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Asiwaju
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
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Text
of the Business Lecture delivered by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the 70th
Anniversary of the Island Club, Lagos, Nigeria. 23rd October, 2013
Protocol
Time
flies. Seventy years ago, this prestigious club was founded. Much has happened
since then. As a nation, we gained our independence. It was a happy and hopeful
day. Since then, most of the years have been spent squandering the
chances wrought by independence. The nation has cried more than its share of
tears.
Yet,
this club has beckoned as an island of excellence and forward thinking through
it all. If only more of our institutions aspired and attained the high quality
of this club. Nigeria would be a better place.
Thus,
I must say Happy 70th Platinum anniversary to the Island Club. I celebrate with
you. I identify with your fervor to forge lasting friendships and critical
associations across the various divides that to often characterize this nation and
determine the course of events.
I
join you in recognizing the primacy of our national identity and commend the
Club and its members in their unending quest to make Nigeria a better-governed
country. Happy anniversary!
Though
ostensible a social institution, the Club is today a gathering place for
intellectual and political economic discourse. The Island Club encourages
diversity of ideas and civil debate among its members as an honest and true way
to craft suggestions on how state and national problems can be resolved.
Anyone
who thinks the Island Club is just a place for recreation and to laugh and
relax has only an incomplete understanding of this place just like you can't
tell the depth of the waters by examining the surface. You must plunge in.
Seventy
years is a long time. That the Island Club is still alive today, 70 years
after its establishment in October 1943, testifies to the fact that it holds to
something important, something that has withstood the tests and vagaries of
time and something that fulfills its members far beyond a good laugh and a
pleasant evening. These things can be had at other places but this club offers
more.
Drawing
its members from innovative and creative segments of society, the Island Club
was, from the start, set to be great.
The
Club has marched and advanced during the years. If only this nation had
followed the trajectory this Club set, we would be a nation in reverie.
Instead, we are one quaked by regret.
Though
older than Nigeria, the Club still shines. Unfortunately, the glow of Nigeria
has turned to dross; the nation is a gem obscured by the grime of venal and
menial leadership.
Today,
I state the name 'Island Club' not only has geographic significance, it also
has poetic or figurative bearing. Yes, we are located on an island but the Club
is also an island of good management, unity and vision in a sea of national
muddle and confusion.
Though
having to adjust at times to the dizzying political thermometer of the country
and in response to the sometimes-conflicting demands of its members, Island
Club has pulled through. It stands stronger today because it has figured out
the recipe of cooperation and compromise for the common good.
Today,
the story of your club will serve me well as I speak to the theme of my lecture
- looking at Nigeria’s Path to National Rebirth. Imagine for a moment the
Island Club was Nigeria. This Club was started by Nigerians from all walks of
life.
Through seven decades, it has gone through various changes both in its
leadership cadre and in its objectives and goals. Though having to adjust often
times to the political thermometer of the country and indeed respond to the
sometimes-conflicting demands of its members, the Island Club has pulled
through. It stands today stronger than it started out and with a strong hope
set on the future.
And
where does Nigeria stand today? Today, we loiter on the road of confusion
because we are guided by leaders who themselves need guidance.
The
dream of a robust and great nationhood has been deferred. Nigeria now limps and
pleads for crutches to help it just to stand.
Former
United States (U.S.) Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, while delivering
a lecture at entitled “On the Dawn of Nigeria’s Second Century: Challenges to a
New Generation” at the University of Ilorin convocation ceremony brought fresh
insights into Nigeria’s current precarious conditions in various sectors.
I share most of his positions and postulations and couldn’t agree more
that Nigeria though a giant in Africa is punching below its weight.
For
Ambassador Carrington, the greatest challenge to Nigeria’s development is
corruption closely followed by insecurity. The most gripping of Carrington’s
lecture are the data and statistics about Nigeria’s. He was very provocative on
the position of Nigeria, nay Africa, in the global equation.
Let
me quote Carrington. “The latest Human Development Index of the United
Nations Development Programme, better known as the UNDP, was released in March
this year and lists the world’s 46 lowest ranked countries. Thirty-seven of
them are in sub-Saharan Africa.
All
of the bottom 26 is African with the single exception of Afghanistan. Out of
187 countries surveyed, oil- producing Nigeria is ranked 153, the lowest, by
far, of any non-African member of OPEC. Indeed, with the exception of Angola
(which ranks 5 places higher than Nigeria), all other members, including
war-ravished Iraq (107), are included in the ranks of the more developed.
Your neighbor, Niger, at 187 has the dubious distinction of coming in
last”.
It
would not be so sad if we closed our eyes in order to dream of a better
Nigeria. Instead, we close our eyes so that those who lead us can make
things worse. We must stop the charade. We no longer have the luxury to play
such a distorted game.
We
lap up the story of our yesterday as we recall with nostalgia Nigeria’s
post-independence era. Though turbulent at first, Nigeria soon settled down to
calmer waves and we saw development all over as we settled into nationhood. A
crop of leaders forged in the nationalistic struggle for independence and
schooled in some of the best institutions in Europe and America took charge and
charted a course for our nation. They had a vision and made us dream of a
country where though tongue and tribe may differ, still stands in brotherhood.
Those were the days when with pride we declared and carried the badge of
nationalism and being Nigerian.
Unfortunately,
as we entered the second decade of nationhood, the bottom fell out. We all know
about our descent into spasms of military dictatorship and civilian miss-rule
that led to the collapse of the second republic. I will not dwell much on this
point, but suffice to say here that we are a people still in search of true
nationhood. The derailment of our dreams and the blurring of our national
vision by some of our past leaders have consequences for both our present and
future.
Today
reminds us of yesterday. Of how we perhaps headed in the wrong direction.
Today, we fret regarding the course of the nation and even about its longevity.
Some stay she will fail. Some say she has already done so. Some believe
that tomorrow can only be one of doom.
For
years, the idea of a national dialogue has been bruited. Government has always
slapped the notion away. Now, devoid of ideas and with its back to the
wall of poor performance, the current government grabs at the notion much like
a drowning man does a life vest.
Yes,
we need to talk. I remain an ardent supporter of the call for a national conference
that is sovereign and truly open to all. That is the only route out of the
woods. We must bring Nigeria back on the path of true federalism. A
staged-managed affair scripted and monitored to achieve the narrow political
aims of narrow political minds in Abuja will do nothing but whet Confusion's
appetite.
Anything
short of a Sovereign National Conference will be like trying to apply a bandage
to a tornado. So soon after calling forth this event, we have seen the
deceptive, unsure steps of the government. Many of those that attacked my
position in questioning the sincerity of the government are now retreating from
the Jonathan Conference. All I ask is that you watch not with blind hope but
with a watchful eye. I believe you will come to see this as the dark alley that
I see.
Now,
back to the larger issue, the picture of Nigeria as it now stands. If you ask
me to describe the state of the nation I would say it is an ambivalent one.
Nigeria
is a nation standing half in the light of progress and promise and half in the
darkness of injustice. We live in a period of grave uncertainty. As things now
stand, we have no idea where the nation is headed.
We
live in a fast-paced world but Nigeria is only crawling. In front of us,
progressive development moves quicker than us. With each day, the distance
between development and us increases. Behind us, calamity moves fast, gaining
ground on us. With each day, it comes nearer and near to us.
I
shudder to think of the state of the nation in years to come if we continue in
this limp fashion. Those now in government take false solace in the belief that
Nigeria is a land of happy, carefree people who will somehow manage to eke a
living no matter how badly governed we might be.
Those in governance
better look again. Whatever happiness we had was born of fantasy or of faith
and patience that a better day was to come. It was not based in the fact of
good governance because little in their governance has been good.
But
even strong faith wilts under an avalanche of bad tidings and misfortune
brought about by clumsy, wrong-minded governance. A jobless, hungry man cannot
eat fantasy or faith. His reality forces him to choke on them. The people are
asked to suffer and be patient while those in Abuja revel and fete each other
as if mimicking ancient Rome at the height of empire.
These
forces of high privilege and regression want to consume more than their share.
This means they are willing to steal a good portion of yours. While we pray and
strive for democratic governance ushering in a progressive era of broad
prosperity, development, democracy and human dignity, these conservatives seek
to stifle you as modern serfs living ramshackle lives, half-fed, under
employed, and desperate for a hand-out.
Many
have become so desperate that they thank these people for lending us a small
pittance of the money they pilfered that is rightfully yours to begin with.
They wash their feet in champagne. Meanwhile too many people struggle to find
clean water to soak their garri.
They seek a nation comprised of a small,
well-oiled and happy elite and dry, struggling masses. Robin Hood would run
from Nigeria because it operates on principles opposite to those that endeared
this mythic hero to our imagination. Instead of bringing balance by taking a
bit from the rich and give to the poor, our current system robs from the poor
to give to the rich.
The
self-appraised glowing performance report of the ruling government of Goodluck
Jonathans one of the most remarkable, creative works of fiction ever written in
Nigeria. The Mathematics about GDP growth, about economic empowerment, about
energy provision, about employment do not add up. And here is why.
Even though
according to the IMF Nigeria parades the second largest economy on the
sub-continent with a GDP of 270 billion U.S. dollars second to South Africa
whose GDP is 375 billion, there is nothing to show for it.
The
PDP government claims we have one of the world’s fastest growing economies and
that our GDP expands by nearly seven percent per year. Yet, the people don’t
feel this happy expansion. The official youth unemployment rate nears 50 per
cent. The true rate, when joined with underemployment, may be over twice that
amount. Most graduates from our tertiary institutions will not be greeted by
job offers once they leave campus, but by an indefinite period of joblessness.
World
Bank in its 2013 report says Nigeria's unemployment rate is 22 per cent while
Youth Unemployment rate is 38 per cent.
Millions
of Nigerians are being pauperized and continue to fall below poverty line. The
AFDB, in its African Economic Outlook report of 2013 revealed that
poverty has worsened since 1996 and through 11 years of the PDP's rule.
The efforts of President Jonathan's government at combating poverty was also
faulted.
Another
global institution, The World Bank also in its ‘Nigeria Economic Report’
released in May 2013 stated that “Poverty rates remain high in Nigeria,
particularly in rural areas.”
“While
the officially reported growth rates of GDP well exceed population growth in
the country, the pace of poverty reduction does not, this implies that the
number of poor Nigerians living below the poverty line has grown measurably,”
the report stated.
No
populous nation ever reached prosperity without a vibrant manufacturing sector.
It is this sector that is the mainstay of urban employment just as farming is
the mainstay of rural jobs. Thus, the more we move toward urbanization, the
more vital is manufacturing as an economic catalyst. However, our manufacturing
sector shrinks under the policies of the current government. As it shrinks so
do the job opportunities of that vast army of city dwellers.
Agriculture
remains stagnant. We have made little progress toward returning to the days
when Nigeria had surplus and exported food. Now we import too much food
for our own good and security. Our small farmers suffer because there is little
government support and assistance. They sink under the reality of rising
costs and too little income from the crops they raise.
Moreover,
we annual lose arable land to desert encroachment as harvests are spoiled by
extreme conditions of drought and flood. Too many of our old people have
little, save misery, to look forward to in their golden years. Pension plans
have proven unreliable and government would rather turn its back on the elderly
than help them through their frail years. After having worked for the good of
the nation and lived decent responsible lives, they find themselves alone. This
is a shameful rip in our social fabric.
Our
infrastructure remains outmoded. It was established for a small nation not a
large, productive one. If not for progressive state governors, road
construction in Nigeria would be minimal. Too many federal roads remain avenues
of nightmares, fear and death. Driving these roads is tantamount and as
dangerous as going to war.
Social
services remain nil. Primary health care is a mirage. Too many pregnant women
go into ill-equipped hospitals and clinics not knowing whether they will have a
joyful appointment with timely birth or grim rendezvous with premature death.
We lose far too many mothers and children to diseases and medical situations
readily treatable if we had decent medical facilities. Instead, the best health
care in Nigeria is still a plane ticket abroad. Health care is only for
the elite. For the rest of the people, the government does not care.
The
government says it has everything under control. If this is control, I
dread to see how lack of control looks. In Boko Haram, the nation faces
its greatest security threat since the civil war. Much of the North lives in
fear of this extremist group or of the indiscriminate force used by this
government in its ham-handed attempt to muzzle the group. If positive
political action had been taken earlier, we would not have reached this
unfortunate point where every policy option is fraught with risk.
Kidnapping
and armed robbery scar the Southeast. Because we have become a society that
exalts wealth no matter wrongfully gotten, violent crime and stealing lie just
below the surface in all parts of the country, ready to break forth at the
slightest chance.
Education
remains the most portent tool against illiteracy and poverty. Our educational
system needs an overhaul and we have several countries from which we can learn
from. Here is what I propose we do to our education, especially Primary and
secondary education.
We
must rededicate ourselves to quality primary and secondary education that all
people have basic language, writing and math literacy skills. At the tertiary
level, we must begin to educate people to equip them with the skills and for
the jobs that this economy will produce in the next five -ten years.
This
will require a reemphasis on technical education. Government must reach out
to the Private Sector to better coordinate education and job opportunity.
Otherwise, to educate our youth for jobs that do not exist, is to miseducate
and misled them.
Furthermore,
my position is that we make a special effort to draw all children to school,
particularly the poor. We cannot afford to allow poverty to keep children out
of the classroom who what to be there. If so we are suborning a life of
ignorance and poverty for millions of our young ones.
What
a progressive government will do is provide all school-age children one free
meal daily. This seems a simple thing. But it is also wise and prudent. A
hungry student does not learn. If the child is too hungry too often, he stops
attending school altogether.
By
this program, students will more eagerly attend because their stomachs as well
as their minds shall be fed. Parents will encourage children to attend because
this will take the children off the streets while also alleviating pressure on
the family to feed the children.
The
lunch will nourish the children, helping them to physically and mentally
develop as they should. The increased demand generated by the feeding program
will spark more agricultural and economic activity, inuring to the benefit of
the overall local economy.
This
is one of those situations where everyone gains. Sadly, this government does
not see things in this light. It rather see things in the light of ignorance
where only it wins and the rest of us lose. This may be the way to aggrandize
power but it is not the way to develop a nation.
A
NEW PATH
The
most troubling aspect of the current state of the union is that we lack
inspirational national leadership. The country is adrift on a dark ocean
with no clue how to get to safe harbor. The people have lost faith that
government is capable of solving the problems affecting them.
The people see
government more as a burden than benefit, more as overlord more than a servant.
The ruling party caused this. Most of its politicians are not interested
in progress; they live to maintain power. Thus, they invest their efforts in
gaining and keeping influence. They care little about solving public problems
and devote scant time to it.
Due
to this lack of content and policy, our politics have taken an ugly coloration.
Ethnic, religious and regional chest thumping is more strident than in many
years. Nigerians now live in the most divisive times of their lives. That is
the state of our nation today in a nutshell. A nation at sea. A people in
despair. A leadership lost at sea.
This
is not as it should be. We need change or else calamity shall befall us
as surely as day turns to night. To turn the nation from its sad present to a
happier future, the people must recognize the ruling party and its
narrow-minded conservatism is not the only political alternative we have. It is
the inferior alternative.
We
can start to build a more promising future or tomorrow if we pay attention to
the critical issues that assail us and reset our priorities as leaders and as
followers. Agriculture holds the key to our future and the answer to swelling
unemployment numbers. Let us make agriculture and oil production the twin
engines of our development.
Although
urbanization is taking place, farming remains the backbone of Nigerian life.
Our policy is simple. We believe farmers need to earn a sufficient enough
income that they may purchase their own phones should they see fit.
A
vibrant agriculture sector will produce enough food for domestic consumption
and for export, thus earning foreign exchange as it did decades ago. It will
also create and maintain jobs. For this to happen, farmers need to earn enough
money.
This means their produce must attract a sufficient minimum price. This
is where government plays a vital role. We need to return to agricultural
commodity boards that guaranty a minimum price for farm produce. We did this in
years past and it helped make the nation a net exporter of agricultural goods.
Other
nations do this now and it works. Why don’t we try it again? It will
work.
Let
us not kid ourselves, Nigeria’s over-dependence on oil remains the bane of its
economy. Agriculture, which has the capacity to generate employment, is not
getting the deserved attention by government. Again, I return to Ambassador
Carrington’s speech. “At Independence in 1960, Nigeria’s yearly agricultural
crop yields were higher than those of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Today
they have dwindled to half as much. The fact that Nigeria’s current yield per
hectare is less than 50 per cent of that of comparable developing countries
dramatically demonstrates how much Nigeria has abandoned its once promising
agricultural sector”. Nothing could be more true.
Still on Agriculture he
posits that if Nigeria pays attention to its agricultural sector which employs
70 per cent of the country’s labour force, whose output is already second to
none on the continent and 25th in the world, then the country might as well be
able to put millions of its citizens back to work and the economy on the road
to full recovery.
Nigeria
today has no business parading the kind of burgeoning unemployment figures we
read about. Nigeria has no business battling with the provision of stable
electricity what with its world provision reserves of natural gas and the
billions sunk into the sector. Nigeria has no business with battling to provide
good roads, mass transportation and efficient health services when its annual
earnings of about $57 billion from oil revenues is put into consideration.
The
provision of enough energy to meet Nigeria’s demand is crucial to the
rejuvenation of small scale and large scale businesses and creation of jobs for
millions of youth who can become self-employed. Nigeria remains a laughing
stock when its failure to provide sufficient energy comes up for discussion.
Five decades after independence, the Nigerian State is a state in darkness
where all the manufacturing machinery have gone silent and businesses run the
highest overheads because purchase of gas to fuel generators consumes their
funds.
We
can improvise or borrow from other countries that have succeeded in taming this
lack of energy problem. We delude ourselves if we think that without sufficient
energy generation we can ever develop or solve many of our economic and
social problems.
The
rule of law and electoral fairness will help place Nigeria on the path of
desired growth and development. But I also fear this government will not allow
free and fair elections when the time comes. If the balloting for the
chairmanship of the Nigerian governor’s forum is indicative, then our coming
elections will be ones where numbers and maths don’t matter.
Our elections may
likely be ones where those who the people reject will be proclaimed the
people’s choice. Such misconduct and malpractice will place the nation in
dangerous straits.
To
avoid this calamity, we need sweeping electoral reform and we need it now.
Foremost among the reforms, we need a fully bio-metric voter’s
registration system. Our current system encourages multiple voting. As such, it
is a green light to massive fraud and malpractice stifling the democratic will
of the people.
This
can easily be fixed by introducing the Biometric Voter Registration, BVR. To
introduce it is to invite clean and fair elections and guarantee democracy. Not
to introduce it is to invite rigging and the loss of democratic legitimacy.
Conclusion
This
nation stands at the threshold between greatness and failure, between progress
and collapse and hope and despair. As if blindfolded, we cannot decide which
way is best. Our fate depends on whether we can summon the courage to see as we
must that we may take the step we should.
We
live in a land that is ours but is ruled by a government that does not belong
to the people because it does not like them. Nigerians want democratic
governance, economic development, broad prosperity, justice, equality, moral
purpose and human dignity. At that point, the state of the nation can be
a state in which we are all proud and in which we all can live as free people.
I
charge every member of this prestigious club to join the rank and file of
change agents. It is not only when you are in politics that you can work for
change. You can be a change agent in your place of work from where you can
speak out against injustice and unfreedom and economic deprivation.
We
must together rebuild our nation by rebuilding ourselves. We must start with
the moral character within. When the various parts of the nation are given a
sense of belonging, when each Nigerian feels he is Nigerian first and foremost,
then we begin to realize our nationhood.
We seize being a mere geographic
expression to become a concrete national reality. Until then, our so-called
national government will continue to play ‘Ludo” with our lives. And out
tomorrow will come unstuck.
Let
me end on a positive note that a better future, a better tomorrow is possible
for our youth and for us all. But only if we try. We must try with all
the strength, belief and passion that we can muster.
Thank
you for listening.
Asiwaju
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
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