Nigeria has recently lost its title as Africa’s largest producer and exporter of crude oil. This is a title that we have clung to for many decades, yet our steady spiral down the ladder over the last couple of years is symptomatic of every thing that is Nigerian.
Why is that that we cannot get anything working in this country? You would think that an industry that provides about 90-95% of foreign exchange and about 80% of revenue would be treated like the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg, yet the oil and gas industry has suffered years of inattention characterised by inadequate funding and investment, policy somersaults, lack of a strategic direction and policy and so on and so forth. But then, the oil and gas industry is not the only one is it? Refineries have stopped working; roads have failed all over the country, the railway and airlines died long ago, PHCN has had its name changed several times, but has only gone from bad to worse, NITEL is comatose, gas plants are being built (some completed) with no earlier thought or plan about where the gas would come from - even with the Niger Delta crisis staring them boldly in the face, various stadia refurbished just 10 years ago for Nigeria ’99 look like they were never repaired, Murtala Mohammed International Airport is barely functional in the true sense of an international airport and various Government agencies and parastatals fail to perform their statutory duties efficiently and effectively!!
What exactly is the issue? Why can we not seem to get ourselves out of a perennial downward spiral? Have we been consigned to never grow, mature, and develop? Perhaps it is spiritual! Maybe the gods have put a curse on this country. Because sometimes the reasons for our continued backwardness defies explanation, despite the myriad of learned people that we have in this country. Churches fast and pray and things just get worse and worse. What on earth is going on???
The government of this once great country is just nailing the lid on our collective coffins - one after the other. It is bad enough that oil has too much leverage on our economy, but even this mono product that we have is being threatened by lack of government vision and sincerity to the issue of development in the Niger Delta. The crisis going on there need never have happened. Why spend so much to develop Abuja while millions languish right next to where the oil is being produced? These people have been pushed to the wall and have bounced back in the form of militancy, kidnapping, thuggery and general lawlessness. After all, he that is down need fear no fall.
We need a well-orchestrated strategy to get this country on the path of sustainable development and to resolve the myriad of issues that confront us as a nation. Unfortunately, the political ‘elite’ has not demonstrated that they have the intellectual capacity to fashion such a strategy. After all, 49 years of evidence cannot be wrong!
