Nigeria @ 64: Walk your talk!
Nigeria, the giant of Africa. One in every four black persons, they say is a Nigerian. Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth. In the diplomatic circle, it is believed that the route to Africa passes through Nigeria. In deed, many believe that when Nigeria coughs, the rest of Africa catches cold. And so on and so forth.
The wonderful appellations that are deployed to describe my beautiful country are so enchanting, they blow my head!
As one who has had the privilege of stepping foot on the shores of not a few countries, I bear testimony to the wonderful encounters I’ve had with the nationals of a couple of countries who literally want to open you up to know what makes you tick when they discover you are a Nigerian.
Nigeria used to be a beautiful country of happy, indeed, very happy people.
On paper, I can boast that Nigeria is one of the richest countries in the world. Like a musician once sang: Me I like my country. I like the land and people. Everything e dey for Nigeria. Make we join hands to make Nigeria better.
Many argue that there is not a single inch of the country’s 923,768 square kilometers of landmass that cannot grow a crop or where, if you dig deep, you would not find one earth mineral or two of value. Gold, coal, petroleum, gas, tin, iron, lithium, bauxite, bitumen, kaolin, lead, zinc, tin, limestone, etc, etc, abound.
Nigeria is a country of humongous potentials in both man and materials. Nigeria has a vibrant youth population with over 42.54% aged between 0–14 years. In fact, as of 2022 when Nigeria’s total population was estimated to be 217, 079, 601 according to “Worldometer,” the youths account for 70 percent, amounting to a huge 151 million youths, while 42 percent of the 70 percent are under the age of 15 years. By about 4am this morning while I write this piece, Nigeria’s population is estimated at 233,893,209
Nigerians are some of the most intellectually endowed individuals on earth. They are brilliant, smart and courageous. They are often intrinsically motivated and launch out to the highest heights to excel. Both domestically and across the globe, Nigerians shatter age old academic records. It is on record that there are about 400,000 Nigerians in the USA and they are amongst the most successful immigrant population in that country.
As a country, it is regrettable however, that Nigeria’s greatness has largely remained in the realm of potentials rather than transformative. Over the years, successive leaders of Nigeria failed to leverage on the innate potentials nature endowed the country with.
Sixty four years after independence from British colonial rule, Nigeria is today almost a shadow of its old self, where the gains of the mid 70s, up to the early 90s, achieved mainly through proceeds from the export of crude oil, have been lost. Unfortunately, the past 25 years of civilian rule have been one single spell of unanticipated disaster where Nigeria’s performance in social, economic and political spheres decelerated so rapidly that the country now features prominently in several underdevelopment indices.
Poverty, insecurity, stealing of public funds, hunger, bad governance, indiscipline and other forms of irresponsible behavour by public officials are rife. Large swaths of Nigeria’s landmass are now under the control of so-called unknown gunmen such as bandits, terrorist herdsmen, kidnappers, ritualists and cattle rustlers. Violent criminal acts are rampant in both rural and urban areas.
Most of these acts of criminality continue unabated because of leadership failure. Since the dawn of civil rule in 1999, many observe that almost every succeeding regime perform worse in governance than the previous one. There is also a consensus of opinion that partisan politics has been militarised and criminalised, whereby all that matters is how to when the next election.
There is really no use boring readers with the gory tale of leadership failure under this Fourth Republic, save to note that Nigerians are in for a very long night because the politicians are showing no signs of retreating from their path of bad governance and stealing of public funds. Anyone in doubt may take another look at the current situation of statecraft and last week’s Edo state election as a case in point.
Nigerians have to take their destiny in their own hands. Though it is argued that the people get the leadership they deserve, change must also come from within, since all the people can not be the same. The challenge I see is that the American presidential democracy that we practice saddles the electorate with a huge responsibility that the Nigerian populace cannot execute. That responsibility is the onerous task of recruiting the national leadership. This remains a task that the largely illiterate, uninformed, hungry and poor Nigerian electorate continues to fail at executing.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu therefore has his work duly cut out for him. Unlike the leaders before him, he must walk the talk. He must look inwards to rediscover the strength of Nigeria and Nigerians, and provide the leadership to grow the economy from within. The president must discard the bogey passion of chasing so-called foreign investors because there is no record in human history to support that approach to economic growth and development.
The President must realize that money goes to where it is welcome. So, even if we are to expect foreign investors to grow the Nigerian economy, the investment climate must be conducive enough to attract such investment. At the moment, local farmers cannot go to their farms, not to talk of foreigners.