THE POVERTY OF A DYING BIG COUNTRY; NIGERIA OF THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Written by KEMKA S. IBEJI

I wish to begin this piece by thanking the anonymous writer who woke my mind and tickled my attention to this area of our nation and national life and history. The unnamed author was able to make a thought provoking outline of Nigeria and her economy in the 1980s. And the following is largely from that writer though with modifications being mine.

The writer began by asking us not to be surprised to know that Nigeria was by far better in the 80s than today.

According to the writer, in 1980 the key metric are as follows:

1) we are a net exporter of refined petroleum products. Today we import all our refined petroleum products.

2) We ride in locally assembled cars, buses and trucks. Peugeot cars in Kaduna and Volkswagen cars in Lagos. Leyland in Ibadan and ANAMCO in Enugu produce our buses and trucks. Steyr at Bauchi producing our Agricultural tractors. And it is not just Assembly, we were producing many of the components. Vono products in Lagos producing the seats. Exide in Ibadan producing the batteries, not just for Nigeria but for the entire West Africa. Isoglass and TSG in Ibadan producing the windshields. Ferodo in Ibadan producing the brake pads and disc. Tyres produced by Dunlop in Lagos and Mitchellin in Portharcourt. And I mean tyres produced from rubber plantations located in Rivers State.

3) We were listening to Radio and watching television sets assembled in Ibadan by Sanyo.

4) We were using refrigerators, freezers and Airconditioners produced by Thermocool.

5) We were wearing clothes produced from the UNTL textile mills in Kaduna and Chellarams in Lagos. Not from imported cotton but from cotton grown in Nigeria.

6) Our water were running through pipes produced by Kwalipipe in Kano.

7) Our toilets were were fitted with WC produced at Kano and Abeokuta.

8) We were cooking with LPG gas stored inside gas cylinders produced at the NGC factory in Ibadan.

9) Our electricity was flowing through cables produced by the Nigerian wire and Cable, Ibadan and Kablemetal in Lagos and Portharcourt.

10) We had Bata and Lennards producing the shoes we were wearing. Not from imported leathers but from locally tanned leather at Kaduna.

11) We were mainly flying our airways, the Nigeria Airways, to most places in the world. The Airways was about the biggest in Africa at that time.

12) Most of the food we eat were being grown or produced in Nigeria.

We were producing all of the above and more in 1980

Today, we import almost everything. There lies the source of the terrible exchange rate we are experiencing today and everybody on this platform has a critical role to play in reversing the ugly trend.

It is not enough for us to complain about the exchange rate or bring out what others are not doing or are failing to do, the key question is what are you producing or what are you planning to produce?

From the foregoing, it is very easy to figure out how badly our country has been run by bad national managers. It is also not far away to find out the reasons for the widespread unemployment. The more reason why government is the largest employer of labour in Nigeria.

Only our Oil and Gas, out of all our blessings of natural resources, can employ all engineers and other professionals in that purview in Nigeria. How do we begin to imagine car manufacturing companies of cars driven in Nigeria situated in the country, producing in Nigeria, servicing our domestic market and exporting to our African neighbours and beyond? What about the value chain? Glass producers, battery producers, tyre manufacturers, steel producers, electronics, upholstery makers, and more would have made jobs so available that we may have to need to import labour.

Think about the transport sector. Beginning from our infrastructure for the roads, aviation, rail system, and water ways we would have had a viable system that will keep Nigeria at par with other first grade countries of the world today.

Do we think about the clothing industry with the raw materials and spread of good economic fortunes. The leather industry, the shoes, wears and other necessities from it.

Before going into the exchange rate, balance of trade, value for our currency, national image, crime rate and insecurities, vibrancy of our economy and the ripple effects on our science and technology, our education, our creative industry, youth development, social vices, we have to remember that every single Nigerian of work age would have been faced with alternatives in terms of job and employment.

The more challenging reality is how much we have lost sight and knowledge of the right things. Of course, most of the youths who have taken over the social media and technology spheres are people who know little or nothing about these good lives mentioned. And for them, such things sound so ideal and far removed like Eldorado. And those who are political leaders today, many of who enjoyed most of these have chained their minds, locked them intensely tight and handed the padlock keys to the devil. They have done this while baptising themselves with ignorance that the society is like a river; when you drop a pebble in the smallest spot, the ripples go round. So whether now or later, you will still enjoy your evil deeds as a leader. No wonder it has become a natural sight to see past presidents and governors joining the masses to protest against things which they even failed to do while in office.

No government, I mean the three tiers of government, is thinking about any of these. Where do we go from here? What future does Nigeria have? Are we going to have a country called Nigeria after few years if we continue like this as the Federal Government borrows to pay salaries? With our mounting debt profile, quickly diminishing exchange rate value, fast eroding foreign reserve, relish for more foreign loans, gusto for everything foreign, obsession with importing everything from other countries, and much more and without growing the domestic economy to be, at least, subsistent, hope here is so deem. The most lucid picture of Nigeria, if the present trend continues, is a past of national joy, a present of countrywide downturn and nosedive, and a future of national nonexistence and international rejection.

While my wish is that these negatives do not happen as presented in our most realistic national picture, it has become imperative that our people wake up to the reality; act to live as continued idling will fester the waiting and imminent national, social, economic and political disaster.

I am,

KEMKA S. IBEJI

The Philosopher King