Nigeria @ 63: Are We Being Too Harsh On Ourselves?

The Insight by Lateef Adewole

By tomorrow, Sunday 1st of October, 2023, Nigeria will celebrate her 63 years of independence. Let me use this moment to congratulate all Nigerians home and abroad, on this feat. I know that many might felt like; what is there to celebrate when the state of affairs in Nigeria today is taken into cognisance? Truly, we have our challenges, especially at this time when we are going through what I can call a ‘rebirth’.

With the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who just took over the mantle of leadership, trying to reset the country and the economy, the attendant consequences, which translate to many challenges that we are facing now, expectedly so, are enough to dampen anyone’s morale. This must have informed the decision of the Federal Government, as well as many state governments, to celebrate tomorrow in low key.

The time calls for sober reflection. Like the Yorubas would say: “b’eede o dun, bi igbe n’ilu ri”. Such decisions are appropriate and reflect the sensitivity of leadership to the plight of the led. Still, Nigerians should give thanks for attaining this age, and we are still here, despite what the country has gone through in the last six decades, including a civil war. “Eniti ko ba mo inu ro, ko le mo ope da” (he who lacks capacity for introspection, will likely not be appreciative and grateful for what God has done for him).

It is far easier to see everything wrong with Nigeria but it will take some efforts to see what is right. Particularly, we Nigerians, we are champions of enunciating, propagating and celebrating our country’s failures. Many Nigerians hardly see anything good about their fatherland. These are in two categories. There are those at home, who have never stepped out of Nigeria but believe, whether by what they hear or through their own conjetures, that there is an utopian place outside of the country. They believe that every other part of this planet earth is good except their own country. These are people that Yorubas talked about in their saying that “obinrin ti ko ba ti to ile oko meji wo, ko ni mo iyi ibi ti o wa” (a woman who has never been married to two husbands will not be able to appreciate the one she is married to presently).

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The second category are those who have travelled abroad. Once people get overseas, see and start to experience the developments they see there, particularly in USA, Canada, UK and Europe, they begin to compare Nigeria with them. This has constantly brought me on collusion course with many of my friends abroad. While I acknowledge and appreciate all the developments they talk about but still let them know that it is not as bad as they portrayed Nigeria, many of them won’t have any of that. They always disagreed vehemently.

One point I always raised is that, it will be unfair and amounts to not puting in proper perspective, if these countries are simply compared with Nigeria on developmental indices without taking into consideration how long they have existed, when compared to a very young country like Nigeria. One might say 63 years is not young. Well, that is when it is viewed from the human life’s angle. There are countries that have existed for hundreds of centuries (tens of thousands of years). This might sound unbelievable.

Let me give a few countries and their ages (years in bracket as obtainable). China (5,000), India (4,500), Japan (3,000), Greece (6,500), Portugal (900), Turkey (4,000), Italy (3,000), Russia (1,160) and so on. Let me now go to the common countries where Nigerians ‘japa’ to and begin to immediately compare their home country with, thereby running it down. England, UK (9,000), USA (247), Canada (156), Germany (1,161), Spain (555), Australia (121), France (1,600), Belgium (192), Poland (995), Brazil (201), and so on.

My point is, how can a country of just over six decades, be compared with countries that have existed for centuries? Most, if not all, of the now developed countries, were worse and far terrible than where we are now when they were just our country’s age. In fact, it was a savage era. And it took all of them decades and centuries to come out of the dark and get to where they are now. Imagine China that is now world power. All their achievements took place in the last four decades. That is after existing for thousands of years. So, Nigerians home and abroad should “let Nigeria breathe.” We are not the worst country on earth.

Majority of these critics’ opinions are not actually based on facts and data or any statistics. They are simply sentiments. In reality, data do not support many claims that those who derogate Nigeria made. It might be a surprise that Nigeria still remains the 27th largest economy globally and hope to be among the top 10 by 2050. This is in a world of 195 countries recognised by UN. Isn’t that an achievement? Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa of 54 countries. So, what are we talking about?

There is something I have observed for so long. While Nigerians do everything to ‘japa’ abroad, we see many foreigners come in or wanting to come into Nigeria. In many big organisations, both indigenous and multinationals, foreigners are employed there. In my former company from where I ‘retired’, we had, and they still have, hundreds of Indians employed. Same story is said about Dangote groups, BUA groups, and many big organisations. Not to talk of the companies they established themselves. Same as Lebanese, Chinese, Korean, Europeans, Americans and other Africans. Many of them who came to the country years ago do not want to leave. Some got married to Nigerians. Some naturalised. I reasoned that there must be something these people see here that might be elusive to the citizens. Nigerians need to open their eyes wide too.

I know that there are 1001 reasons that critics can give why this is so, just as my diaspora friends do disagree with me whenever I talked about those countries’ comparative developments vis-a-vis their ages. However, it is a matter of perspective. While I am an unrepentant optimist about Nigeria, reason I am still here all these years, despite having all the opportunities and resources that I could have deployed to also ‘japa’ in the last 20 years, I loath the humiliating situation where Nigerians exhibit desperation to run away from their country, which make the embassies and their staff treat them like thrash, just because they are looking for visas.

Worse still, getting abroad, only to go and become ‘slaves’ to people who, ordinarily, do not worth them or match them in many human capacity indices. Imagine a bank manager in Nigeria turning to a cleaner abroad. A man who owned his own company, houses and cars, ran his own business in Nigeria, sold everything, left for overseas, only to become a delivery boy or is it ‘delivery man’ (a messenger). What could be more degrading as humans?

As terrible as many Nigerians would like to portray their country, Nigerians are some of the most educated people in the world and most were trained by Nigeria free of charge or nearly. They are the most educated in Africa. In fact, when Africa is being discussed, it is nothing without Nigeria. Apart from being one in six Africans on earth by population, Nigeria has the highest number of citizens with higher education (first, second, third and higher degrees) in Africa. With about 2 million candidates seeking admissions for higher education annually, that’s more or about the size of some African countries and even around the world. Nigeria universities produce over 600,000 graduates annually. How many countries can boast of that? Many of these go ahead to acquire Masters degrees, PhDs and become professors.

In the past, only ‘not-too-well-to-do’ travelled abroad and stayed put there. Those with bright future came back. This is not so now. Sadly, many Nigerian emigrants are well educated, highly skilled and professionals, even rich. This is reflected in the statistics that is often churned out. Today, in America, Nigerians are the most educated immigrants. Far more than even the whites of that country on per capital. There was a documentary that showed that, of the documented Nigerian immigrants, 37% has first degrees, 17% has Masters degrees and 4% has PhDs and higher.

Compare this with the whites with 19% first degrees, 8% Masters degrees and only 1% PhDs and higher. And Nigeria trained almost all of them, at least, at first degree level. It is also believed that the figures could actually be higher, given the many undocumented immigrants in the country. Unfortunately, what kind of works do majority of them doing? Are they befitting of their educational qualifications and status? No!

One friend abroad will keep telling me that education / certificate means nothing once you are abroad, that only your skills are important. I always disagree with him to a large extent. An educated person can quickly learn the practical skills required to match up to any required position but a person with just the skills without schooling cannot, as quickly, acquire those certificates. Also, such mentality is preponderant in low skilled labour. Who will employ a medical doctor or nurse who didn’t go to school, even if he or she claims to be skilled in that profession or a lawyer or an engineer, etc.?

I called his attention to the fact that, the people in power, controlling the lives of all others, skilled or unskilled, all went to schools and possess one certificate or another. The African mentality of qualifying and quantifying everything in money is what is affecting our people. So, Nigerians abroad are still assets to the country. Diaspora remittances did get as high as 15 to 20 billion dollars annually. Countries trained their citizens and export them as human capital investment. Only that we don’t organise ourselves well. Things are done haphazardly. That is the problem.

One thing we all criticised as Nigerians is the bad leadership we have got over the years. I won’t say this is false but it is not completely correct and our leaders are not the worst in the world. As bad as it might look, Nigeria has remained resilient with evolution in our political leadership over the years, between civilian and military. As at 2023, we have had 21 transitions from one government to another and 16 presidents and heads of states. Since 1999, we have had unbroken democracy for 24 years and transfer of power from the incumbent to opposition president. Nigeria is the largest black democracy in the world. This speaks to our capacity to organise ourselves too.

In many countries, especially in Africa, the citizens have only known one or few presidents. How can one person ruled for 41 years as seen in Cameroon or father and son, for 56 years as seen in Gabon and Togo? Many of our leaders are also far capable and qualified than in many other countries. It is just that Nigeria is a peculiar country. We are hopeful about turning the corner with our new president, who is believed to well qualified and capable, knows what he is doing, how to go about doing it and has the gut to deliver on his campaign promises.

In an attempt to justify writing the country off, we often have nostalgia for the “good old days”. Really? While I also believe that the system of government that our founding fathers operated before the first coup of 1966, gave them the latitude to make progress and engendered healthy competition for developments among the regions, it did not mean we never made progress since then, but we could have done better. As at independence in October 1st, 1960, there was only one university in Nigeria, University of Ibadan (UI), Western region (1948).

Few others were later built by the then leadership of the regions and country; University of Nigeria, Nssuka (October 7, 1960), University of Ife (now OAU- 1961), University of Northern Nigeria (now ABU- 1962), Zaria and University of Lagos (1962). Sixty three years down the line, Nigeria can boast of 170 universities, 152 polytechnics and 152 Colleges of Education belonging to the federal, state governments and private. More are still coming up. That is a huge progress. These have produced topnotch professionals in all walks of life, many of whom have become global scholars. I have friends in that class.

Apart from academics, Nigerians have excelled in different spheres of human endeavour. Nigeria film industry (Nollywood) is the 2nd largest in the world, topping Hollywood (USA) and only surpassed by Bollywood (India). Nigerian music is the biggest in Africa and one of the biggest in the world, with our hip-hop artistes topping music charts and shutting down global platforms when they go on music tours. Our darling beautiful Tobi Amusan has constantly put Nigeria on the global map in sports in recent years. She just won her 3rd Diamond League 100m hurdle back to back since 2021. She set world record last year at the World Championship with a time of 12.12s. Same as many others in athletics, football, basketball, and so on. We have remained the best in Africa.

I am not saying this is where we should be or that we could not have done better. No. All I am saying is that, despite the gigantic challenges that we are facing as a country now or before, we have managed to remain afloat, made progress and still evolving. What I disagree with is for anyone, citizen or foreigner, to run down Nigeria. Whatever basis they might use, Nigeria will still be far ahead of many other countries.

Nigerians should learn to love their country and exhibit patriotism, no matter the situation. Many of these countries they see as heavenly have their dark history and dark sides still existing but they hide them. You will rarely see their citizens or and media make those bad sides their topics of discussion or propaganda. They show patriotism while calling on their leaders to do better. They pray for their countries, not curse them, as we see Nigerians do. Americans will say “God bless America” even if they are hungry. Nigerians will curse their country because they only got two meals a day instead of three. This is the difference.

But, can one blame the citizens completely? No. Most of our leaders have not shown leadership by example. When they demand sacrifices from the people, they live reckless ostentatious life. How do we reconcile that? It is their actions, many of which are crass irresponsibility or outright criminal, which keep ruining any chance of the country getting out of the woods. This is what has bred hopelessness, resulting in the escalated ‘japa’ syndrome. They, at all levels, need to do better.

Citizens get the kind of leaders they deserve. Therefore, we, the people, also have our faults and problems. We choose the leaders, directly or indirectly. How did we do it? Didn’t we demand to be ‘settled’ before we could support and vote for them? Weren’t we induced? Didn’t we sell our votes on election days? Where each of us have opportunity to lead, aren’t we abusing it too? Aren’t we cheating fellow citizens and government? What of our own corrupt acts too? When a person points one accusing finger at another, the remain four fingers point at him too. We should all resolve to want Nigeria to be better and act accordingly. The Renewed Hope is here. May God help us.

Arise O Compatriot. Nigeria’s Call Obey!

May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.

God Bless Nigeria.

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September 30, 2023.