Nigeria@59: A nation of broken visions
Nigeria@59: A nation of broken visions
JUST one more year and
Nigeria will clock 60 as an independent nation. Looking at the figures that
bespeak the level of our underdevelopment, and the dooming atmosphere that
envelopes the nation and her citizenry, there are very few reasons for
Nigerians to be proud of their independence.
First, let’s look at a
few critical metrics which all point in the negative direction. Nigeria ranks
144 out of 180 countries in the Transparency International, TI, 2018 Corruption
Perception Index, CPI. In the same year, Nigeria came 88th out of 133 countries
in the World Justice Project, WJP, Rule of Law Index and achieved the damning
status of becoming the “Poverty Capital of the World.” According to the World
Poverty Clock, created by Vienna-based World Data Lab, 91.16 million of the
country’s 198 million people were living below a dollar a day (extreme poverty)
as of February 13, 2019.
In the educational
front, Nigeria is also the country with the highest number of out-of-school
children (13.2 million), with dilapidated educational infrastructure, which
forces the same ruling class that cannot rule to send their children to schools
in other countries that are properly governed. The same thing applies to the
health sector and, again, the rulers of the country hop abroad to fix their
health problems despite a hugely-funded State House Clinic that cannot fix common
malaria.
With a largely oil-based
economy projected to exceed $600billion in 2020, Nigeria is rated as the
largest economy (by GDP) in Africa, yet poverty and lack of opportunities have
forced hundreds of thousands of Nigerians to migrate to countries in Europe,
America, Asia and other African countries where they are targeted for
xenophobic attacks.
Within the country, the
security system has nearly collapsed, with Islamic terrorism, banditry, armed
herdsmen genocidal killings, kidnapping, violent robberies, piracy and cultism
tearing at the nation’s fabric. It is tales of woe galore.
The twin vectors
The bad shape of the
country has nothing to do with a lack of planning or visioning. Nigeria has
perhaps the largest number of development plans in the world, but we are unable
and unwilling to follow through any of them. Just as we have a legion of
abandoned projects, we also possess an armada of abandoned visions and
development plans.
Experts have identified
two main reasons for our failure to implement our plans. The first is the
faulty constitutional foundation. The second is the crabs in the basket
syndrome.
Experts have identified
two main reasons for our failure to implement our plans. The first is the
faulty constitutional foundation. The second is the crabs in the basket
syndrome.
During the First
Republic, the four-region federation worked perfectly. It was the period when
Nigeria competed favourably at the global level in almost every sector,
especially agriculture, industrialisation, education and rudimentary
technology.
Rudimentary technology
Each of the Regions
engaged in a fierce healthy competition. The Northern Region was an
agricultural behemoth, with its Groundnut Pyramids and built the largest
indigenous university, the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU. The Western Region,
the educational pacesetter, built the first skyscraper (Cocoa House), first
television station and offered free education to millions of its youth.
The East emerged as the
fastest industrialising economy in the Third World in 1964, with the prospects
of becoming the economic superpower in Africa with its rich oilfields, if not
for the 30-month Civil War that changed everything.
After the war, General
Yakubu Gowon ran a benevolent dictatorship for nine years with Development
Plans that focused mainly on nationwide infrastructure. The steady pace of
development came to a halt when the 1979 Constitution that was the extension of
centralised military command was grafted into the civilian rule. With the
powers of the Federation concentrated at the centre, the country became
dependent, consumption-based and no longer competitive.
The miniaturised states
no longer possessed the powers of the former Regions which were the metabolic
action stations and production workshops of the Federation in the First
Republic. Every month, the states and local governments go plate-in-hand to
Abuja to collect their quota from the Federation Government-controlled
Federation Account.
Unfortunately, the 1999
Constitution was a mere rehash of the 1979 centralised Federal Constitution,
which was created in such a way that it could not be amended to decentralise
our federalism due to the fact that it serves the interests of a privileged
section to the detriment of others. As long as this Constitution remains, the
Federation may not be restructured, and the failure in the system cannot be
halted.
Apart from the faulty
foundation, there is the case of “crab in a basket” mentality among the ruling
class. Every crab in the basket wants to climb out but pulls down those already
climbing out. Eventually, no one climbs out. While other countries build on the
efforts or legacies of preceding governments, our rulers tend to jettison the
efforts of their predecessors.
Every new government,
whether civilian or military, sees the immediate past government as corrupt and
evil. They end up being worse. Visions are set, work starts, but once a new
government comes in the rulers discard the visions of their predecessors and
launch their own which another regime also jettisons.
Corruption and sectional
greed ensure that public resources end up in private pockets.
Bleak future
Unfortunately, the
outlook for the future is very bleak. All efforts to reset the faulty
foundation of the country (through restructuring) are vehemently resisted by
those who feel they and their region would lose out. The resource base of the
country continues to shrink and poverty continues to balloon, manifesting in
violent crimes and terrorism. Yet those holding the reins of power refuse to
accommodate any life-saving paradigm shift.
Today, we are no longer
talking about strengthening the unity of the people of Nigeria. We are seeing a
new definition of Nigeria that must condone and accommodate the influx of
strange, armed and hostile ethnic foreigners, who insolently boast that Nigeria
belongs to them.
The independence that
our founding fathers fought for has all but lost its meaning
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