Nigeria became an independent country 58 years ago last week following the lowering of the United Kingdom’s Union Jack and the hoisting of Nigeria’s new Green- White – Green flag, the symbol of the newly-independent Nigerian state. At independence, Nigeria was looked upon across the world as the giant of Africa because of its vast agricultural and mineral endowments and a large population that made it the largest black country in the world. The hope and aspiration of the founding fathers of the country were that these abundant resources would be galvanised to transform the newly-independent state to a modern nation state.
The new government embarked on ambitious development plans that emphasised trickle down template of development and import substitution policy. The country embarked on an industrialisation process that saw the establishment of iron and steel complexes, steel rolling mills, motor assembly plants, fertiliser blending plants and oil refining companies, among others. Unfortunately, since governments are bad managers of businesses, most of the projects became white elephant ventures as they suffered from outright bad management and lack of funds to either complete or successfully manage them.
The country also went through an agonising civil war from 1967 to 1969, but it came out of it stronger and more determined to be a strong, united and an indivisible federal state. Nigeria, which at independence, was known as an agricultural state soon became an oil producing country and has grown to become Africa’s leading oil producing nation, producing over 2 million barrels of oil per day. Equally, a success is the new vigour and attention being placed on the development of the Niger Delta Region which produces crude oil, the jugular of the country’s economy but has suffered from decades of neglect from successive governments since independence.
Fifty eight years on, Nigeria has made some strides in development. But, it has not been able to match many countries such as South Korea and Malaysia that were at par with it at independence. On the education front, it has moved from one University College at independence to well over 120 federal, states and private universities, and thousands of primary and secondary schools, while literacy rate has moved from less than 10 percent to about 50 percent over the period.
In terms of economic development, Nigeria has failed woefully as a result of mismanagement of its economy. At independence, up to 1982, Naira, the country’s currency was far stronger than the U.S dollar, but today, N360 exchanges for one U.S dollar. The country also exited an excruciating $33 billion debt, thanks to a debt relief by the Paris and London clubs of creditor nations. The debt, which was a combination of accrual of trade deficits, among others, from the early 80s, seriously limited the growth of Nigeria for over 20 years as more than one-third of its foreign exchange earnings that could have been used for development went into debt servicing.
Unfortunately, the country is walking on the path of debts again as its external debt as at June 30, this year, stood at $22 billion, with the Federal Government incurring as much as $17.8 billion dollars, while the states and the FCT owed $4.28 billion, at the same time, the nation’s total local and foreign debt stock (federal government, FCT and states) stood at N22.38 trillion ($73.21 billion). This is alarming and must be checked.
Politically, the country has not made much development as the military interventions in the politics of the nation proved to be a disaster. This is unlike in the Asian countries where military dictatorships led to accelerated economic growth and development.
In spite of the country’s modest achievements, particularly in telecoms development in the last 18 years, its aspirations for rapid economic growth and development have remained unfulfilled. Agriculture, which was the mainstay of the economy, was left to decline following the discovery of oil.
The country exited from an excruciating recession last year and its economy has since remained sluggish with a fear in the financial and business circles that it may head for another recession if quick action is not taken to buoy up the economy.
Going forward, Nigeria, as Africa’s leading economy, must put in place policies and reforms that would enable it leapfrog to double digit development figures and match other rapidly developing economies such as South Korea and Singapore.
It must also forge ahead with its policy of diversification of the economy away from the oil and gas sector to agriculture to ensure food security in the country and for Nigerians to produce agricultural products for the export market again.
A situation where the country uses its hard earned foreign exchange reserves to import any food or any product that can be produced locally is symptomatic of wastage of resources.
Concrete measures should also be taken to address the increasing unemployment in the country. Towards this end, the government should leverage on the country’s areas of strength especially in the agro-allied, solid minerals, information technology and the entertainment sectors to generate more employment.
The country must take advantage of the entertainment industry where it has become a force in the global entertainment industry. The industry can employ hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths if it is well developed.
In addition, the government must put in place policies and reforms that would rescue the manufacturing sector, particularly the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) including those in the informal sector to enable them provide millions of employment opportunities and wake up the country’s economy again.
Above all, security of lives and property must be taken more serious by the security agencies. Towards this end, the government must find a lasting solution to the Boko Haram insurgency in the North eastern part of the country.
It must also resolve the increasing calls for far reaching political and economic restructuring of the country to ensure a stable and robust development of the country. It will also reassure Nigerians, and foreigners alike, that all is well with the country and for both local and foreign investors to have the confidence to invest in the economy.
