Nigeria’s 55th Independence anniversary celebration on 1st October this year depicts a season of hope for Nigerians with the belief that the country’s new administration is poised to bring about the desired change.
With a 72-year-old president that witnessed a prosperous Nigeria before independence, who has had the opportunity of running the affairs of the state as a military Head of State from January 1984 to August 1985, he should be in a position to know the problems of the country first hand.
It is expected that the president will assemble a team of ministers that will support the change agenda. Nigerians are expecting a clear departure from the impunity of old.
However, the nation turns 55 at a time of sober reflection, with terrorism, insecurity, insurgency, kidnapping and corruption in high places rife. This season do not call for celebration, as the challenges are enormous. Most crucial of all is the unemployment of millions of able-bodied youth making up over 40 percent of the population; a ticking time bomb that must be prevented from detonating.
A nation like Nigeria, so blessed with human and natural resources, should not have problems generating revenue or creating employment. But greed, selfishness and corruption is the order of the day and the needful act of building infrastructure and human capital is neglected.
A country as blessed and diverse as Nigeria must take steps to prosper from the entertainment industry, which has proven it can earn the nation foreign exchange from global acceptance as well as provide employment to a teeming youth. The industry has demonstrated its capability through the many hands it currently engages in Nollywood and Kannywood across the country.
Britain, for example, generates revenue from the financial and services sector despite North Sea Oil, while America and India derive huge amounts from Hollywood and Bollywood respectively. According to Indian Economy, Bollywood’s contribution to India’s GDP is $2.85 billion in a $2.5 trillion economy.
While Nigeria’s challenges may be many, attention must be focussed on how best to generate revenue to provide employment for the teeming population in the face of a dwindling monolith revenue stream from oil exports.
New start
The current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari must focus on two agendas; providing a stable electricity supply to power small to medium-scale industries and generating multiple revenue streams. The administration is slowly gaining the confidence, so it can only be hoped that promises will be matched by action.
Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo recently promised the nation that the administration will increase power supply from the inherited 3,500 megawatts to 5,000 megawatts by December of 2015 and to 6,000 megawatts by the first quarter of 2016.
Diaspora Bail Out
Nigeria’s Diaspora is an asset that cannot be ignored. Since the huge brain drain from the nation, successive governments have not extracted the maximum benefit from the Diaspora. The nation is blessed with successful professionals that have passion, loyalty and a willingness to contribute to nation-building beyond regular money transfer remittances.
The administration has presented a Diaspora Bond to the House of Representatives to increase the bond to $300million – beyond this the government must engage with the Diaspora regularly. Engagement with the Diaspora should include regular news dissemination – the era when the Diaspora could be excluded from policy formulation is gone.
Nigerians in Diaspora can help to fuel perception rightly or wrongly. Therefore the incoming information minster must devise a way to carry the Diaspora along with government plans and intentions. These are some of the issues the urgently needed Diaspora Commission will help coordinate.
At 55, Nigeria has a glimmer of hope, but the political class must embrace the leadership example of President Muhammadu Buhari, a man of integrity.
