By Dipo Olayoku
Nigeria the most populated black nation in the World, with a population of about 167 million, based on the last Census conducted in 2006, is the 7th most populated country in the World. The country has a large deposit of fortune like “black gold” oil, and other mineral resources. As a matter of fact, it is the 7th largest oil producer in the world. In other words, Nigeria is richly blessed with abundant human and material resources, so Nigeria has the potentials to be a great nation.
Apart from the abundant material and mineral resources, Nigeria is blessed with the most vital ingredients for greatness, which is the human resource, most especially the youth, which is the group of people that can drive development because of their agility, alertness and strength. Reports say about 50% of the Nigerian population belong to the class of youth. However, Nigeria is not taking full advantage of these youth, nor is it planning well for them. This explains the high rate of crime in the society.
Nigeria became an independent country on October 1, 1960 and a Republic three years later. At independence the country had three regions, for administrative convenience namely the Western Region, the Eastern Region, and the Northern region. There was a healthy rivalry among these regions, and they developed at their own pace.
The mainstay of the economies of these regions was Agriculture. Cocoa and rubber and timber from the Western region, Palm oil and coal from the Eastern region and Groundnut and cotton from the North. We remember the popular defunct “groundnut pyramids”. As a matter of fact all the landmark structures like the first multi-storey building in Nigeria, Cocoa House in Ibadan, Liberty Stadium and well as the University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria Nsukka and the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria were all built with the proceeds from Agriculture.
At this juncture, one must praise the creativity and the ingenuity of the great men who piloted the affairs of the three regions that time, namely Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region, Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe in the Eastern region and Late Sardauna Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello in the Northern region.
Unfortunately, these three Agricultural products which gave the 3 regions the competitive development (Cocoa, Palm Oil and Groundnut) witnessed at that time have suffered a downturn in their fate. The case of palm oil is worst, as we now import industrial palm oil from abroad despite the fact that Malaysia which is a major exporter of Palm oil today got its first seedling of palm trees from Nigeria.
That was the great role Agriculture played in the history of Nigeria until the military came in 1966. Somehow the era witnessed the relegation of Agriculture to the background in the scheme of things and oil became the major source of revenue for the country. The other sad part of the coming of the military was the introduction of unitary system of government, which killed any initiative or creativity at the regions. Before you could say Jack Rosinson, the knack for Agriculture died and everybody now focused on oil, with the states going cap in hand to the Federal Government to collect Federal allocation at the end of the month.
Reason being that the military government came up with a decree that vested all natural and mineral resources in the Federal Government. Unlike what was in place under the civilian administration, when every region controlled the resources in their domain, but only paid royalty to the Federal Government, the coming of the military killed this practice and came up with sharing formula that only gives a smaller percentage to the regions and States when Nigeria was broken into 12 states in 1967.
This period witnessed a boom in the sale of crude oil such that at a time a Nigeria Head of State was quoted to have said that “money was not the problem of Nigeria, but how to spend it”. And this reflected in the prolificacy witnessed up till the recent past.
This did not come without side-effects or negative effects. As said earlier the ingenuity and creativity of political officer holders were killed. Everybody relied on the easy money coming from the “black gold”, oil. Regions or States were no more thinking of how to generate revenue, rather they now focus more on how to spend money. Everybody depended on the allocation that comes from the Federal. Unfortunately, this advent encouraged and nurtured massive corruption among the political office holders. No effort was made to invest in massive infrastructure that will drive economic development. Much of the money ended up in private pockets.
Because of lack of the adequate and proper planning, various sectors like health, education and social amenities began to suffer. The issues of health tourism became the order of the day. Nigeria could no longer produce what its people needed. We resorted to importing everything. The standard of education started to fall. Our education was only producing people that will look for jobs instead of creating jobs. Even now, we are producing those that are not employable even when the jobs are available.
CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA
Now the party is over. We are no more in the era of “money is not our problem”. Oil is no more “black gold”. The prices of oil at the international market are going downwards every day. The oil that was selling at $110 per barrel last year is now selling below $50 per barrel. The President, Muhammadu Buhari, the other time in India, said “Nigeria is broke”. The problem didn’t start today. In April this year, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo Iweala stunned the world when she said the Federal Government had borrowed about N468 billion to pay workers.
As of the time the current President took over, about 27 states were having problems paying workers salaries. Some were owing workers up to 14 months salaries. The cry of the workers were so loud that President Buhari had to arrange a bailout loan for the states to clear the backlog of salaries. The relief arising from the bailout was momentary. Can we believe that some of these states are again behind in salary payment!!! Unfortunately, the news from the international oil trade is not palatable. The prices continue to slide. Some people have made a forecast that the trend may continue until it falls to $20 per barrel. Time is running out. With what is coming in from international oil business, Nigeria cannot take care of the youth today, not to talk of their tomorrow. And if we fail to take care of their today and tomorrow, we are toying with their future and the future of our dear country. After all, it is said the “youth are the leaders of tomorrow”.
Before I go further, let me quickly talk about the danger we face today and tomorrow.
It is an open secret that our dear country is under siege from our youths who we failed to plan for. Boko Haram Insurgency in the North; Agitation in the East, Militancy in the South South, Agitation in the West, armed robbery across the country. These are all negative benefits derived from the problems created by not planning for the youths. All these happening at a time when Nigeria had access to easy money, we can then imagine what is going to happen now that revenue from oil continues to slide every day. As a matter of fact, some people have described what is happening to oil in the international market as a blessing in disguise. That this will make our Governments to look inwards and invest heavily in human capacity and agriculture as well as solid mineral. And if this becomes the vogue, our youths would be the major beneficiary.
WHAT NEXT?
At this critical stage of Nigeria, we need to, as a people, look at how we can develop other sectors to generate revenue.
We have earlier relived how our founding fathers were able to accomplish long lasting landmark achievements exploiting Agriculture. If we look around, we would see their legacies. Therefore Nigeria needs to go back to tilling the soil. You will recall efforts in the past, e.g. DFFRI, Operational Feed the Nation, Green Revolution etc. unfortunately, there is no continuity in Government programmes and policies.
First of all, we have to grow enough food to be able to feed ourselves and have enough left for export. Our dear country spends trillions of Naira to import food every year. If we can grow enough to eat and export, we will be able to conserve much needed foreign exchange and also generate foreign exchange for us to shore up the value of our currency. We will also be able to provide raw materials for local industries.
Through Agriculture, we will also be able to engage our teeming youth population, and in so doing, depopulate the large army of unemployed youth, who are potentially a threat to the peace and security of the state. Government must create an atmosphere that is conducive for our teeming agile youth to go into Agriculture, both farming and livestock rearing. Government can explore the Late Obafemi Awolowo’s technique of establishing farm settlements. Loans should be made available and attractive for our youths that would be willing to go into agriculture. Our youth farmers can be organized into cooperative groups to be able to access loans and fertilizers. Departments should be created in the Ministry to offer special services to these youth farmers. There should be a mechanism in place to buy off and build storage facilities for the farm products to avoid wastes, and ensure these youth farmers get a benefit and reward for their toiling. Government can create bodies like Cocoa Board. Youth can on their own be using the benefit of ICT to access information about modern day technology and methods of farming. We can then begin to use Agriculture, apart from providing food for local consumption and export, also to service our industries in terms of raw materials to feed our industry.
MANUFACTURING
Manufacturing is one major way of engaging the agile and active population of a country. Not only the youths, but even aged people.
This is one area, through which we can seriously depopulate the labour market. Therefore, Governments need to provide the enabling environment e.g. Policies on tax, land ownership, and energy to encourage the youths to go into this venture.
In terms of heavy equipment manufacture, the country needs to redouble its efforts in the steel industry. Efforts should be geared towards boosting activities in the textile, clothing, and footwears industries. It is expected that one of the immediately benefits of both material and mental investment in Agriculture would be the availability of raw materials like cotton for the Textiles and clothing industry, while the livestock farming will provide raw materials for the footwear industry.
Studies have shown that anywhere construction activities are going on there is a lot of economic activities around. While the construction sites will provide job opportunities for Architects, Civil Engineers, furniture makers, painters etc, the site will also attract people like food vendors, beverages hawkers etc, thereby economically empowering many Nigerians. This is why some of us have been advocating that Government budgeting style has to be reviewed such that capital expenditure would by far outweigh recurrent.
This is the only way through which economic activities can be engendered in the country and provide jobs for the people.
MINING RESOURCES
Nigeria is richly blessed in mineral resources. Iron ore, Tin ore, bitumen, gold, coal etc abound heavily all over the country. However, there are no coordinated policies that harmonize the mining of these deposits for the greater benefit of the greater number of Nigerians. Government needs to come up with policies that will license and encourage the youths to go into these ventures, and spread the resultant revenue to Nigerians, instead of a situation where some powerful individuals appropriate benefits to themselves only.
OIL INDUSTRY
Yes, it is true that oil prices at the international market is dwindling, everyday, but until the deposit under the Nigerian soil is exhausted we must continue to tap its potentials to the fullest. Our youth should be encouraged to go into both the downstream and upstream sectors. With the Local Content principle as being promoted by the Petroleum Industry Bill, conducive atmosphere should be created for Nigerian youths to participate fully. Funds and expertise, through Skill Acquisition Programmes should be provided for our youths to go into the industry.
One disturbing and laughable trend is reports we hear every day that Government agencies revel with joy to announce the destruction of what they call “illegal refineries” in the country.
Nigeria is one of the major exporters of crude oil, while she is the major importer of refined petroleum products, because our recognized refineries are not working and where they are working, they cannot meet local consumption and yet we continue to destroy the so called “illegal” refineries. What stops our Government from organizing the youths behind these so called illegal refineries, standardize their operations and tap their skills to fill the gap between our production and consumption. We would have saved our country a lot of foreign exchange in importing refined petroleum, arrest perennial fuel scarcity, and above all engage our youths productivity and boost the economy.
ICT
The internet world is one area where Nigeria, especially the youths of Nigeria are not tapping its full economical potentials. Devices like Blackberry, IPAD, I phone, Tablet, Android etc are more than machines to make calls, send love messages, watch pornographic films and other vices. They are money making machines, although not in the negative way of what is referred to as yahoo yahoo.
These machines can be used positively to make clean money. If the economic benefits of the internet are exploited, it can take millions of Nigerian youths out of the job market. India is one country that has taken full advantage of the internet to provide jobs for its youths.
The Government of Nigeria or the youths can embark on training programmes to equip them with skills to be useful in the entertainment industry, e.g. music, movies, and even legal foreign exchange transaction popularly called “forex trading”.
Let me reiterate here that Nigeria is blessed with abundant human resources. We can invest in the people, through capacity building or skills acquisition such that we can have skillful youths to send to other countries in what can be called Technical Exchange Programme (Technical Aid Scheme).
Great Nigerian Students, as you are the youths of today and the future leaders of this country, your future and the future of our dear country, are in your hands. Handle it very well.
You must start today. Tomorrow might be too late.
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