As Nigeria approaches fifty-one years, every rational thinker should shrug in utter disbelief about how the country is surviving under a mono economy. Realists, on the other hand, are saying that this is not survival, that some people are merely managing to live in Nigeria. They believe that the stark reality is everywhere that the nation is in a disparate condition.
Infact, the country and its citizens are sitting on a time bomb, which can explode anytime. Poverty is dealing with the masses of this country unceasingly. Social infrastructure services are in shambles. The question is, in fifty-one years of Nigeria’s independence how many people have public water running in their kitchens and bathrooms? How many people have six hours of electricity in a week, much less roads, security, health-care, employment and education.
The Nigerian Realists have also asked, why is Nigeria in this messy state, years in year out, without respite? Why can’t there be glimmer of hope in the horizon to, at least, breath life into desperate souls and enliven frayed nerves? Why are things getting worse every year despite all the promises made by governments across the land? Why are government promises not fulfilled? Check out the slogan, “health for all by the year 2000; education and water for all by the year 1990 and electricity for all by the year 2009.
The answer to all these is in the disoriented and stunted economic environment that is badly tainted with corruption. It is common knowledge that what is stolen from government coffers is more than what gets to it. Infact, some have argued that sixty per cent of oil and its revenue is stolen. Then, out of the remaining forty per cent, sixty per cent again is lost to corruption. While the remaining forty per cent is used in running the government. Again, that remaining portion is siphoned by all manners of people in government with their cronies. Hence, all the money meant for the provision of social services like roads, water, electricity, hospitals, schools and factories are diverted. At the end, what gets to the people from the sum total of government revenue is less than ten per cent
.Aformer Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, once estimated that over three hundred and eighty billion dollars has been lost to corruption in Nigeria since independence. He lamented that the amount was enough to replicate Europe with its development six times in Nigeria. Nigerian leaders have wonderful ideas but their major problem is implementation of the ideas and corrupt tendencies. That is why a particular project will continue to appear in budget year after year without execution. Worst still, Nigerians are “sidon look”; they do not ask questions.
Apart from corruption, another cankerworm dwarfing Nigeria’s economy is sole dependent on oil. The Nigeria economy is as unstable as the fluctuation in the global crude oil price. The economy that depends solely on one product would be unable to meet the basic social and infrastructural needs of the people or develop like others. Therefore, Nigeria should be talking about going back to its roots that ensured economic sustainability which it abandoned in 1975 at the wake of the oil boom. The oil windfall has been grossly abused and mismanaged that it would be foolhardy for anyone to rely on it for the development of this country. The era when Nigeria would have developed with oil money has passed. The country has got to a stage where there are too many greedy mouths craving for the oil money that it is not even enough to satisfy corrupt tendencies much less anything remaining for development !
Reviving agriculture will therefore enable Nigeria get back to where she was in the sixties and early seventies. At that point, she will regain her position as exporter of major agricultural products, and be self-sufficient in food produce to be able to save the huge money expended on importation.
No doubt, all the G-20 countries Nigeria desire to join in its vision 20-20-20 are not importers of food and industrial products. If care is not taken, soon, Nigeria will start importing yam, cow, sheep, garri, cassava, millet and beans, just as it is now a major importer of rice and poultry. Already, Nigeria is the world’s largest importer of food and industrial products.
As Nigeria hopes to be one of the twenty most developed nations by the years 2020, the county should know that, for now its economy is in contrast with what obtains in those countries. We are not on the path of belonging there yet, not even by 2020 unless radical measures are taken to change the mono-economic system. Nigeria should know that other developed countries it is hoping to join are not static, waiting for Nigeria to meet them.
To meet the 20 20 20 target, Nigeria must re-order its priorities and put first things first. We cannot jump the gun. Nigeria must come back to where it derailed. Nigeria must come back to cocoa, Rubber, timber, palm oil, groundout, cotton, hides and skin as well as the farm settlements. Except these are done, the magical transformation maybe impossible in a country with mono-economy and concentration of corruption.
emyarinze 