Society & Leadership Series – 11
Theme: A Language of Leaders in Nigeria II
By Amin Buba Diba
It is common language in the vocabulary of Nigerian politicians and leaders at many levels to allude to the inevitability of a slow development process in Nigeria, mostly expressed when discussing our development challenges and slow pace of progress to surmounting them.
In this vein, leaders simply refer to the number of years the West has recorded before reaching the present stage of development. In implication, it’s being insinuated, intentionally or not that it will have to take a long period for any serious development or justifying the very slow development pace in our nation.
The history of the remarkable development in the West could be said it markedly started with the political and economic revolutions, in France and the United Kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. Roughly, it has taken the West roughly about three hundred years, that was indeed a long period.
However, it could be said that the West in the 20th century witnessed quantum leaps of development in all aspects of society more than nearly all the known history of mankind, built on the foundations of the dual revolutions in France and the UK.
The leaps in the science of information generation and dissemination with the aid of the internet, science, and technology, travel means, ease of replication and adaptation, and the political will of leaders disposed to development have particularly transformed the speed at which humans could accomplish things. This is evidenced by a couple of societies around the world.
For example, Singapore achieved remarkable development in just about 50 years while the Netherlands of the Vikings took seven centuries to be where they are developmentally.
It took South Korea about 60 years with support of the democratic West while it took Germany over 300 years.
It took Hong Kong 100 years under the British to as develop and took about 400 years for the United Kingdom. It took Dubai just about 40 years to be so advanced but it took the Americans about 250 years.
It took Japan about 100 years and France since the 17th century for their similar levels of development. Why were these speedy levels of development possible? It is not because the Singaporeans, South Koreans, Hongkongers, and Japanese are smarter but the leadership of these societies was determined, honest, patriotic, and deliberate about the need to develop their societies.
What is then the case by Nigerian leaders, policymakers, and public bureaucrats at many levels that the development of the country cannot be faster in Nigeria? Firstly, it is important to recognize that “duration” does not bring about change but the “quality” of what is done within the context of that timeline.
Secondly, we don’t always learn by experience, in this case, the experience of having to spend centuries to develop given the abundance of knowledge, information, global connectedness, and a world open for possibilities. It is said in open palace discourse that it is “fools who learn by experience alone.”
Nigeria will of course take a million years or more to develop if our elite value structure about leadership remains a mass accumulation of unthinkable public wealth to family, ensures the rule of law is not adhered to, and accountability is thrown to the dustbin. These have thus undermined the basic factors for development which include the effective utilization of natural resources, robust sources of energy, capital accumulation and investment in public infrastructure, investment in human capital development, science, and technology.
As expressed by our leadership elites, it will indeed take us a million years as far as our leaders have the mind to stash US$582bn according to Chatham House as of 2019 and the recent report from Interpol that millions of dollars are fleeing the country daily due to corruption.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop as far as our capital budget implementation remains at 22% annually over many years according to the former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun (2019), thus undermining the capacity to provide basic social services for the people.
Indeed, it will take us a million years as far as our legislatures would attempt to sanction the construction of concrete roads that could last for 100 years. This was expressed by a national minister of works.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop as far as an estimated 11, 886 federal government projects have been abandoned in the past 40 years across the country, worth N18 trillion, despite budgetary allocations over the years according to the Projects Audit Commission report findings submitted to former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop when we build a less than 5-kilometre airport runway for N93 billion naira in 2022; and buy a drone of 5 million dollars inflated to 150 million dollars according to Sam Amadi.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop when we can only distribute a maximum of 5,000 megawatts of electricity for many years for our 220 million population, while Egypt for example has 55,000 megawatts for its 98 million people, south Africa, 51,300 for its 57 million people. Furthermore, when it also takes us long wh50 years without being able to complete the Mambilla hydroelectric project.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop while the Ajaokuta Steel company has taken us about 50 years and is still not completed.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop when we are the only oil-producing country in the world with no optimally functioning refinery for domestic use, crippled the four it has, and not even its finance minister or CBN Governor knows how much oil the government oil cooperation is exploiting, according to the former CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Have oil rigs having no metering mechanism and oil theft at almost the same quantity with one exploited for the nation. Spent N17 trillion naira between 2002 and 2022 on turnaround maintenance of refineries still not working.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop when we were feeding school children “during COVID-19 lockdown” to the tune of tens of billions of naira; and N37 billion embezzled in the humanitarian ministry, allegedly embezzled by a previous minister.
Indeed, it will take us a million years to develop when we cannot secure our hinterland for the rural population to farm and our bushes infested with bandits and kidnappers who take taxes from the population.
It beats imagination how the larger Nigerian elite never thinks about leaving noble legacies of the times they had to serve, but records of corruption and the efforts to destroy the country.
I close with a famous quote from Jim Rohn:
“All good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine”.
