Chiedu Uche Okoye
Nigeria is called the giant of Africa. But is she truly the giant of Africa? The truth is that the moniker, ‘the giant of Africa’, is not a befitting appellation for our country owing to Nigeria’s current state. Has Nigeria surpassed South Africa and Ghana in the areas of technological advancement and economic prosperity? The answer to this question is a categorical no. The stark and indisputable fact is that Nigeria possesses the potential to become the true giant of Africa.
Is Nigeria not one of the most populous countries in the world now? Our leaders can deploy our huge population, which is inclusive of people with scientific expertise, technological know-how, and knowledge, to drive our technological and economic initiatives. And Nigeria has a very large land mass, a great portion of it is arable and fertile. In addition to these, we have equable weather conditions; and acts of God, which cause ecological and human devastations in other countries, seldom happen here. I will not fail to mention Nigeria’s many waters, namely rivers, seas, lakes, and ponds. Our waters can boost our practice of agriculture as they can be used for irrigation on our farms throughout the year.
But for all our human and material resources, Nigeria still brings up the rear on the ladder of global development. Nigeria is trapped in the abyss of economic and technological backwardness because of failure of political leaderships over the years. Chinua Achebe, the inimitable novelist, averred that Nigeria’s national woes were caused by bad political leaderships. And not a few Nigerian intellectuals and political analysts have expressed concurrence with Achebe’s postulations and theses on our country’s condition.
The fact is that Nigeria hasn’t gotten it right, politically since it achieved self-rule in 1960. And that is the chief cause of our national malaise and underdevelopment. No country can rise above the visions of its leaders. It takes astute, visionary, dynamic, and qualitative political leadership for a country to become great. Great political leaders, who are endowed with leadership qualities, fealty, probity, scruples, and vision, imagine the types of countries they want and work assiduously and conscientiously to achieve their dreams.
Here, we are always landed with the worst political leaders, who are not grounded in political ideologies. And our monstrous variant of democracy has continued to throw up our third eleven politicians as our political leaders. So, they couldn’t navigate the country to the acme of economic and technological advancement. We have not forgotten how the British imperialists helped Alhaji Tafawa Balawa to become our Prime Minister in 1960 at the expense of his political betters like Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo. Under his watch, the first republic collapsed and Nigeria descended into a gratuitous civil war, which lasted for three years, causing needless loss of millions of lives.
In the second republic, a political dark horse called Alhaji Shehu Shagari entered in the saddle of power as our first executive President. His political leadership of Nigeria was marred and marked by political ineptitude and corruption. Not unexpectedly, the brass hats and jackboots overthrew his government via military coup. The third republic was still born. And in the fourth republic, the trio of Chief Obasanjo, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua, and Dr Goodluck Jonathan took turns to rule Nigeria on the political platform of PDP. Obasanjo fluffed a golden opportunity to make Nigeria great while Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s leadership of Nigeria was characterized by indecision, tardiness, and corruption. Sadly, Alhaji Musa Yar’adua, who showed glimpses and flashes of good political leadership died in power.
Today, under the political leadership of Muhammad Buhari, Nigeria has morphed to a banana state; it has all the indices of a failed state. Yet, before Muhammad Buhari became the executive President of Nigeria, he exuded so much confidence and patriotism, especially during the 2015 Presidential electioneering. Not surprisingly, his emergence as our national leader was greeted with celebration.
However, under his leadership, Nigeria has slipped in and out of economic recession with its devastating blows to the economy. He couldn’t constitute a formidable economic team that could tinker the economy and make it grow astronomically. Consequently, today, millions of Nigerians chafe under economic suffering. In the past year, innumerable depressed young Nigerians, who were pushed to the brink by economic deprivations embraced hara-kiri, which is the devil’s alternative. Then, no week passed without some people jumping into the Lagos lagoon or drinking insecticide to exit the world.
And there are millions of other jobless and helpless young Nigerians who constitute the pool from which the deadly Boko Haram and other terrorist groups recruit their foot soldiers. Today, the entire northeast is being asphyxiated by the Boko Haram insurgency. The more the government bandies lies or falsehoods that the Boko Haram group has been technically defeated, the higher the number of victims of Boko Haram insurgency becomes.
While victims of Boko Haram insurgency live in insanitary conditions in IDP camps, a bill for the rehabilitation and sponsoring of the education of repentant Boko Haram insurgents has passed its first reading in the senate. It is this kind of prevailing injustice and insensitivity in Nigeria that predisposes our country to experiencing social and political unrest if not rupturing of the nation-state.
Okoye writes from Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State