Exactly 57 years ago, specifically October 1, 1960, the Union Jack was lowered for the first and last time, to usher in political freedom in what is today called the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Three years later, on October 1, 1963, Nigeria became a full-fledged Republic.
Whether the aphorism “seek yee first the political freedom and others will follow” has come to pass in the case of Nigeria, and in fact many other African countries, is debatable.
Economically, industrially, technologically and intellectually, Nigeria has had to rely largely on the outside world on virtually everything-from tooth pick to simple tools.
The lamentations of the earlier post-independence era that we were the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the industrial world have, tragically, remained valid till date . Worse still, the industrialised, former colonial masters have tightened their grip on us with regard to manufactured goods.
On the other hand, they have smartly de-linked with us completely, using technology, large-scale and knowledge-driven commercial farming, and through the creation of synthetic alternatives. Not again will the scenario of over-dependence on us for farm produce and other raw materials play back.
Besides, other actors, who were almost at the same level with us at the time of independence, and shortly after, have joined the race for the partitioning of our continent with regard to the dumping of their manufactured goods. Top among them is China that has, before our very eyes, emerged the foremost economic and industrial force of our time. China, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and United Arab Emirate are all economic powers that we have refused to imitate.
We are import-dependent, with bills running into billions of dollars, on items like rice, wheat and raw materials, to feed our weak, dysfunctional and inconsequential industrial sector.
The initial optimism that we would be able to manufacture our tools has remained an illusion.
It was the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who said, “When there is a bone for two dogs inside a kennel, it is unrealistic in the extreme to expect peace inside the kennel.”
Our political leaders, our intellectual class, our chambers of commerce as well as the bureaucratic class should either wake up to the reality that unless we produce enough to meet the survival needs of our huge population, in forms of food, clothing, shelter, education, employment, etc, we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder, which is capable of consuming everyone.
We should take the clamour for diversification beyond rhetoric by driving our farming and mining beyond artisanal level. Our quest for industrialisation is no longer an ideal, but a war strategy to liberate ourselves from a looming Armageddon. We should, in due course, produce enough for our ever-increasing population, which has been multiplying faster, perhaps, beyond Adam Smith’s predictions.
The struggle for the few opportunities has taken so many frightening forms, from the heartless corruption of the political, military and the bureaucratic elite, to the vast growing crime kingdoms of the lower class, which have surpassed, in sheer volume, specifications and diversities, those that drew the ire of the Creator with respect to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, according to biblical accounts.
The competitions for the non- existent political, economic and bureaucratic opportunities have sharpened our contradictions beyond imaginations, rousing from their deep slumber, those centrifugal, primordial and reactionary forces that drove us to the needless 30-month civil war in the first decade of our ‘paper’ independence.
Today, these forces of reaction and decadence are active all over our national space with Boko Haram’s invasion of the North East; Fulani herdsmen’s murderous assaults on the North Central; the structuralist intellectual attacks on our historical consciousness; not the least, the Biafran anachronism that has again reared its ugly and monstrous face in the South East.
Our problem is simple, but our understanding and appreciation of it by the ruling elite and the rest of us is foggy. We are ideologically, intellectually and spiritually bankrupt. We lack sense of history, direction and mission.
As put by Karl Marx, a moribund society creates its morbid grave diggers.
Instead of being guided by the concept of ‘one for all and all for one’, and the Benthamian dictum of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ in our country today, everyone is for himself and God for us all.
Our politicians see politics as an end, not a means of transforming our country, hence the vexatious and humongous rewards which are completely out of tune with society’s gross limitations. Our labour movement lacks clear ideology, act as if the society belongs exclusively to them and not them serving the interest of the society. We have evolved as a society perpetually at war with itself.
we must remove the shame of importing refined fuel after 59 years of exporting crude. We must produce our equipment to build our refineries, not assemble them, produce the turbines to generate our electricity
All these are manifestations of our lack of grip or appreciation of the historical responsibility placed on us as the largest concentration of black people the world over, our responsibility to ourselves, fellow Africans and the rest of humanity.
This is because the world expects us to give birth to elephants, courtesy Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola of dignified memory, but we have only delivered rats.
The solution lies first and fore-most in appreciating our mission to ourselves and to humanity, and our ability to upgrade our production capacity to make almost everything, from military hardware, to turbines.
Over and above all, we must remove the shame of importing refined fuel after 59 years of exporting crude. We must produce our equipment to build our refineries, not assemble them, produce the turbines to generate our electricity.
With our size in population, diversity and needs, we can no longer rely on bare hands or brawn to deliver these basic and survival needs. We need brain and technology.
This is the ultimate truth we must embrace before it is too late. It is either we join the technology race or we perish.
