Nigeria, Creativity in
Nigerians and the Missing Link IV
This is the concluding part of a 4-series
article that chronicled three important issues concerning Nigeria, our
motherland in which we accidently found ourselves as citizens. The first issue
is Nigeria as a nation with her very rich and unquantifiable natural resources.
The second issue is Nigerians as citizens with their unlimited ingenuity,
resourcefulness, capacity and making waves in all nooks and crannies of the
seven continents of the World. The third issue is the missing link that is
supposed to connect the country with these special breeds of Nigerians. In the
first article presented the variety of Natural Resources available in all the
36 states and FCT. They range from precious metals various stones to industrial
such as Barites, Gypsum, Kaolin and Marble. Each state and FCT has over three
mineral resources. Example, Kaduna state alone has varieties of minerals such
as Amethyst, Aqua Marine, Asbestos, Clay, Flosper, Gemstone, Gold, Graphite,
Kaolin, Hyanite, Mica, Rock Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Sihnite, Superntinite,
Tentalime, Topaz & Tourmaline. Similarly, Nasarawa, Ondo, Plateau, Sokoto,
Edo, Imo, Zamfara and Katsina states have varieties of mineral resources like
to those in Kaduna State. Each of these mineral resources is reported to be in
appreciable quantity spread over large area. For instance, there are about 3
billon tonnes of iron ore deposits in Kogi, Niger and FCT, 10 million tons of
zinc/lead in Abuja, Kano, Cross River and over 2 million tons of rock salts and
over 3 billion tons of coal deposits in Plateau, Enugu, Anambra and other
states. Large quantity of gold is found in Zamfara, Sokoto, Oyo, Niger, Kwara and
Kebbi states among others. Two other
major natural resources extremely important and dependable to Nigeria are oil
and gas. Nigeria is the largest oil producing country in Africa. Experts have
estimated that Nigerian oil and gas reserves are 23 billion barrels of crude
oil and 160 trillion cubic meters of gas www.nigeria.gov.ng. These mineral resources provide tremendous
investment opportunities for economic growth and nation building. Additionally,
Nigeria has mean annual rainfall of 1390 mm resulting to 305 billion cubic
meters of water annually. Thus, Nigeria has seven distinct climate zones, which
provide average annual rainfall ranging from 700 mm in the far north (Sahel
savannah) to 4,000 mm in riverine and mountainous areas in the south. Again,
the third biggest River with a length of 4,180 Km in Africa, River Niger passes
through the country and drains an average discharge of 5,589 m3/s
into Atlantic Ocean. The River has six major perennial rivers as tributaries
crisscrossing the length and breath of Nigeria making it the most endowed
country with unlimited water resources.
Land resources are similarly in abundance.
Nigeria has 91 million hectares of arable land with merely 50 % utilization
despite the quantum of water resources, soil fertility, favorable topography
and climates.
The second and third parts of the article
dwelled on the Nigerians, the population explosion. From 1960 to 2019, Nigerian
population was increased by 444%. Today, one person out of 39 people in the
World is a Nigerian. In the next thirty years, Nigeria will have an estimated
population of 450 million people and will occupy the 3rd position of the top
most populous country in the World after India and China. Interestingly, more
than 60 percent of Nigerian population is under the age of 24 years. The rate
of population growth in Nigeria is “one birth in every four seconds and one
death in every fourteen seconds”. This demographic analysis clearly shows that
Nigeria is tremendously endowed with human resources. Despite low quality of
human resources, the few qualitative Nigerians are excellently performing in
their various endeavors. Among this category of Nigerians are duly elected people
in to various political offices in diaspora. The citizens of their host
countries elected such Nigerians in Europe and America were presented. In
United Kingdom alone nine prominent Nigerians were elected either as mayors or British Members of Parliament. Names
like Chuka Umunna, Helen Grant, Abimbola Afolami, Kate Osamor and Kemi Badenoch
featured. Others were Ernest Ezeajughi, Chinyelu Susan Onwurah and Olugbenga
Babatola among several Nigerians. In most cases, they made history as the first
black persons to hold such elective posts, which were hitherto exclusive
reserve for white men/women or indigenous people of such countries.
On
excellent academic feat achieved by Nigerians abroad, an exquisite example of
Nigerians performance at graduation ceremony of Howard University, Washington DC in 2016. These few Nigerians endowed with creative
capacities and innovative thinking underscore the creativity of Nigerians in
excelling amid challenges. Nigerians
graduating from the university won sixteen academic prizes out of a total of twenty
sevens available prizes. The total number of graduates came from 46 states of
America and 35 other countries across the globe. Yet, Nigerians won 16 awards and left only 11
awards to American citizens from 46 states and other nationals from 34
different countries. On invention, innovation and business, three among many
other Nigerians who distinguished themselves were mentioned. At the end of the
three articles, questions were asked. With
all these vast natural resources and few citizens with high innovative acumen
and excelling in all aspects of human endeavor, why is Nigerian system not working?
Why is the country facing multifaceted problems? What is really the missing
link between Nigeria with her vast resources and the few distinguished
Nigerians who are superbly doing well in other climes? There are factors for
fast-tracking the linkage.
The
factors responsible for bringing the missing link are good governance and
nationalism. Good governance and nationalism are the strong pillars for a
nation building and excellent performance among the comity of nations. What are
the factors embedded in good governance and nationalism? How can Nigerian
people use them to address our challenges to the national development?
Good
governance is an elusive objective that means different things to different people
or organizations depending on what the intention is aimed at. However, there is
a general consensus its concept; “good governance is perhaps the single most
important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development”. It is
therefore an effective and responsible management of an organization, a society
or country that includes good consideration of the society’s needs in the
decisions making
Good governance centers on the
responsibility of governments and governing bodies to meet the needs of the
entire people as opposed to select groups in society. Consequently, the leaders
of good governance must revisit policies that have worked in the past, set
priorities in a strategic way, consider policies with greater impact on poverty
alleviation and development as well as look for innovative ways to implement
such policies effectively. What are the factors initiating good governance?
The first factor is the establishment and
due adherence to the rule of law, leaders and followers must respect law,
regulation, procedure and order in their conducts privately and officially. Nobody should be above law and the law should
treat citizen’s equal before it. Anarchy and chaos hold sway in a society where
rule of law is absence. The second one is provision of security. Physical,
economical and social security’s must prevail at all time to galvanize economic
development and allow peace to prevail. The best of an average citizen comes
out when such citizens feel secured and assured socially and economically,
corruption has relatively no place where rules of law are strictly observed.
The third factor of achieving good
governance is strategic planning with clear focus for national development. A
country must have a national developmental plan, what the country wants to achieve
now and in the future; short, medium and long term plans with clear strategies
on how to accomplish such plans. There must be national focus and direction and
a clearly defined strategy to move the country towards such direction. The
strategy must include actions to implement the strategic plan. The choice of
the actions must be made based on merit and national spread to create sense of
ownership to the citizens.
The second pillar of a nation building is
nationalism. The word nationalism has both negative and positive connation
depending on context and individual outlook. However, in this piece,
Nationalism is an ideological concept based on the premise that the
individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual
or group interests. Thus, nationalism makes people to think of what first they
can do to their country before what their country should do for them.
In conclusion, President Muhammadu Buhari
has an ample opportunity to midwife and mastermind the erection of these two
pillars; good governance and nationalism to galvanize true change in the right
direction. Yes, Nigeria should drift from abyss of despair and calamity, move
towards economic progress and deservedly acclaim its rightful position. Can Buhari
regime make it? Four years period is
enough time to do that
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