Nigeria as a crawling giant

Fifty-three years down the line, we cannot hit our chests and say we are where we should be as a nation, especially when you consider the abundance of natural and human resources Nigeria is blessed with.Nigeria is like a man who has everything and lacks nothing, yet, he is still seen to be suffering and […]

Fifty-three years down the line, we cannot hit our chests and say we are where we should be as a nation, especially when you consider the abundance of natural and human resources Nigeria is blessed with.
Nigeria is like a man who has everything and lacks nothing, yet, he is still seen to be suffering and in serious pains. Corruption, bad leadership and outright mismanagement of our gigantic
God-given wealth have kept us crawling, even though we have since been released from the clutches of colonialism through the actualization of independence. We have become more like a crawling giant.
While contributing to a motion moved by the Senate Majority Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), requesting the Senate to congratulate President Goodluck Jonathan, the government and good people of Nigeria on the country’s 53rd independence anniversary, Senators unanimously agreed in their submissions that the nation’s leaders had fail to offer the requisite leadership that could guarantee our socio-economic independence.
In his contribution, Chairman,  Senate Committee on Rules and
Business,  Senator Ita Enang, observed that the critical situation in the education sector and the reduction of Nigeria to a mere raw material supplier to industrial companies  in other climes, was not the best for a nation that has actually attained self-governance.
On his part, Senate President, David Mark, noted that it is the common people that should be congratulated for their exhibition of so much patience and imperturbability, amidst frustrations induced by total abuse of power and maladministration.
The revelation by the President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Osahon Enabulele, on the same day the Red Chamber bewailed the state of affairs in the country, clearly confirmed the statement of Mark on the rate at which Nigerians are moving out of the country to look for comfort elsewhere.
The situation is not different in other professions as well. And this has really dragged us back as we have lost our best hands to other countries because successive governments failed to create conducive environment that could encourage people to want to remain in their fatherland, even when they have every opportunity to move out.
While I join in congratulating Nigerians on the auspicious occasion of our 53rd independence anniversary, I call on our present crop of leaders to do everything within their reach to get us out of this quagmire, which is obviously a product of our handiwork. They must leave no stone unturned to renew the confidence of the people of this great country called Nigeria. This is the time for them to put in place all necessary machineries that will make us to stop crawling and
start walking as a truly self-regulating nation. Our lawmakers must go beyond their lamentation on the state of affairs in the country and use their good offices to help change the situation in the interest of all Nigerians. May God help Nigeria!
Michael Jegede, Abuja