NIGERIA IS ON HER KNEES

Each time I pick up a newspaper, my eyes are always covered with the written pictures of how most states in Nigeria are swimming in financial crises especially in respect to the payment of workers salaries and the
indebtedness to contractors. The reasons are not far fetched at all; all accusing fingers are pointed at the dwindling price of crude oil which has angrily griped the throat of our economy making it nearly impossible for her dependant states to breath.

            The federal government is reported to have borrowed over 800 billion Naira to finance the 2015 budget; with the hope of borrowing more before the end of the fiscal year. And sad enough, that money is only spent on recurrent expenditure. Today, throughout the country, no capital project is going on. The landscape is flooded with myriads of uncompleted projects, companies have shifted their gear to massive retrenchment of workers, civil servants are dieing of hunger as a result of the inability of most state governors to pay salaries. However, one salient question that no one is willing to provide answers to is, “how did we get to this point’?

            Now, the simple and bitter truth is that our lazy and short sighted politicians [Especially those who have ruled us] have driven this locomotive [our economy] to this disastrous junction, where everything is on a standstill.

            A country with 160 million people and a population growth of 2 percent per annum depending on the fortunes of a single commodity; crude oil which she sells cheaply and then imports the refined products at exorbitant prices. A nation that survives by importing almost everything, including ‘nothing’. A nation where the formula for sharing oil money is the most important equation. Of course! This ‘feeding bottle democracy’ will not allow anyone to think out of the box. Gathering in Abuja every month to share the national cake is the order of the day. But how long shall we continue like this?

            With well over 30 mineral resources that can finance this nation, our leaders should put on their thinking cap and strategies on how to diversify the economy, and this time it should not be from public pocket to private pockets as they always do. The days of waiting for oil companies to drop tokens into the national treasury and billions into private pockets are over.  The attention and power given to the oil industry should be replicated in other sectors of the economy. What’s wrong with cocoa, what’s wrong with coal or what’s wrong with cassava? A country that prides itself as the giant of Africa should be the major exporter of manufactured products to all African countries.

             The major licking pipes of our economy are the state governments. We have ignorantly given all our attention to the juicy federal government, ignoring the kleptocratic activities of these state governors who always battle the federal government when it comes to revenue sharing. Most state governors are so happy and contempted with this ‘feeding bottle’ system of going to Abuja every month to get a share of the oil money with little or no effort that they have removed the term, “Internally Generated Revenue” [IGR] from their vocabulary. Ironically, every state in Nigeria is said to be blessed with mineral resources that the nation can even survive on. But sad enough, nobody wants to work or at least be creative. The state governors should start looking for ways to harness the abundant resources in their various states, create enabling business environment, woo investors to their states, promote the tourism industry, develop the local economy, and boost the I.G.R of the states. With these, no one will depend on the federal government’s bail out to pay workers salaries again, no one will prepare budget based on the price of crude oil in the international market, and no one will accuse the federal ministry of finance of shortchanging or withholding its allocation.

             Though it won’t be easy, but it is possible because this is not rocket science. We need intellectually sound, economically serious and foresighted leaders that will truly push forward the wheel of change and make economic, social, and democratic progress not on the pages of newspapers, but on the land that even the ordinary man on the street will touch, smile to the sky, and feel proud of being a Nigerian.

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