Resuscitating non-oil industrial backbones in Nigeria

If not, how can we rationalize the killing of Open University, Ajaokuta Steel Industry, Conventional Universities, Scholarship Schemes, Dams, Public Power Supply, Nigerian Airways, Railways, Federalism, etc?  Yes the devil of system-overthrow may have their genesis but they had no justification that all the crimes they accused past regimes of, they in turn became victims […]

If not, how can we rationalize the killing of Open University, Ajaokuta Steel Industry, Conventional Universities, Scholarship Schemes, Dams, Public Power Supply, Nigerian Airways, Railways, Federalism, etc?  Yes the devil of system-overthrow may have their genesis but they had no justification that all the crimes they accused past regimes of, they in turn became victims of the ills of their own condemnation!  History has shown that regimes overthrowers became worse performers than the regimes they overthrew or made irrelevant in their pyrrhic victory or temporary sloganeering.

We need to go back to the basics of true Federalism so that areas that want to fly can fly while those that want to crawl can do so!

We need to resuscitate our Iron and Steel Industry in Ajaokuta – as the foundation of our further development lies in an effective steel backbone!

The recent annulment of the selling of this Commonwealth to some individuals should be hailed and sustained!  Our commonwealth should no longer be pocketed by a few in our land!

We should as a matter of urgency call the original designers to come and wake up the sleeping giant of Nigeria’s iron and steel industry. We should as a matter of urgency call out traditional metallurgical experts from all over Nigeria and resettle them in a traditional metallurgical village in Ajaokuta for them to grow side by side with their modern experts.

We should as a matter of urgency establish a high tech technological University of metallurgy in Ajaokuta.  The basis for this is that the National metallurgical Institute can form this Metallurgical University of technology.

Nigeria is ripe to be a technological wonder if all these are put in place.  The time to put our technological and steel resources together is now, or never!

The next challenge is our solid mineral base.  There is no state in our Federation that has not some quantity or quality of solid mineral that can take our country to higher heights.  If we do not know what to do with our solid minerals potentials, why won’t we for God’s sake learn from our neighbours that are reaping fortunes from their own solid minerals?  Coal for an example is a source of alternative energy for power generation.

Need we say more on our abundant tourism potentials?  There has been so much noise on tourism development that has no substance.  Our tourism promotion hitherto is full of sound and fury.  They are like tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing in tangible terms.

What we need now is not tourism documentation.  We do not need to be told our tourism attractions or tourism sites or potentials!  Our history books are replete with such information!  All we need now are tourism infrastructure, enabling environment, attractions and legislative environment conducive for effective public private sector partnership (PPP) in the tourism sector.

Enough of jaw-jawing on the abundant, natural and human potentials in the Sector.  Let us be seen to do tourism rather than fill our newspapers, radio, television and new social media with tourism clichés that add no value to the development of tourism potentials in Nigeria.  If for example, there is a massive palm tree, coconut, plantain plantation development, cocoa, orange, mangoes etc development all over our riverine areas with a battery of cruise liners in our dredged rivers no one will tell Local and International Investors to come to Nigeria to invest in tourism!

If you go to South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province you will see an international airport built with thatched roots!  The government created this environment conducive for the patronage of local building materials.  And tourists are excited to visit Nelspruit to behold the traditional African building technology in construction engineering!  What are we doing with our local products like bamboo trees, our local cuisine and abundant costumes that are sporadically flying all over the world?  What have we made of our confluence capital of Nigeria where river Niger and Benue entered into natural conjugal affiliation?  What of our traditional beads, pots, dances and the like, that have been ritually recreated as “cut-away-shots” without innovation for us to project primitive replications of as it was in the beginning, so it is and ever shall be!

What have we made of our Nollywood Industry that has sprang up from nowhere to occupy the third place in world arts?

We need as a matter of urgency to resuscitate our non-oil industrial potentials in this great and giant nation of ours!

Dr Shaibu is the Zonal Director, FRCN Abuja National Station