There is a wise saying that when a kid stumbles and falls, his gaze is to the front but if an adult stumbles and falls, he looks back to know what caused his fall.

There are some arguments about Nigeria: it is a major oil producer, it is the most populous country in Africa, it has made major contributions to Africa in peacekeeping; in Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, among others, and it played significant roles in the emergence of political stability and democracy in these places. No doubt, the foregoing are good foreign policy credentials but one wonders if all the emphasis on Nigeria’s importance creates a tendency to inflate the opinion of its own invulnerability. Among the elite today, there is no mistaking the fact that there is a belief that Nigeria is too big to fail and too important to be ignored. We can continue to ignore, at our own peril, some of the most fundamental challenges we face, some of which the present writer, like many other Nigerians, has voiced his opinion on in this column – disgraceful lack of infrastructure, the growing problems of unemployment, the Niger-Delta question, our failure to consolidate democracy, and so on.

The present state of economic and technological morass began when the federal government failed to tap into, harness and develop the ingenuity of our Igbo brothers of the ‘Republic of Biafra, after the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970. The “No victor, No vanquished” pronouncement of the then head of state was a fitting reconciliatory political statement but we failed to follow it up with corresponding political action. Those weapons of war that were manufactured and used against the

federal troops by our Igbo brothers were the products of their ingenuity.

Nigeria is to Africa what China is to Asia, population wise. Today, China is a world economic power, among other advantages, but Chinese power comes not just from the fact that it has many people, but it has harnessed the entrepreneurial talent and other talents of its people to become what it is today.

Many of those Igbo bomb producers of the civil war years are still alive, we can look for them and put them together in a research centre and harness their talents into entrepreneurial, technological and economic gains for Nigeria. We are too much dependent on oil, this same oil, other countries produce. Brazil is now launching a 10-year programme, Angola is rivalling Nigeria in oil production and the United States has just discovered a huge gas reserve.

So, if we look ahead 10 years, is Nigeria really going to be relevant as a major oil producer while the world moves on to alternative sources of energy? Whoever thinks our oil will last forever should do a rethink; even if it lasts for long, the indispensability of petrol will, not too long from now, be whittled down as other sources of energy that are  cheaper and more environment-friendly will emerge. If this happens within the next 10 years, what will become of Nigeria and her monolithic economy?

This is a question leaders and managers of our economy should begin to find answers to, ahead of time. What about our factories? There is a de-industrialisation going on in Nigeria today. Factories are either closing down or operating below installed capacity because of lack of power supply.  More and more people

are becoming unemployed; even those who are employed cannot adequately support their families from their poor wages. Political stability that holds the lever is a forlorn hope. Where will Nigeria be in 10 years?

 

Asaaju, is a legal practitioner, arbitrator, chartered mediator and conciliator.