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Reflection Time for Nigeria By Suleiman Nasiru
FORTY-NINE years of Nigeria’s independence, a lot of people have argued that the country has not achieved anything while some people say a lot have been achieved. Some of those who argue that the country has experienced tremendous improvement from the pre-independence era backed up their argument with a number of parameters for measuring achievement. For instance they argued that there are achievements in virtually all the sectors of the economy. For instance education they argue that we have more schools compared with the pre-independence era, more teachers and more educated people compared with what obtained during the period of colonial government, they also put up an argument that we now have more vibrant military base and well-equipped police force and more articulated civil service. Unlike the pre-independence era when virtually all the sectors are run by foreigners and Nigerians are relegated to just doing menial jobs and not respected by foreigners. To this people, Nigeria as a nation has achieved enough by having Nigerians in-charge of all the sectors of the economy and the provision of more basic infrastructure, increase number of schools and more educated people in the country, a better military base and well-equipped police force.
While the other party to the argument says all these can not be termed as achievement, if put side by side with the level of achievements of other countries of the world who gained independence the same time with Nigeria. They also said considering the abundant human and natural resources deposited in the country and the income generated from exporting these resources, that Nigerians has what its takes to be one of the greatest economies in the world if the right things are done.
One of the problems these people identify as the cause of our woes as a nation is bad leadership. Over the years Nigerian has suffered from bad leadership, the kind of leaders we have lack focus and are not ready to take the country to anywhere, these people argue that selfishness and egocentric tendencies of our leaders has caused us a lot. People are suffering and dieing today because of some of the actions or inactions of our leaders. They continue by saying most of the basic infrastructure put in place by our founding fathers in the 50s, 60s and 70s are still the ones there. The present leaders have done nothing, even when they claim to do something or embark on any project, the costs are inflated. The present set of leaders put self first before the nation, little wonder therefore that a single person could embezzle money running into billions of dollars at the expense of the whole nation, we heard of the 16 billion dollars for power project. Are we to talk of Ghana-Must-Go exchanging hands in our National Assembly just to cover one corrupt practice or the other? Our leaders lack vision, they no longer see beyond their stomach. Money meant for development projects are diverted for personal use and most times these moneys are taken to foreign land to set up businesses that will benefit the citizens of these countries to where our hard-earned money are taken. Sometimes these monies are saved in foreign accounts and some cases these accounts are frozen for some flimsy excuse. Yet our leaders will not desist from these actions. While these monies are taken to foreign countries the masses are left here suffering from hunger, poor health facilities, lack of steady power supply, poor educational standard, bad roads, high child mortality rate, HIV/AIDS, insecurity, and a lot of other problems.
Unlike our founding fathers who go out of their ways to ensure that the nation became independent, they put up structure that are not beaten by the present leaders, and also ensured that the country remained as one entity. Leaders like Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the then prime minister, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, are men with vision and courage to move the nation forward. These are people of ideologies who rolled out agenda and are ready to back it up with actions. These people have made their mark; we’ve seen it and no doubt even heaven will bear them witness that these men have contributed their quota to nation building, as the foundation laid by them is still there looking for who will come and build on it so that we can erect the structure that will accommodate us as a nation.
Let us take some of the very important sectors of the economy as examples with a view to examining the level of growth or development attained. One of the very important areas or sectors of the economy is education. And this is a sector that has suffered neglect by those in authority, as nothing tangible has being done to curb the problems facing the sector. The sector is faced by a myriad of problems ranging from poor funding, inadequate facilities and deteriorated infrastructure, less qualified teachers, incessant industrial action, poor policy formulation and implementation mechanisms, examination malpractices to mention but a few. If these problems are not taken care of we cannot move any where. Where most of our graduates are not employable because the curriculum in our schools are not tailored towards solving the problems being faced by the society, if really Nigeria wants to be among the top 20 economies in the world by 2020 the right thing should be done in our education sector. Adequate fund should be allocated to the sector, and ensure that this funds are channeled to the right places. The case of examination malpractices must be tackled, because the evil has taken over the entire sector.
For vision 20:2020 to be realizable, the issue of power sector must be addressed adequately and seriously, as the issue of power supply in this country is no longer news to anybody; both the old and young know that power is one of our major problems. Virtually almost all the small businesses have collapsed because of irregular power supply. The barbers, computer business centres, pure water hawkers, and a number of business depend on electricity and this electricity is not there to support these micro aspect of our economy that will facilitate the attainment of this vision of our president. The target set by the government to achieve 6000 mega watts should be given the maximum support needed to ensure that this gory tale of power problem is put behind the nation.
Attention must also be given to the development of youths through vibrant programme that will help in changing the orientation of the youths. Most of the youths of this nation have been overtaken by a number of vices ranging from armed robbery, drug trafficking and drug abuse, prostitution, advanced fee fraud, cyber crime (Yahoo-Yahoo), cultism and a number of other social vices. The government must tackle al these if any meaningful achievement can be attained. Government can solve these problems through sports, music, and other social reorientation programmes that are geared towards youth development and empowerment. The rebranding programme of the minister of information should focus on this rather than trying to build a favourable image in the eyes of international community while right inside the country we are faced with a number of problems. |