Nigeria
is 25; the odds we did survive; Arise salute the nation; Come join the
celebration; A people united will never fall; The sun will rise and the
rain will fall; On our land vast and mighty, richly blessed by the
Almighty, like bees in a hive … Nigeria is 25!” (Bongos Ikwue, 1985).
Thirty years ago, this theme song
reverberated on our airwaves in celebration of 25 years of the existence
of our great country, Nigeria. Indeed, “we have survived many odds”.
From the Civil War between 1967 and 1970; the Boko Haram insurgency
since 2002 to the prediction by the United States of America
Intelligence arm in 2005 that Nigeria would cease to be a nation state
in 2015, and so on … And now, Nigeria is 55!
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Nigeria,
a country located in West Africa, with more than 500 ethnic tribes, is a
religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most
widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into
Christians who live mostly in the southern and central parts of the
country, and Muslims in the northern and southwestern regions. A
minority of the population practise religions indigenous to them, such
as those native to the Igbo and the Yoruba. “A people united will never
fall”.
Since the 1990s, the Nigerian movie
industry, also known as “Nollywood”, has emerged as a fast-growing
cultural force all over the continent and is now the second largest
producer of movies in the world. Also, in sports, football is extremely
popular throughout the country and especially among the youths and has
been a strong unifying force. The national football team, the “Super
Eagles”, have made it into the World Cup on five occasions; 1994, 1998,
2002, 2010 and 2014 and was ranked fifth in the Federation
Internationale de Football Association world rankings, the highest
ranking achieved by an African football team in 1994.
Nigerian cuisines, like West African
cuisines in general, are known for their richness and variety. Nigeria
has also had a huge role in the development of various genres of African
music. Notable and late 20th century and 21st century musicians have
famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music such as
West African highlife and Afrobeat with American jazz and soul that have
greatly influenced music worldwide.
Last year, Nigeria was the first country
to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola Virus Disease that
ravaged three other countries in the West African sub-region, as its
unique method of contact-tracing became an effective method later used
by other countries, such as the United States of America, when Ebola
threats were also discovered. As of this year, Nigeria is the world’s
20th largest economy, worth more than $500bn and $1tn in terms of
nominal Gross Domestic Product and purchasing-power-parity respectively.
Also, the debt-to-GDP ratio is only 11 per cent, which is eight per
cent below the 2012 ratio. Nigeria is considered to be an emerging
market by the World Bank and has been identified as a regional power on
the African continent, a middle power in international affairs and an
emerging global power. It is also listed among the “Next Eleven”
economies set to become one of the biggest economies in the world. “We
work so hard to let the honey flow.” But it is certainly not Eureka!
Nigeria at 55 is bedevilled by a plethora
of challenges. Despite the abundance of human, material and natural
resources, basic infrastructure and social services are pitiably bad;
economic facilities are weak; the educational system apart from being a
poor social service, lacks quality, proper orientation and quantity;
health care delivery system at the primary, secondary and tertiary
levels destroys rather than saves lives; agriculture, the highest
contributor to GDP at 40 per cent and the highest employer of labour at
60 per cent is underdeveloped due to neglect and poor policy
administration.
The extraction, production and sale of
oil and gas have been mismanaged, negatively politicised and corrupted;
there is phenomenal corruption at the level of politics and governance;
solid minerals which exist in abundance have been neglected or
abandoned; ethics and values which are the moral guides and glue of a
society have crashed to a level of negative transcendentalism,
normlessness and criminality; peace, social and protective security are
perennially threatened at the societal and individual levels; there is
religious fanaticism and intolerance.
Due to the above, many Nigerians had
immigrated to other countries such as the US, the United Kingdom,
Australia, South Africa, amongst others. The most noticeable exodus
occurred among professional and middle-class Nigerians who, along with
their children, took advantage of education and employment opportunities
in the developed countries and this may have contributed to a
“brain-drain” on Nigeria’s intellectual resources to the detriment of
its future. Through my academic sojourn, from the culturally rich “Land
of Kings” Rajasthan, India with its forts and intricately carved temples
through the rapidly, developing city Doha, Qatar with its natural oil
and gas wealth; multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual rainbow
nation, South Africa, located at the southernmost region of Africa with
the second largest economy in Africa; the world’s largest economy, the
US, benefiting from an abundance of natural resources and high worker
productivity, the world’s foremost economic and military power, a
prominent political and cultural force, and a leader in scientific
research and technological innovations; Britain with its constitutional
monarchy and a parliamentary system of governance, I have thus seen that
these countries were “made” of the people, for the people and by the
people.
As we celebrate, we must also have sober
reflections on the way forward. Nigeria’s prospects are enhanced by its
strategic location, which will enable it to take advantage of booming
demand across Africa and other parts of the developing world. Add to
that a large and growing population and an entrepreneurial spirit, and
the future looks bright. In order to unleash this potential and ensure
that the next decade of growth brings sharp reductions in poverty,
Nigeria’s leaders must pursue reforms aimed at increasing productivity,
raising incomes, and delivering essential services like electricity,
good road network, health care and education more efficiently. The
government could pursue land title reforms aimed at opening more
farmland without deforestation; expand the use of fertiliser and
mechanised equipment; and support a market-driven shift to more
profitable crops.
In urban areas, productivity suffers from
a high degree of informal employment, sometimes, even by major
corporations. This keeps too many Nigerians in low-skill, low-paying
jobs and deprives the economy of the dynamism that competitive small and
medium size enterprises create. The spate of internet start-ups that
have emerged in Nigeria demonstrates that the skills are there, and
tapping Nigeria’s Diaspora can augment that talent pool. To make it
easier to do business in Nigeria, the government also will need to
streamline processes for registering and running a legal business and,
together with aid agencies and the private sector, increase investment
in infrastructure. It will also need to intensify its fight against
endemic corruption, which represents a tax on all businesses. Finally,
to promote inclusive growth – essential to relieving human suffering and
mitigating social and political tensions – Nigeria must improve public
service delivery dramatically.
In this new dispensation in Nigeria, when
weighed against existing realities, our President and any other human
for that matter stand little or no chance of giving Nigerians the
country of our dreams, in just four years. Nigeria is ours and only
Nigerians can build and celebrate the country, if we all play our parts
and do things right. Arise; salute our nation, Nigeria at 55!
