Nigeria was 27 last Thursday. The day was as usual marked with festivities. 27 years in a man’s life is quite sometime. At 27, a man is supposed to be mature and grown up. He would have within this time laid a solid foundation on which to build on later in life. That is, he would have finished his basic education, have a solid background and live independently on his parents or about to do so.
It is arguable that 27 years is quite a short period in life f a nation which have gone to the great beyond.
The life of a man is short and that of a nation forever. But one is concerned over the years he lived on. By the time he ceases to live, he would no longer know what operates. So man often hints himself to what period in which his knowledge takes him on. The past and the present. The future is for those who live up to it.
Twenty-seven years after independence, Nigeria as a nation’s crippling and being weighed down by myriads of social and economic problems. She has on her weak lap religious intolerance, ethnic and sate consciousness, an elusive unity and some billion naira foreign debt to settle.
For purpose of unity, ethnic arithmetic has been accepted s a way of life. As an entity, job rationing is done on state basis in order to reflect the federal character and to satisfy the multi-ethnic groups that make up the country Nigeria.
Nigeria’s problems over these years comprise a complex set of both internal and external factors. The internal factors being most disturbing.
Painfully, twenty-seven years after independence, basic social overhead capital are still very lacking in Nigeria. Services such as power supply, transportation, storage, communication, education etc, are modern industry and agriculture are grossly inadequate and not available on regular basis. What is more, power supply is erratic, transportation chaotic. The lack of this capital is a bottleneck to Nigeria’s economic development. Yet, the problems are not being adequately tackled.
Inadequate transportation and communication block the exploitation of rural resources in Nigeria. The Mambila Plateau’s rich land resources are inaccessible and that part of the country could have been the food basket of the country. A lot more wastes away in the villages and yet one of Nigeria’s problem’s problems is ow to feed her 100 million people that had led to mass importation of rice that she is now paying through the nose for.
The unfortunate thing is that Nigeria leaders seem not to understand the very important nature and role of transportation in economic development. Nigeria’s according to available statistics loses one third of its agricultural output because of its lack of storage facilities to protect against spoilage, rodents and others wastages.
Infrequent power supply from NEPA and the very lack of it in some part of the country thwart the growth of industries dependent on it.
Educational facilities are a vital elements of social overhead capital. The majority of the Nigeria population are illiterate, lacking the basic skills and training production or modern agriculture. S at today, the few trained graduates, school leaves are wasting away and basking in unemployment heat-wave. Education of course has become expensive and only few, the rich, can afford it over the last few years.
Twenty-seven years after independence, Nigeria’s most disturbing problem is the lack of dedicated business managers and government administrators. In the early stage of economic development of Western Europe and North America the efforts of countless, mostly private entrepreneurs gave them the the momentum to move into and beyond the take-off stage of economic growth.
Those Western Europe and North America entrepreneurs eagerly searching for new profit opportunity combined factors of production in new ways and on a broader state than ever before in history to produce new products for emerging markets. Later a large class of business managers arose to promote and administer the expanding private enterprise.
It is a matter for concern that 27 years of corporate existence, Nigeria lacks a business class that is willing to invest in new industrial enterprises and has the know-how to manage them. The Nigeria business community are mere traders, contractors and merchants engaging in forwarding and clearing and contracts rather than in manufacturing.
The few who venture into manufacturing do so with little interest. In all, they are speculative, looking for where to make quick profits in real estate demanding five years house rent in advance before allowing anyone into the estate.
The Nigeria upper-class until very recently disapproves of serious business and prefers to invest in land and rearing their children to be land owning aristocrats, soldiers trained to seize government at the slightest opportunity, lawyers and diplomats, instead of business executive.
As a result, the Nigerian economy had had to be dominated by foreigners in commercial activity and manufacturing – Indians, Lebanese, Britons and French.
Lacking private entrepreneurs, the governments of Nigeria had had to take the lead in formulating and implementing national development plans. Unfortunately, another problems arises, the shortage of dedicated government administrators. The result is often incompetence, worsened by endemic bribery and favourism. Moreso, the ineffective systems of taxation over those years fail to mobilise financial resources for capital formation. Bad as this situation is, it is worsened by investment allocation. Nigeria in her bid to foster unity inn diversity had to set up and allocated investment in ways that do not promote economic growth. What is more, these public enterprises are operated at a loss, draining off scarce capital rather than creating it.
If Nigeria’s economy is to achieve a self sustaining growth, her workforce most develop the motivation and discipline essential to industrial production. Nigerian farmers must become commercial farmers open to technological innovations in agriculture as against the subsistence farming and the use of old implements that is of today.
