ORDINARILY, Nigerians should be rolling out the drums to mark the nation’s 55th Independent anniversary. But, rather than celebrating, the mood of the country, which got independence on October 1, 1960, is one of sober reflection. In the area of politics, the country appears to be getting back on its feet. After 16 years of uninterrupted civilian rule, the country appears to have made progress in that regard; particularly with periodic elections that are now increasingly being described as “free and fair” and the emergence of an opposition that, for the first time, dislodged a sitting party. To that extent, observers believe the country is on course politically. It has continued to be plagued by bad leadership, since the nation returned to participatory democracy 16 years ago.
There is, however, a glimmer of hope that the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari can steer the nation out of troubled waters.
Buhari, who was voted into power because Nigerians were fed up with the former ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), has the onerous responsibility of giving the country a new direction. Today, the economic outlook is bleak. The tumbling prices of crude oil at the international market, which many oil-producing countries have been grappling with since the middle of last year, appears to be taking a huge toll on the economy. Many state governors were owing arrears of workers’ salaries until the President Buhari worked out a bailout package for the cash-strapped states.
According to experts, the economy is struggling because it is subject to fluctuations in global oil prices, because successive governments have been paying lip service to the crucial issue of diversification of the economy. Divesting from fossil fuel is the obvious direction the world is headed. Many powerful countries which dominate the world economy have been actively working on that. The United States (U.S.) and Europe are headed in that direction. As the technology for non-fossils are improved, this trend will become the dominant source of energy in the world. But, sadly, the ruling elite appear not to have the political will to chart a new course that would address the people’s immediate need.
At Independence, the country had the capacity for growth and development. But it sguandered the opportunity by not sustaining the development of agricultural sector with its linkage to the manufacturing sector and not thinking ahead during the oil boom. With the discovery of oil, Nigeria closed her eyes to other sectors of the economy.
Over the years, Nigeria’s economy has been growing, but this has not been translated into putting food on the tables of many Nigerians. The administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan had made some efforts to diversify the economy, to start creating jobs for Nigerians. But, his ‘Transformation Agenda’ failed to transform the economy and create jobs as desired.
Economists have identified rural and urban integration; infrastructure and family planning as the critical factors to the transformation of the economy and its emergence as one of the top 20 economies in the world. According to the experts, the problem to be tackled is the duality between the formal and informal sectors of the economy. This, they added, is an important factor responsible for the lack of competitiveness of the non-oil sector and that it is imperative to address the challenges impeding the growth of the informal sector, which has been identified as the backbone of the economy and the highest employer of labour.
Therefore, it is imperative for the Buhari administration to initiate policies to empower every Nigerian to come on board in the quest to reposition the economy. Across the globe, knowledge economy has put nations in higher pedestal than natural resources endowment. The experts want President Buhari to set economic goals and targets, come out with a clear economic blueprint and formulate achievable policies and strategies to bring about a truly diversified economy.
The recent rebasing of the economy, setting Nigeria as Africa’s largest economy, while revealing the true economic position of Africa’s largest nation, simultaneously re-certified Nigeria as the nation in the top position for worst leadership in social welfare and opportunities for the people. With 70 per cent of the nation’s population living under a-dollar-a-day; economically factored, Nigeria has the poorest people of any nation in the world today.
At 55, the millions of unemployed youths have been described as a bomb waiting to explode. And until the teeming youths are gainfully enegaged, the country might be sitting on a keg of gun-powder. The spectre of insecurity may persist, despite the spirited efforts of the administration of President Buhari to eliminate the security threat posed by the radical terrorist group, Boko Haram. There are growing incidences of kidnappings, which used to be restricted to the Southsouth and the Southeast geo-political zones, in the Southwest and other parts of the country.
Though the country is under a democratic dispensation, the potentially-destabilising issue of the national question is still being swept under the carpet. At the moment, Nigerians are only preoccupied with Boko Haram insurgency. But, the existences of ethnic militias like the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) and the likes are manifestations of the rot in the system. Successive governments have always wielded the big stick against such groupings, but experts believe that a more holistic solution is needed because sweeping them under the carpet amounts to postponing the doomsday.
In the view of a public affairs analyst, Joe Iniodu, the arrival of Independence in 1960 held out great hope and prospect for the teeming populace, but such hopes have been dashed. He said it is unfortunate that Nigerians are no longer living as brothers, as envisaged by the founding fathers. He said at the dawn of independence that Nigerians were free to live in any part of the country without the fear of discrimination and without the risk of becoming endangered species for being a non-indigene or for belonging to another religion other than the one observed in the milieu.
Iniodu’s argument is that successive leaders failed to manage the country’s diversity and differences. According to experts, the country’s diversity could have become an asset, if it had been properly managed. But, that is not the case.
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