celebrations.
And Ghana is a less naturally endowed nation than Nigeria
($16.65bn economy) as against Nigeria’s $168.99bn), and per
capita income of $630 as against Nigeria’s $1,140 as per
World Bank data, with her own share of missed opportunities
and general national malaise as with most African nations
after independence. In fact, both Ghana and Nigeria tasted
military rule just one month apart in the same year when the
Balewa’s democratically elected government was topped in
Nigeria on
January
15th, I966, closely followed by the sack of Nkrumah’s
democratically elected government on
February 24th, 1966.
Since then both nations have shared the misfortunes of
military rule and eventual transition to enduring democratic
rule more than a decade ago. Yet no one questioned Ghana’s
right to celebrate her golden jubilee even as she remains
poor.
However,
while patriotic and proud Ghanaians would sing the same
melodious tunes during their jubilee celebrations Nigerians
found themselves singing discordant tunes at their jubilee
celebrations.
While many of them, in the face of open hostility toward the
celebrations being exhibited in certain misguided quarters,
would patriotically and proudly advance persuasive arguments
to justify the celebrations, others, disenchanted with the
prevailing conditions in the nation and wallowing in
self-pity and self-defeatism, would prefer to question the
rationale for the celebrations.
It’s thus a case of one nation saddled with two opposite
viewpoints on the issue of her 50th birthday
celebrations. It would appear as though there is nothing on
which Nigerians would agree on including even their nation’s
golden jubilee celebrations. Oh, what a nation! Oh, what a
people!
Given the divergent opinions canvassed by interested parties
for and against the nation’s golden jubilee celebrations,
therefore, it has become necessary to put matters in some
perspectives particularly in regard to the contention in
certain quarters as to whether the celebrations were
warranted at all in the first place.
In a fundamental sense it is to be noted that these divergent
opinions are reflections of the current political stalemate
in the nation in which a distinct national pride has fallen
victim to partisan politics, defiled by the stench of
presidential politics.
In my characteristic fashion, I propose to deliberate on
these matters at some length and the reader is forewarned
that fragile egos will be bruised and sensitive feelings
will be hurt. I intend to throw it all out there as it is
and as blunt and direct as I can be with no pretensions,
because I’m not in the business of political correctness nor
am I interested in playing Mr. Nice. Therefore, anyone who
is allergic to the truth is advised to quit reading this
article now!
However, what the reader will find here will be different
from the regular materials in the media by individuals who
seek to ingratiate themselves to the so-called “masses” and
would therefore feed them with what they (want) to hear
rather than what they (need) to hear. That’s an important
difference that could make a world of difference to the many
who have been fed on wrong literary diets all their lives,
well until now. That’s what sets my writings apart from all
others, because somebody has got to tell it like it is,
straight out from the heart with malice to none and goodwill
to all.
‘Failed
State’ Hallucinogen
Before going any further, however, let me make myself
abundantly clear: There is nothing wrong with people
pointing out the nation’s failures with a view to remedying
them provided they’re themselves part of the solutions
rather than part of the problems. Highlighting our areas of
deficiencies is a patriotic duty on the part of any
citizens.
However, people should know their time and their occasions
for calling the nation’s attention to such issues that
everyone is pretty much aware of and therefore need no
reminders in the first place. These problems are being
talked about everyday and dominate the pages of newspapers
and the nation’s airwaves, for crying out loud. There’s time
for everything. A good message could be delivered at a wrong
time with severe consequences or giving rise to people
questioning the real motives of the messenger. Timing is of
the essence.
Consequently, there is everything wrong with people turning
those problems into a repertoire for an opera and a religion
of sorts, with endless lamentations and self-immolation
without doing their own part to solving them as citizens,
because Nigeria’s problems are not all government problems
alone, but citizens’ problems, of which ethnicity,
corruption and election rigging are but three of the several
holding down the nation.
Those who are quick to reduce all of the nation’s problems to
governance are being simply simplistic and avoiding the hard
choices necessary to move the nation forward. Nations are
not developed by governments alone but by citizens.
Governments do not provide for the citizens rather it’s the
citizens that provide for the governments. In ideal climes
it’s the citizens that provide funding for the government
rather than the other way around.
Experience has, however, shown that many of those who cry the
most are some of the worst culprits and are complicit in
sinking the nation into a deeper hole. We saw, for instance,
the case of one Ndudi Elumelu, of the House of
Representatives of the power probe infamy, who literarily
went on a spending jamboree at the nation’s expense; crying
blue murder and alleging monumental corruption in the
Nigerian Independent Power Projects (NIPPs), which he could
not establish only for him to be implicated in a massive
N5bn corruption scandal in the Rural Telephony Agency (REA)
projects for which he was detained and currently facing157-count
fraud charge. Elemelu’s kangaroo probe not only
delayed the completion of the NIPP projects, but was a total
and complete waste of the nation’s scarce resources; with
charges of bribery dogging its path all through the national
show of shame while it lasted. Other examples of this
blatant hypocrisy abound in the nation.
Oh, wasn’t Kwara state Governor, Bukola Saraki, the one
shouting zoning! zoning! zoning! from the rooftops to get
the PDP to zone its presidential slot to the north in order
to actualize his presidential ambition on the cheap while he
was busy rubbishing zoning in his home state of Kwara and
imposing his own sister from the same zone as its
gubernatorial aspirant under the same PDP platform? How much
more can hypocrisy get? You, the reader, please tell me,
because I don’t understand how somebody could speak from
both sides of his mouth at the same time on the same issue
and get away with it in a nation of 150 million supposedly
intelligent people!
So next time you see folks howling, stop, take a deep breath,
and watch events unfold. I guarantee it: you’ll be surprised
as these folks change the colors of their skins like the
proverbial chameleon. Abubakar Atiku is a living example.
He’s no longer a democrat but an ethnic bigot. And he could
do that without batting an eye, which goes to show his likes
as crass opportunists. And you wonder what kind of a
president an ethnic bigot would become if given the
opportunity. One cannot but conclude that he will become an
ethnic president—in this case President of the North. What a
shame! What a disaster!
Nigeria’s problems therefore go beyond governments. It’s a
nation brimming with opportunists and unprincipled
characters whose positions shift with the sands of crass
opportunism. That being the case, therefore, it seems to me
that such questions as to whether the nation’s jubilee
celebrations were justified or not are completely misplaced
and borne out of malevolent intents rather than altruistic
motivations. That anyone would, in his right mind, choose
the very occasion of the nation’s golden jubilee
celebrations to dwell exclusively on the nation’s failures
while ignoring and/or actively downplaying her successes in
several areas of her national endeavors speaks volumes about
the essential character and motivations of the individuals
concerned.
That this position is being essentially canvassed, virally
promoted and propagated by individuals who have already
dismissed their own country as a “failed state” tends to
lend credence to their ma-la-fides and hence deserve the
charges that they’re up to no good in their mischievous
dispositions, for as it is written, out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh.
It’s alright to criticize the government of the day, but when
you ridicule your own nation before others, you are
ridiculing no one but yourself and your fellow citizens.
It’s like a child who goes about in public bad mouthing his
parents naively thinking that his audience would be
sympathetic to him and beat down on his parents. But unknown
to him he has become the subject of mockery himself in the
end.
But come to think of it, how is it that those who gleefully
dismiss their own country as failed state are the very ones
who have refused to leave the country for good and go settle
someplace else where they could live out their utopia? And
to think that these are individuals, many of whom were
educated in Nigeria almost for free by the nation and who
have never paid a penny in taxes to the state all their
lives, leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
How they expect Nigeria to be America or Germany without
paying taxes like citizens of developed nations is one of
the greatest delusions of our times. How they expect Niger
Delta oil to bear the full brunt of the nation’s development
must count as one of the greatest delusions of our times.
It’s not going to happen anytime soon because we’re living
in the kingdom of fools unless and until we change our
dependent mindset and do our own part. It’s amazing that
those who demand first rate social services from the state
have not found the need to discharge their basic civic
responsibilities to the state.
Modern states demand as much from their citizens as the
citizens do from them, if not more. In some states military
service is compulsory and citizens are conscripted to lay
down their lives in defense of their countries. In others at
least a quarter of their paychecks go to the states as taxes
to help run the government, provide essential utilities and
protect lives and properties. Nigeria cannot be any
different. The burdens of funding the government must not
fall on crude oil alone but must come from the citizens by
way of taxation to balance the state/citizen equation. And
that’s why the late US President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
told his countrymen and women not to expect what the country
can do for them but what they can do for their country. That
exhortation must re-echo in Nigeria as well.
Citizens who shirk their civic responsibilities to the state
have absolutely no rights to demand first rate social
services from the state because nothing, I mean, absolutely
nothing goes for nothing in the state/citizen relationship.
Someone sure needs basic civic education somewhere in order
to get his/her perspectives aright. And if you, the reader
falls into that class of Nigerians who gives nothing to the
state but expects el-dorado in return, it is time to have a
word with yourself in the quiet of your home. I told you
earlier that I’m giving it straight out from the heart. I’m
not looking for votes.
When we take a dispassionate stock of the performance of
Nigerian public office holders in the past and present
dispensations, we will find that those who complained the
most; those who shouted the most; those who whined the most
are the least performers in office when given the
opportunity.
Conversely, those who complained the least; those who shouted
the least; those who whined the least are the most
performers in office when given the opportunity. Examples
abound. But we don’t need to look any further that the
present Governor of Edo state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and
the present INEC Chairman, Professor Atahiru Jega; both of
whom were loud mouths against the status quo ante but when
given opportunity to serve have resorted to sheer blackmail,
intimidation and buck-passing for their lack of performance
in office.
The nation has literarily been held hostage by the fire
spitting former ASSU president, Prof. Jega, whose fumbling
is now casting doubts about his ability to conduct the 2011
elections. Blackmailing the National Assembly has become
his stock in trade in his apparent bid to condition the
nation for his eventual failure in the conduct of the 2011
general elections. A while ago he was one of the most
vociferous critics in the nation along with Oshiomhole as
NLC president. Today we’re confronted with their abject
failures buck passing and finger pointing. It’s like we saw
it coming. Those of us who had unsuccessfully canvassed the
retention of former INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu for the
job on the premise that the Devil you know is better than
the angel you know nothing about, seem to have been
vindicated by Jega’s current kokoma dance with the
nation’s fate in 2011. But that’s a matter for another piece
altogether, coming soon. The saying that empty barrels make
the loudest noise holds true for these characters.
Now, contrast that with the present Governor of Lagos state,
Mr. Tunde Fashola, who was hardly known in the past and who
speak but little; attracting no undue attention to himself;
but has become the governors’ Governor in Nigeria with his
spectacular performance in office so far. The same can be
said about other performers like Governor Princewill Akpabio
of Akwa-Ibom state, for example, whom one hardly noticed in
the press.
Now, I’ve got to tell you this: Those individuals who are
quietly building the new Nigeria are not running around
making noise unnecessarily to attract undue attention to
themselves. They’re not wasting their valuable times glued
to the past and lamenting past failures all the time.
They’re not pointing fingers at anyone. They’re simply
focused on delivering the goods because they’re smart enough
to know that pointing fingers do not get the job done and
they will in the end be judged by their own deeds not the
failures of their opponents or past governments. And that’s
why they walk the walk, not talk the talk, and let their
good deeds talk the talk on their behalves.
The easiest thing in the world is to sit down in Nigeria and
dismiss the country as a failed state. What does it take to
spout these words? Nothing. Those who left the country to
other lands and have seen it all tend to moderate their
views about the country, Nigeria, even with all her well
known baggage of deficiencies—insecurity of lives and
properties, anemic power supplies, corruption, broken
infrastructures, joblessness, ethnic rivalries, election
rigging, student and labor unrests and what have you. Their
views are necessarily moderated by the grim realities in the
lands of their sojourn.
Nigeria, a failed state? Who says? Where is the authority for
that outlandish and gratuitous designation? Do the
proponents and antagonists even know what they’re talking
about in the first place? What is the definition of a failed
state? Can they give me one? Chances are they don’t even
know it and therefore cannot define it. All they do is just
blabbing unconsciously and hope to be taken seriously.
For starters, there are no generally acceptable definitions
of a failed state largely due to the difficulties inherent
in classifying states as failed due to the existence of
certain conditions which might be fleeting and therefore
temporary in nature. However, one could glean the nature of
failed states by examining what certain authorities regard
as conditions that could trigger that classification.
The
Crisis States Research Centre
of the London School of Economics and Political Science, for
example, defines a “failed state” as a condition of “state
collapse,” that is a state “that can no longer perform its
basic security and development functions” and “has no
effective control over its territory and borders.” In short
it is one that “can no longer reproduce the conditions for
its own existence.” These elements are common to the
definitions of a failed state.
Does that mean that states like the United
States with border control problems with Mexico for
instance, are failed states? Does it mean that the fact that
Mexicans are breaching the US/Mexico border with all means
necessary including but not limited to shooting US border
patrol guards and pouring in qualifies the US to be
designated as a failed state? Not one chance in hell. Why?
It’s because the US has the means and ability to completely
control its borders if and when it decides to do it. Only a
fool would consider the US a failed just because it has for
now not completely secured its borders with neighboring
country and therefore not in total control of its borders.
The reader would notice that the above
definition is self-explanatory. The phrases “can no longer
perform its basic security and development functions” and
“can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own
existence,” necessarily imply permanent incapacity not
temporary or momentary incapacity. It’s a condition of total
paralysis not mere weakness or lack of executive capacity
that qualifies a state to be classified as a failed
state.
Thus a failed state is one that has no functioning government
that has lost total and complete control over parts or all
of its territories; where law and order have completely
broken down permanently and irretrievably, not momentarily
or periodically, but permanently and irretrievably, because
there is hardly any nation on earth where law and order has
not broken down temporarily or momentarily at one time or
another in its history. The closest analogy to it is failed
marriage, which is one that has broken down irretrievably,
not just temporarily or momentarily. It is needless to state
that Nigeria is none of that.
Examples of failed states that readily come to mind are
Afghanistan and Somalia. It is therefore utterly nonsensical
and a measure of ignorance for anyone to describe a current
and active member of the UN Security Council that is
presently engaged in peacekeeping operations in troubled
spots all over the world and with her territorial integrity
intact, as a failed state.
Now, let’s go over the major maladies that are debilitating
the polity which some mischievous individuals are using to
describe Nigeria as a failed state in their hallucinatory
moments:
Corruption:
Corruption in Nigeria is no evidence of a failed state
otherwise every nation on earth would qualify for that
title. A casual glance at the 2009 report of Transparency
International shows that more than half of the countries
surveyed are terribly corrupt and all countries have issues
with corruption at some level. I don’t care which—developed
or under developed. For example the Corruption Perception
Index (CPI) report for 2009 shows Nigeria occupying the 130th
position along with five other nations—Honduras, Lebanon,
Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and
Uganda, out of 180. Compare that to the position of Russia,
Kenya, and Ukraine’s 146th position, Iran 168th,
Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, 162nd along with Angola,
Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Guinea-Bissau and Kyrgyzstan. Even developed countries have
their share of corruption issues with the US, UK, Germany,
France and Japan occupying the 19th, 17th,
14th, 24th and 17th
positions respectively. China, the leader of the pack of
developing nations occupied the 79th position
while Brazil stood at 75th and India 84th
position. All these go to demonstrate that corruption is a
global problem cutting across both developed and developing
nations and by no means peculiar to Nigeria.
Anyone who is still in doubt needs to read the words of the
Mr. Medvedev, Prime Minister of Russia—a developed nation on
the issue of corruption in his country reproduced hereunder:
"’In our country, corruption isn't seen as
something shameful, it's part of everyday life,’ he said,
before adding that the government is working on a set of
moves to step up the fight,” as reported by Forbes.com
during Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s trade mission to
Russia.
In fact as indicated above Russia ranks
146th out of 180 in its 2009 global corruption index by
Transparency International. Does that make her a failed
state? Hardly! Russia is a member of the G8 for crying out
loud for those who know the meaning of G8. And what about
China the world’s most aggressive economic development
engine of our times? Hardly different from Russia when it
comes to corruption! China’s Communist Party and government
officials stink with corruption just as it is in Nigeria. In
a report by the Carnegie Endowment prepared by its senior
associate and director of China program, Mr. Minxin Pei, we
get the following revelation about the high degree of
corruption in China as revealed by Chinese government
itself:
“The results of annual audits
performed by China’s National Audit Agency (NAA) offer
another measurement of corruption in China. The NAA’s audits
from 1996 to 2005 uncovered 1.29 trillion yuan ($170
billion) in misappropriated and misspent public funds
(illegal practices include overstating the number of staff,
setting up slush funds, misappropriating special funds, and
collecting illegal fees). By this measure, misused
government funds represented about 8 percent of the
on-budget spending for this period.”
And just like in Nigeria the report states that only an
insignificant number of corrupt Chinese officials have been
brought to book by the Chinese government.
I have not cited these cases to justify or sanitize
corruption in any way, shape or form. God knows I hate it
with every fiber of my being and have written extensively
about it in the past, but to show that the evil is in no way
peculiar to Nigeria. Therefore, its presence in Nigeria and
the apparent inability of the Nigerian authorities to
curtail it is no evidence of a failed state any more than it
is in China and Russia, for example.
Crime:
And what is more: High crime rate is no evidence of a failed
state otherwise South Africa and the United States, for
example, would have been declared failed states a long time
ago. The other day I was was going through the New York City
Police Department’s report of murders in the city of New
York covering up to September this year. And boy, you don’t
want to know how many New Yorkers have been cut down in cold
blood throughout the five boroughs in the city! Three
hundred and eighty six (386) lives have been terminated in
New York City as of September this year, not as a result of
accidents or sickness, but by cold blooded murderers! By
December that figure is bound to reach the 500 mark as had
been the case in previous years. Yet the Major of New York
is boasting about reduced crime rates! He sure knows what it
was like a few years back and what’s becoming now again in
his city. But the Major could beat his chest because it’s
even worse elsewhere in places like Chicago, Illinois, and
in New Ark, New Jersey. Does that make New York or the
United States, for that matter, a failed state? Not in this
life! Not even in another life either!
Infrastructure, Education, Employment & Power Supplies: By the same token, broken and ill-maintained social
infrastructure is no evidence of a failed state either;
neither is falling standard of education nor of unemployment
or, for that matter, insufficient power supplies. These are
no yardsticks for determining whether a state has failed or
not otherwise half the nations of the world would have been
declared failed states by now. Insufficiencies of social
amenities or lack thereof are not determinants of failed
states anywhere in the globe and those mouthing such
inanities must understand their subject before shooting
their tongues like drunken men.
Militant/Terrorist Activities:
All I need
to state here is that if militant/terrorist activities in a
nation would qualify her for the status of a failed state
then of course, nations like Spain, UK, India, Kenya, Saudi
Arabia, and even the United States would have been declared
failed states since all have battled with militant/terrorist
activities right in their homeland. Bottom line:
While Nigerians are justified in expressing their
dissatisfaction with the status quo in the country, such
expression of dissatisfaction must not be stretched to
ridiculous limits. It is a stretch to describe Nigeria as a
failed state and I don’t care who is doing it for whatever
reasons. I’m, therefore, unable to reconcile myself with the
position of anyone who would question the right of any
nation to celebrate her birthday, the epochal milestone of
her 50th birthday, for that matter, otherwise
known as golden jubilee at a time when some nations are
wasting trillions of dollars fighting unproductive wars on
borrowed money. It would have been eminently understandable
to question the rationale for such festival indulgence at
such costs if the funds earmarked for it were borrowed from
some other nations or international creditors. That
obviously is not the case. It’s our money and we get to
choose how we spend it howsoever we deem necessary in our
peculiar circumstances.
Therefore, the notion that no celebration should take place
at all in Nigeria until every hungry stomach is filled and
until every pothole in our roadways is filled or until every
child is educated, or until every disease is cured right
there in Nigeria’s health institutions rather than going
abroad, or for that matter, until Nigeria becomes another
China or the United States, is plain ridiculous. If that
were the case no nation on earth would celebrate anything.
It is silly to suggest even for a moment that Nigeria should
hold off her golden jubilee celebrations because people are
hungry, there is graduate unemployment, broken
infrastructures, high level insecurity; blah, blah! blah!
Celebrations are not based on economic or material status in
life, but on cultural values and traditions cherished by a
given people or nation. And they have never been determined
by the material conditions of any nations or their social
infrastructures but as cultural and traditional
observances.
It’s an undeniable fact of life that when individuals attain
certain milestones in life whether they’re related to age,
material, spiritual, or educational attainments, they
invariably tend to roll out the drums to celebrate such
attainments. And as it is for individuals so it is for
corporate bodies, institutions and nations alike. It’s a
basic human craving common to all races, nations and ethnic
groups. Festivities are not only cultural, but historical
markers. Therefore, anyone, group or nation that has no
reason whatsoever to celebrate anything in life has no
reason to live in the first place. It makes no difference
whether the celebrant is a success story who has achieved
all his goals in life or not or one who is still struggling
to make it in life because in the end success is not an
objective, but a subject measure. It’s therefore utterly
nonsensical to imagine that Nigeria as a nation would put on
funeral garments to mourn her missed opportunities rather
than celebrating her attainments however insignificant
anyone might think of them.
And those who are more attracted to funeral dirges needed not
participate in the celebrations and had all the freedom in
the world to hold a counter procession or activities to
mourn the failures of the nation at 50 and tag it however
they wished to give a public face to their objections to the
jubilee celebrations. After all, MEND or its impostors did
just that to send their message. Nothing stopped those who
wanted Nigeria to mourn at age 50 from staging peaceful
protests or some other activity against the festivities to
mark the event.
Paradoxically, such protests or activity, if carried out
would have been one of the testimonies to the virility and
viability of the nation’s rooting democracy as opposed to
military jackboots that would brook no opposition or dissent
and therefore a veritable reason for celebrating Nigeria at
50.
Democracy is superior to military dictatorship on all fronts
and Nigeria’s attainment of this democratic milestone is
reason enough to celebrate, if for nothing else, for there
are no greater attainments for a people than freedom and
liberty, which democracy has brought to the Nigerian people
in spite of its imperfections. Life is not all about bread
and butter but something more subliminal and spiritual.
People do not generally value their freedoms and liberties
until they lose them only to later stake their own lives
fighting to regain them. Those who lived through the
horrible Buhari, IBB and Abacha years knew what it was like
to lose their freedoms and liberties because there is more
to life than bread and butter, roads, schools and hospitals,
ex-cetera, important and indispensible as they are.
I, therefore take the clear, direct and unequivocal position
that a solid, unbroken 11-year run on democracy deserves to
be celebrated by the nation in her 50th birthday
anniversary. And don’t tell me about rigged elections and
what’s not because it absolutely makes no difference. There
is more to democracy than just elections important as they
are.
Every independence anniversary provides every nation an
opportunity for stock taking—to identify what worked and
what failed, what needs to be done and chart the way
forward. It’s not an opportunity for gratuitous lamentations
and self-deprecations. It’s not an opportunity either for
finger pointing and political grandstanding because there is
enough blame to go round.
However, for those who see only failures there are plenty of
failures to talk about. For those who see only successes
there are plenty of successes to talk about. And for those
who see both failures and successes there are plenty of
failures and successes to talk about as well. Nigeria has
got everyone covered!—optimists, pessimists, cynics,
realists and pragmatists. Take your pick, she got them all
covered in her expansive demographic, geographic, and
political landscapes.
I don’t know what psychological gratifications the cynics and
pessimists derive from their melancholic tunes because I
don’t live in their worlds. It might very well be
intoxicating somewhat. However, I would prefer to be
associated with the optimists, realists and pragmatists. I
want to be associated with forward looking rather than
backward looking individuals. I want to live in the present
and look up to the future rather than in the past even if
the past was glorious. And that’s a deliberate choice that
literarily breathes life into my literary endeavors even in
the present undertaking.
Stock
Taking
That said I’m all about stock taking in as balanced a manner
as possible. However, I must hasten to caution that this
stock taking journey will be far from a smooth ride and, in
fact, destined to encounter serious bumps everywhere along
the way. And the reasons are not altogether far-fetched.
Progress and development are not mathematical or statistical
certitudes. As such, there will never be complete agreement
as to what constitutes progress or lack thereof even amongst
economists of different ideological persuasions. Much of
what is hauled daily at the public is subjective effusions
by those with vested interests. Financial analysts paint
rosy pictures of companies they have invested in to boost
their share prices and laugh their way to the banks, and
talk down companies they have no interests in. Politicians
out of power deliberately talk down their nations’ economies
and gleefully indulge in doomsday predictions—claiming their
nations never had it so bad under governments headed by
their opponents.
Thus in environments infested with partisan politics, there
are deliberate distortions and exaggerated lamentations of
reality by those who seek to wrest political power from the
ruling elites on the one hand and deliberate understatement
of same by those who seek to retain political power on the
other; all calculated to gain political advantage over the
opponent. That’s why much of what’s in the public domain is
self-serving trash fit only for the gullible.
If politicians were in charge of measuring the size and
health of the economy, any economy, they would be capable of
producing only two outcomes—doomsday scenarios on the one
hand, and rosy pictures on the other hand, reflecting their
political interests and calculations for the next elections!
While politicians in opposition would be howling from the
rooftops that the economy had virtually collapsed in the
hands of their opponents, those in power would counter that
they’re in fact growing the economy and point to available
statistics to buttress their claim. And that’s why economic
growth and development, like beauty, is in the eyes of the
beholder. Though measurable with accepted metrics
politicians put their own self-serving spins on such
economic measurements.
Nigeria’s
Economic Performance—the Statistical Data
Yet there are few generally acceptable yardsticks with which
to gauge the material value, health and progress of a
nation. Economists like to talk about Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), (which is the gross monetary value of all goods and
services produced by a nation usually in a year,
domestically); Gross National Product (GNP), (which is the
gross monetary value of all goods and services produced by a
nation both domestically and abroad, also within a year);
Per Capita Income (PCI), which is simply the gross national
income or revenue divided by her population), Human
Development Report (HDR) (which is about people themselves
rather than states), or whatever other “P” is out there in
their measurement tool kit. More and more metrics are
popping up everywhere to gauge different aspects of the
economy.
Using these models how does Nigeria fare at the moment of her
50th birthday celebrations? This timeframe is
important because as stated above we must be concerned about
the present and the future not about the past for the simple
reason that the past is past and cannot be undone.
Data from the World Bank indicate that the Nigerian economy
as a whole is valued at $168,994,000,000bn with a per capita
income of $1,140. I don’t know whether this valuation takes
into account the value of economic activities taking place
at Dugbe market in Ibadan, Ariaria Market in Aba, Ochanja
Market in Onitsha, Tejuoso Market in Lagos, Main Market in
Jos or New Benin Market in Benin City, or for that matter,
the itinerant hawker in the streets of Lagos and elsewhere
in the country or even the cab driver. These activities are
properly valuated in developed nations and captured in their
estimates. Is the pepper or tomato seller in Jos represented
in these evaluations? Is the taxi driver accounted for in
these estimates? If not, I’m tempted to believe that the
Nigerian economy would be much bigger than represented if
the unofficial economy was adequately accounted for in the
estimates.
Both the IMF and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put
the nation’s GDP at 7.421% and 7.69% respectively. It’s
quite remarkable that of the 43 African countries south of
the Sahara surveyed by the IMF Nigeria attained one of the
highest growths in GDP, together with the Republic of Congo,
9.684%; Ghana 7.473, Liberia 7.898%, Mozambique 7.001%, with
Angola and Botswana coming a distant second with GDP growth
rate of 6.483% and 6.593% respectively, while South Africa
the largest economy in sub- Sahara Africa grossed 3.231%
growth in GDP projected for the year 2010-2011.
Plus or minus it is fair to conclude that Nigeria has
currently attained economic growth rate of well above 7.3%
with easily attainable target of 10% in the coming years as
disclosed by the Honorable Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun
Aganga. In fact the CBN governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, has
projected 7.8% growth rate for the remaining part of 2010.
Broken down into two broad categories of oil and non-oil
sectors statistics revealed that the oil sector recorded
3.96% while non-oil sector recorded 8.41% according to the
NBS, making non-oil sector the bigger driver of the nation’s
economic expansion. Further breakdown of the non-oil sector
shows that wholesale and retail sector grew at whopping
11.40% which was attributed to consumer promotions embarked
upon to lure consumers to the shopping malls. Agriculture
recorded a slight drop to 5.84% from the previous year’s
growth of 5.94% in the corresponding period in 2009. But it
is still growth not decline. The same is equally true of the
financial sector, which recorded 4.3% growth as against
4.40% recorded in corresponding period of 2009. Again that
is growth not recession. And here comes the big
one-telecommunication! This sector alone pulled off a
whopping growth rate of 33.74% in the second quarter of 2010
compared to 33.62% in the corresponding period of 2009.
Manufacturing recorded 10.48% as against 10.46% in
corresponding period of 2009. There are other sectors that
contributed to the overall growth rate of 7.4% according to
the IMF and 7.69% according to the NBS, but I will stop
here. The point has been made with facts and figures drawn
not just from the Nigerian authorities alone but from the
IMF.
Regionally, the IMF Staff Estimates state that while
“Asia Is Leading the Global Recovery” and Latin America is
“Sustaining its Growth Momentum”, Middle East and North
Africa is “Recovering Strongly”, “CIS Region Is Experiencing
Modest Recovery”, and Europe is facing a “Gradual and Uneven
Recovery” and the recovery in the United States is
“Moderating in the Face of Debt and Continued Uncertainty”,
“Growth Is Accelerating” in Sub Saharan Africa”, and in
fact, in all of the African continent as whole of which
Nigeria is one of the prime drivers by virtue of the size of
its economy and further growth prospects.
There is no question therefore that the Nigerian
economy is on the upswing with her GDP rising to 7.4% in the
current year of which non-oil revenue is said to account for
a significant chunk of the upswing. Now, if that is what
naysayers call economic recession, I would say bring in on
and let’s have more of such “recessions!” If the nation can
sustain such “recession” as the IMF has predicted well into
the immediate future, then her goal of making it to the 20th
largest economy by the year 20/20 becomes ever more
feasible.
However, I’m first to recognize that it is not enough to
record impressive economic growth. For such growth to be
meaningful, it must be translated positively in the lives of
ordinary citizens. That is where a purposeful, proactive,
and visionary leadership comes in because economies could
grow without the citizens feeling the impact of such growth
in their lives.
It is the duty of government to find ways and means of
reflecting economic growth in the living conditions of its
people because in the end economic growth means nothing if
not reflected positively in the lives of the citizens.
Yet the reality is that the material conditions of a people
cannot change for the better in the absence of economic
growth. Therefore, ordinary common sense dictates that
government’s efforts must first and foremost be directed at
economic growth because the attainment of it is a
pre-requisite for the citizens’ economic empowerment and
social wellbeing. Wealth must be produced before it is
distributed and that’s a no brainer. For that reason
therefore anyone who scoffs at economic growth is either
naïve or outright mischievous or both. To the extent
therefore that Nigeria is currently launched on the path of
sustainable economic growth one can only urge the government
to maintain the momentum and accelerate the growth.
I can sit here whining and crying all day and all night about
the failures of the past or confront the present and the
future with all the resources at my disposal. These are some
of the things that give me cause for hope because I’m not
listening to politicians and cynics who want to paint
everything black in order to promote their own political
ambitions, but to experts and their evidence. Those who
don’t believe statistics emanating from Nigerian authorities
can at least believe those coming from credible
international organizations like the IMF and the World Bank,
which are the definitive and authoritative sources of global
economic information and analyses. And anyone who would
neither believe the Nigerian authorities nor international
authorities surely has a problem. Unfortunately, I’m not in
a position to help such individual because I’m not a
psycho-therapist. But I have some suggestions:
Such individuals could look up to the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), which has set certain development benchmarks
for developing countries to meet for solace. Or perhaps look
up to Jigni Y. Thinley, Prime Minister of 700,000 population
Budhist kingdom of Buthan, who would rather we dumped all
these hackneyed gauges and simply adopt happiness as the
only true measurement of not just economic but national
progress. What a refreshing proposition! That would probably
make some cynics happy.
The Prime Minister has added another yardstick to measure a
nation’s growth and development, which he called Gross
National Happiness (GNH) as the only authentic yardstick for
measuring a nation’s growth and development. Using the
happiness model, his nation reportedly fared well under his
rule. Applying this yardstick only 3% of his tiny kingdom’s
population polled in 2005 said they were unhappy while 52%
said they were happy and the rest said they were very happy,
according to my information source. Not bad at all!
But the happiness measure had been applied somewhat in
Nigeria before which ranked Nigerians are some of the
happiest people on earth, their economic conditions
notwithstanding suggesting or indicating that such totally
subjective model might not be flawless after all and might
very well mask the miseries that rule the lives of many that
they chose not to reveal publicly or officially to the
outside world through such measures.
In a global survey of 65 nations conducted by UK’s New
Scientist magazine, between1199-2001 Nigeria topped the list
of the Happiness Index. Yes the survey found that Nigerians
are the happiest people on the face of the earth! According
to the survey, “New Zealand ranked
15 for overall satisfaction, the US 16th, Australia 20th and
Britain 24th - although Australia beats the other three for
day-to-day happiness."
This is an indication that happiness is not necessarily a
function of material wellbeing.
What does this tell you, the reader? It shows Nigerians are
happier than Americans, Britons, Australians in fact
citizens of any other developed nation. The survey found
that materialism is "a happiness suppressant" which helps to
explain why “happiness levels have remained virtually the
same in industrialised countries since World War II,
although incomes have risen considerably,” according to the
New Scientist magazine.
So before the next would be “Andrew” grabs his briefcase and
calls it quits with Nigeria and jet out abroad, he should
understand clearly that he’s going to join the ranks of
unhappy people in whatever country he might emigrate to in
Europe or the Americas.
I see it everyday in the United States, for crying out loud!
I see anger and frustrations welling up it in the streets of
New Ark, New Jersey; Brooklyn, New York; in the ghettoes in
Chicago, Washington, DC and California. I see it on
roadways, subways, on buses, on trains, and in homes and
offices. I see it in blood of innocent citizens flowing in
the streets. I see it in bullets flying in the air hitting
innocent bystanders in the streets or hitting innocent folks
relaxing in their living rooms through their windows. I see
the forlorn and distant looks in the faces of those who have
suddenly been rendered homeless in their own country because
they defaulted in their mortgage payments. I feel the anger
and frustrations written all over the long faces of laid off
auto workers in the state of Michigan, home to once
throbbing and bubbling, but now utterly desolate Detroit,
home to America’s auto industry. Heck, I see it at Tea Party
rallies!
It’s unhappy people that pull out guns and cut down their
entire family members or former co-workers just for getting
fired from their jobs. It is unhappy peoples that lay siege
in schools and begin to shoot anything in sight including
fellow students and faculty members. It’s unhappy people
that would put a bullet in the head of another driver over
mere right of way arguments. It’s unhappy people that put
bullets in their own heads and terminate their lives. Want
to see unhappy peoples in action? Welcome to the planet
Americana, where anger and frustrations rule the waves!
It’s alright to crow about public assistance to the jobless
and the disposed. But tell that to a man who just lost his
job or a family that just lost its home. Oh yes, go ahead
and tell them that they’re still better off than their
counterparts in Nigeria and see if you’ll come out alive
from that encounter.
What the results of that survey suggest, however, is that
happiness is a cultural thing and oftentimes unhappiness is
the result of unfulfilled expectations. Some of those high
expectations may or may not be realistic or even feasible in
the first place. There are several folks running around
holding on to unrealistic expectations and unattainable
goals at least, not in the short run.
Imagine a middle-aged, middle-class African-American woman
with a good paying job venting her frustrations at President
Obama during his town-hall meeting in Pennsylvania, USA;
that the man she voted for in 2011 has disappointed her and
she is tired of defending him, all because he, Obama, had
promised to lift up the American middle class during his
campaign in 2008 and he had failed to do so. Just imagine
that for a second and one begins to wonder what some people
really want. She still has her job while others are losing
theirs, she still has her home while others are losing
theirs, she still has her kids in college benefitting from
Obama’s educational policies, while others can’t afford to
go to college, yet she is frustrated about the president’s
performance! What does she want? The whole world!
Again, imagine, for instance, the American voters expecting
that President Obama would turn the US battered economy
around in less than two years and when he failed to achieve
that expectation they are now madly unhappy about him,
threatening to throw his party out of power in the next
midterm election! Or imagine, for that matter, some people
in Nigeria expecting that uninterrupted power should begin
to flow to their homes and offices upon President Jonathan
taking office as substantive president of the nation.
But then again politicians promise too much to get elected.
Unfortunately, the electorate has not wizened up to the
unrealistic promises of politicians.
However, as with all things done in anger, handing control
of Congress to Republicans out of frustration is guaranteed
to exacerbate their present economic conditions and thus
drive up their unhappiness index by several notches when
literarily the Republicans grind the US government to a halt
with their rabid anti-Obama agenda.
Where are you getting your economic information from? Is it
from career politicians, beer parlor drunks or from
economists, professional bodies and credible organizations
like the World Bank, IMF, ADB, Central Bank, NBS, or other
UN agencies, just to mention but a few? The source of your
economic information and analyses matters because it could
make all the difference between hope on the one hand and
gloom and doom on the other hand. A lot of innocent folks
are plain victims of misinformation, disinformation,
distortions and outright lies peddled by individuals with
vested interests, because they have not taken the time to
find out things for themselves and rely on others to spoon
fed them with utter garbage.
Politicians know that the ordinary Joe and Jane have no time
to find out the truth and probably don’t even care about the
truth either and would prefer to be fed lies and half truths
by political demagogues because it suits their political
inclinations and proclivities. An individual who hates a
sitting president might prefer to be fed with outright lies
and half truths about the economy if those lies and half
truths help to portray the president in negative light
before the public. The reverse is equally true with
supporters of a sitting president who don’t want to hear or
see no evil about the sitting president.
But it is important to put matters in clearer perspectives
while undertaking a dispassionate analysis of important
issues like the economic performance of a nation totally
devoid of political inflections and colorations.
Looking
Back? Not all Wasted Years!
Whenever the subject of the nation’s stunted growth is
broached in any forum it is fashionable to make comparisons
between Nigeria and her contemporaries, who started out with
her at independence that have since left her far behind like
a poor marathoner. Nations like Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Korea, and India; all based in Asia, have all
gratuitously provided the benchmarks for judging and
evaluating Nigeria’s performance in the development race. It
makes no difference that none of these nation is based in
the African continent bristling with countries that
similarly started out with Nigeria at independence but which
have all suffered similar fate that befell Nigeria. No
African nation that started out with Nigeria compares
favorably to any of the so-called Asian Tigers. Just like
Nigeria, they have all been left behind like poor
marathoners gasping for breath even before starting out.
But Nigeria is not just another African country. She is the
one African nation that held out the greatest hope at
independence by virtue of her population, landmass and
natural resources. At independence the nation’s economy was
agro-based and she gave a good and solid account of herself
with groundnuts and cotton pyramids in the North, Cocoa in
the West, rubber and palm oil in the South and East all of
which made her a formidable nation that was reckoned with
international forums.
And as if that was not enough, the discovery of black gold
(crude oil) immediately conferred the title of an economic
and political champion on her making her the undisputed
leader of Africa. With that she was able to dictate the tune
in Africa and she still does even today. There is no
diminution in the role. And that’s where the appellation
“Giant of Africa” came from.
With this variety and quantum of resources at her disposal
unmatched by any other nation on the continent it becomes
irresistible and therefore inevitable to judge Nigeria’s
development performance not in relation to other African
countries but in relation to nations outside of Africa that
are similarly endowed. And that’s where its comparison to
Asian Tigers makes sense even if she is not an Asian nation.
Therefore, it is okay to compare Nigeria with India,
Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia or Malaysia, for example,
all of which are already breaching the boundaries of
developed nations while Nigeria is still in darkness relying
on lanterns and candles as sources of light energy. It is
guts-wrenching situation. But we all know what caused that.
It’s prolonged military rule.
Are we going to reverse that now? What happened in the past
belongs to the past rather than bemoaning our
underdevelopment all the times. But even so, the Nigeria we
have today is radically different from the Nigeria we had at
independence. While the nation may not have attained her
developmental objectives set at independence by her founding
fathers, a failure that has been rightly placed at the
doorsteps of military rule, she has, nevertheless managed to
spring quite a few successes that are nothing short of
remarkable.
It is noteworthy that Nigeria started out in 1960 with just
one University College, Ibadan, in the old Western Region.
Fifty years later she has added more than one hundred more
universities and even more polytechnics and colleges of
educations, amongst others to her portfolio of institutions
of higher learning. This geometric increase in the number of
universities and placements has naturally occasioned some
lowering of standards in certain disciplines, which, as the
economist would put it, is the opportunity cost of progress
in that sector. Don’t ask me, which sector, because I’m not
in a position to tell you. What is important is that falling
standards can be upgraded at any time. What if the
universities were not available in the first place? Would
anyone have been talking about fallen standards?
Naysayers can say all they want about “falling standards” of
education. It makes no difference whatsoever to the huge
achievements recorded in this sector. Falling standards,
while unacceptable are better than no standards at all, and
you’ve got to have the universities in the first place
before talking about falling or rising standards.
In any case these complaints are not peculiar to Nigeria.
Falling standards or not, a university education is superior
to other levels of education and university graduates are in
a much better position to contribute to national development
than others in that they have acquired the sophisticated
tools that enable them to better interpret and influence
their social environments.
It must be quickly added in this regard that education,
whether tertiary or secondary, is a continuous thing and
never confined to the four walls of a college. Real and true
education occurs outside the four walls of the universities.
At best, universities only provide the groundwork or
foundation for lifelong learning. However, that foundation
is critically important in order to provide the right and
proper mental orientation and perspective to knowledge
acquisition later in life outside the universities and
colleges.
Naysayers can say all they want about Nigerian universities
producing so-called unemployable graduates, but would you
rather you had no education at all, to having one that
guarantee you no immediate employment upon graduation? I’ll
leave the answer to the naysayer but it is pretty obvious.
Isn’t it?
This much I would say though: education is not a job
factory, but knowledge factory. And those who acquire it can
produce jobs for themselves in the long run. In time past
theater arts graduates in Nigeria were considered
unemployable and in fact looked down upon. But hey, who is
still saying that today in Nigeria? And who is still saying
that about music students in Nigeria today? And who the heck
is still saying that about arts and religious students in
Nigeria today? Who is still saying that about political
science students? I could go on and on. The jobs will come
to those who know how to get them and put their training and
knowledge to work. The job crunch is biting just as hard in
developed countries like the US for example as it is in
developing countries, including Nigeria. Who has not heard
of the huge unemployment problem in the United States going
to up to 10% at the present time? You could Nigeria’s is 19%
officially. It could be more in reality, but considering the
population of the US, 10% unemployment rate sounds like 25%
in Nigeria because the US population is more than twice that
of Nigeria. Besides, those on welfare are not included in
the US count. If they are, we will be hitting a much higher
unemployment rate than the 10%. Is that the fault of
education? Perhaps all universities in the world are
churning out unemployable graduates! I don’t get it.
Nigeria has the largest road network in Africa south of the
Sahara and that’s no mean feat. No other nation comes close.
It wasn’t always like that at independence though. And as it
is with education this development has also occasioned poor
quality jobs and poor maintenance culture on the part of the
government at all levels. Naysayers might dismiss this vast
network of roads as death traps, which is all well and good,
but I’m yet to see any motorist or traveler, who would
prefer not to travel on those ill-maintained roads and stay
at home. Which goes to show that, potholed yes, but they’re
better than nothing as was the case at independence. It is
better to go on ill-maintained roads than not having to go
at all because there are no roads to travel on.
The nation can do better in road maintenance and she will do
better with enough political pressure, but it is a whole lot
better to maintain roads that have already been built than
not having roads to maintain in the first place. Get my
drift? The bureaucrats sitting in air-conditioned offices at
the ministries of works who refuse and/or neglect to put the
nation’s roadways in good conditions need not take
consolation in what has been said here for their shameless
dereliction of duty to the nation, because they are a
disgrace to the nation. National road infrastructure must
never be toyed with in the manner that Nigerian government
officials have been handling them. President Jonathan has
his work cut out for him. He must change the nation’s
maintenance culture wholesomely as it is done in other less
endowed nations in the world. We cannot continue to spend
huge sums to built super highways and leave them go down the
abyss just like that without holding anyone accountable.
This culture of waste must stop and stop now.
I invite the reader to just take a look at the nation’s skies
to see how totally transformed it has become. With just one
airline at independence, the Nigerian Airways and just one
airport, I have since lost count of the number of airlines
and airports in Nigeria today. Today there is no region or
zone in Nigeria with less than two international gateways
and numerous local airports. Rather than the exclusive
preserve of the super rich and government big wigs that air
travel was at independence, it has become in Nigerian
parlance “pure water!” And that is progress by any measure.
We can say the same thing about the revolution that has
suddenly engulfed the telecommunication subsector, as well
as the print and electronic media in Nigeria. Before I left
Nigeria for the US about a decade and half ago, telephones
were the exclusive preserve of the rich and a federal
minister bluntly told the world that telephones were not for
the poor. Today, the poor in Nigeria have more telephones
than the rich, thanks to the GSM revolution! Nigeria now
rules Africa and the Far East in telecommunication services
with a Nigerian-owned telecommunication company, Globacom
becoming a truly global conglomerate first time in Nigeria’s
corporate history.
We can say that again with respect to news media. No longer
are Nigerians tethered to just NTA or Radio Nigeria. Like
tertiary education, private radio and television stations
have revolutionized the news and information industry in
Nigeria. There is more revolution yet in the nation’s
banking sector. Ever thought that Nigerian banks would one
day rule Africa with branches in developed countries? Let’s
be honest here for a change.
Like I stated in an earlier article, the creation of states,
a brand new federal capital and hundreds of local government
councils, have brought developments to the grassroots and
government closer to the people. Rather than having my
regional capital in Ibadan more than five hundred kilometers
from my village and my local government “division” tens of
kilometers from my village, I now have my state capital and
divisional headquarters literarily in my backyard. Whether
the bureaucrats manning these governmental apparatuses are
performing or not is of course a different matter
altogether. At the moment they may well be performing below
expectations, but that could easily be fixed through the
democratic process.
By the way, is Nigeria still a going or a gone concern? I ask
this because doomsday prophets have been predicting the
demise of the nation pretty much since her independence.
Every military coup or general election gets the doomsday
prophets out of their trance to strut their stuff at the
public square. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised that
they have not relocated from the nation, which demise they
so gleefully foretell.
That they are all still sitting there in Nigeria with no
plans whatsoever to relocate elsewhere makes their own
predictions hollow and therefore dismissible with a wave of
the hand. Their doomsday so-called prophesies could be
regarded as mere publicity stunts. That Nigeria has survived
every turbulence including a three-year brutal civil war had
put the lie to the predictions.
And what’s more: that she has lived long enough to celebrate
her golden jubilee and waxing stronger is the doomsday
prophet’s ultimate nightmare. It is remarkable that the
nation has outlived her doomsday prophets in the past and
will do so in the present as she takes aim at her centenary
celebrations, hopefully, bomb-free centennial celebrations.
This is wishing a great nation and an emerging giant under
the sun a happy centennial ahead of time when the clan of
naysayers might have gone the way of their predecessors.
But you don’t have to take my words for it because my
unbridled and infectious optimism might get the better of
me. Take the words of former South African Central Bank
Governor and also former labor minister in President Nelson
Mandela’s first Cabinet in 1994, and adviser to US
investment bank, Goldman Sachs, Mr. Tito Mboweni, reported
by ThisDay 101110, who projected that “Nigeria is going to
be Africa’s growth story for the next 15 to 20 years.”
That is a forward looking disposition. It is
counterproductive for naysayers to be looking backwards
rather than forward to constantly bemoan our past failures.
There is a reason God placed our eyes in the front rather
than in the back to enable us look in front of us not
backwards. It takes no efforts to look forward because the
eyes are already pointed in that direction but one has to
make 180% turn just to be able to look backward. That’s a
heck of effort.
It shows man is deliberately programmed to look forward.
Other than professional historians, those who make it their
business to constantly dwell in the past in gratuitous
lamentations are doing themselves and their nation a great
disservice. The past is past but the future is within our
grasps to mold and shape into whatever forms we desire.
People who constantly live in the past in lamentations have
already lost the future.
With her rising GDP, Mboweni’s prediction may very well come
to pass within the timeframe and that would be in tandem
with the nation’s aspiration of making it to the 20th
largest economic club in the world. Presently, Nigeria is
one of the growth engines in Africa together with South
Africa and Egypt, located in the West, South and North of
the continent respectively. With dedicated leadership as it
seems the case presently, there is no reason Nigeria’s
economic expansion should suffer any lag or recession in the
near future. With China’s insatiable appetite for crude oil
and the nation’s deliberate efforts at developing non-oil
exports in order to create a more robust, more resilient,
all round economy, there is no reason for pessimism. We must
therefore look ahead with renewed optimism that Nigeria’s
better days are ahead of her, not behind her. Nigeria will
soon become the China of Africa in no distant time. And she
will become pull off the African version of the “Great Leap
Forward”. All the forecasts point in that direction. Is this
a reason for lamentation or hope?
I think it is a great reason for hope and democracy will get
us there. Democracy holds the key to unlock the nation’s
economic treasures. Therefore, the nation’s economic growth
must move in deliberate lockstep with her democratic growth
and any attempt to upset the nation’s democratic applecart
will spell doom for her economy. While her 11-year run on
democracy every effort must be made by the ruling class to
sustain the tempo to the glory of the nation as a whole not
just a few individuals presently at the helm of affairs. And
that means being true democrats rather than democratic
pretenders looking for their own welfare and personal
aggrandizement. And this should not be reduced to mere
platitudes and sterile preachments that move no one. It must
be backed with appropriate sanctions by the state enforced
to the hilt.
Democracy is a sport and it must therefore be played by the
rules. There are absolutely no two ways about this. Whoever
runs foul of the rules must be shown the way out as obtains
in all sports. If the nation is able to take care of her
democracy she can be rest assured that her economy will take
care of itself. She must gun for true democracy and all the
rest will be added unto her in full season. She needs no
convincing. She only has to look up to South Korea,
Indonesia, Taiwan, India, Singapore, and Malaysia to find
the proofs.
Finally, I would like to commend to the reader to the
admonition of the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Bob
Dewar, who said that Nigeria should
“rise above the mixed fortunes that had trailed its path in
the last 50 years by looking forward, not just to 2020 or
2030 but 2060 when the majority of the present youths would
have attained adulthood.” (Tribune 09242010)
Well said, Mr. High Commissioner, and that’s reason why I
refuse to be bogged down by past failures, but look forward
with hope and high expectations for the nation and her
blessed people. That is the same mindset of those toiling
night and day remaking the new Nigeria of our dreams. It’s
the mindset of those folks who just won medals for Nigeria.
It’s time to quit whining. It’s time to quit complaining.
It’s time to go to work and help make the “Great Leap
Forward” stunning reality.
Be a part of Team Nigeria!
Franklin Otorofani, Esq. Contact:
mudiagaone@yahoo.com
|
By:
Franklin Otorofani, Esq.
Published
October 18th, 2010
