Nigeria’s Centenary: What Next?(II)

Many discernible Nigerians—realists, pragmatists and, in fact the critical masses, began to express doubts as to the workability of the Nigerian project as a viable nation. Indeed, the search for a national ideal—which is usually the product of foresight founded on dreams, hopes rounded off in a national vision—became a subject of deep skepticism and […]

Many discernible Nigerians—realists, pragmatists and, in fact the critical masses, began to express doubts as to the workability of the Nigerian project as a viable nation. Indeed, the search for a national ideal—which is usually the product of foresight founded on dreams, hopes rounded off in a national vision—became a subject of deep skepticism and illusion. With the wreckage of the dreams at take-off, many wonder whether a new set of dreams and a fresh regime of hope and vision for this country will not be a mere academic exercise or a futile aspiration—given the colossal failure of the past. What will be the bases of fresh hopes and new dreams? In short, what is the strategy for carving new visions that will redeem this nation from the agony suffered by the majority of the people of this nation and its tragic paradoxes—a nation with so much abundance—thirty-five solid minerals, each of which could transform the nation to a true economic giant as has been the experience of some other, smaller nations, some of which, like Singapore and Japan, had no mineral resource at all—virile, vital and diverse population of great mental capacities comparable to any human components anywhere in the world, yet suffering such bewildering dysfunctional and mediocre leadership in fifty solid years? Is this the end of dreams, the terminal point of hope and the cull de sac of vision? That, I am afraid, is the National Question.
II. This is the key concern here. It is that we live in a nation in which democracy—even a fledgling one at that– is our credo of governance. Yet, not much that is positive is assured in our lives that can make us pound our chest that our democracy is working. Many of the necessities of life that democracy should bring have eluded us since independence, even more painfully so since we returned from the gulag of military dictatorship into what should be saner, civilized aegis. Violence, insecurity, unemployment, terror and pain have been the remiss, attendant to our democracy. Our humanity has never been more assailed, affronted and threatened than it is today. My friend, the notable playwright, Femi Osofisan describes, quite aptly, the situation of Nigeria’s chaotic situation as ‘disturbing dystopia’
If this appears to be a gory picture painted from literary imagination and fictive creativity—the pleasant pastime of writers– then you must have been in the moon or further in the stratosphere in the past two years lived in utter fear and lethal insecurity. Why, I ask, do we greet our joy with so much pain, so much horror, so much bereavement? The inaugurals of Democracy Day two years ago were held with so much trepidation. In Abuja, telephone lines were jammed as a measure of forestalling terrorist bomb-blast plans. Even now, booms of suicide bombs wreck our immediate future. Our children, who should inherit whatever is left of our future are being mindlessly slaughtered today in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by Boko Haram, a terrorist group which is currently on mortal rampage. Think also of the horror and the cannibal instinct that characterized the recent spate of bombings in Abuja and the psychotic/lunatic kidnapping of innocent girls at Chibok.
What democracy then and in what nation? What can we do then to interrogate this sordid state of affairs; this crippling national wreckage in the 21st century?
Conclusion.
The next century must be different. We must run our nation differently if we must make a difference for ourselves and our children and their children.  In specific terms, the dream of vision 20-2020, which is to be among the best twenty economies in the world must be taken beyond dreams.
A brief checklist then, and one which is not unique to me.
a)    We need to make our democracy work; build a competitive federation, erected on a competitive economy. The way to do this is to emerge with a truly federated nation—a fiscal federalism which ‘drives innovation and productivity. It has been proposed that the present Presidential system is too expensive and overburdened by too much government.
b) We need to  review the original  federal structure in which the states are consolidated (like was done to the banks) in the six geo-political zones, make them function like  the regions of old, functioning like ‘federating units, with a slimmed  down centre, and operating on near-autonomous principle. Each region should control its mineral resources and make remittance to the federal.
c) No meaningful transformation of the economy can take place without adequate energy supply. There is co-relation between power consumption and   economic growth. Sambo (2011) established that the ‘peak of Nigeria’s economic growth 1970-79 and 2002-2004 are also associated with the highest growth in electricity generation in Nigeria. Power is thus a key infrastructure in modernization, industrial revolution, manufacturing and economic transformation.
d) Security-of life and property- is the critical function of government.  The present climate of insecurity and unmitigated assault on our national sovereignty by terrorists of the Boko Haram variety has consistently overrun many states in the north east. Government must accelerate the process of providing a grand counter-insurgency strategy to stem terrorist and insurgency in our country.
e)  A massive education drive at all levels is the answer to the national development and transformation project. In a knowledge society of the 21st century, building human capacity is imperative. Government and other stake-holders in the education industry must commit at least a quarter of their budget to education in the next ten years. At least 10% of that budget committed to education should be allocated to research and development to grow new knowledges in critical areas of national need.
f) Popular participation in the political and economic lives of the nation must be rapidly addressed, such that there is critical engagement of the masses in production, distribution and exchange dimensions of the economy.
g) The 21st century, as the President of the country predicts, can still be the century of Africa. Nigeria can only be the driver and fulfiller of that vision, if our act is right.
h) Corruption, rapidly appearing endemic, is a sole impediment to our socio-economic transformation. We need a national leadership with a strong political will to smash corruption, bring reprisals and adequate punishment to culprits and the culpable without sacred-cow-ism.  We need to re-empower our anti-corruption agencies to function without hindrance and effectively so as to rid our nation of this cancer-worm.