Four weeks ago, I described Singapore’s economic miracle – how Singapore started off as a poor country without natural resources in 1965, and became one of the richest countries in the world in less than 10 years. My purpose is to show the South-west something to emulate.
The South-west is supremely ready to achieve the Singapore miracle. Sixty years of free Primary Education, and over 30 years of free Secondary Education, have made the South-west the most educated part of Africa. In the plans of the originators of the educational progress (Chief Awolowo and his colleagues), the mass education was meant to be the base for the building of a great modern economy.
Unfortunately, however, the South-west is not a country on its own. It is part of a much larger country in which purposes are diverse and different, and ill-will and animosity among peoples are powerful influences over central policy. The controllers of the Nigerian central government at independence regarded the South-west’s economic ambitions as over-ambitious, divisive, capable of weakening the central government and possibly even breaking up Nigeria. Since then until now, pulling the South-west down has been an unspoken but constant purpose in the operations of Nigeria’s central government.
In the midst of this “pull-them-down” experience, the rulers of the Yoruba South-west have lost both confidence and focus. They know what their people need and desire, but they usually try to play it safe by behaving like the rulers of other parts of Nigeria. On the whole, in all fairness, the South-west governments still tend to outperform the governments of other regions of Nigeria, but, unfortunately, much of their performance misses the point altogether.
Here is the point: All phases of a people’s modern development are parts of one and the same package of development. Educational development is not an end in itself; it is a means of preparing and strengthening the people to carry out all the other facets of development. At the present stage in the development of the massively educated South-west, the prime development programme must be to put the people to work. Putting the people to work is not a side issue; it is not a haphazard action of a governor, an action aimed at winning electoral support. This does not mean that other aspects of development (like building of roads, beautifying towns, etc) should stop; what it means is that putting the people to work must be the NUMBER ONE priority of the government.
As Singapore’s economic miracle should teach us in the South-west, putting the people to work should consist of various programmes. First, we must give our people the kinds of skills that a modern economy demands, starting with basic skills and quickly expanding to more sophisticated skills. For us, this should include, first, snatching our educated and jobless people from the streets and giving them various training in productive skills, as well as strong work ethics. This is like a remedial programme. To get it done, a state government will need to respectfully involve our business people in it, in order to establish skill-training facilities of various kinds, public and private. Involving the business people from start will ensure that business people will see the improving skills as an opportunity for them to expand their businesses. This will also encourage new businesses – and, altogether, result in the expansion of businesses.
The state government must then intervene in various ways to encourage businesses. First, provide all sorts of facilities that can attract businesses to the state –for example, well planned industrial estates and shopping centres well served with roads, water supply, and electricity. I said electricity because it is an absolute essential. In Nigeria where poor access to electricity is a damaging problem, investing state funds for regular local supply of electricity to an industrial or shopping centre can generate a big boost to a state’s economy, and thereby create jobs. Secondly, help the owners of certain local businesses to upgrade their businesses – such as owners of restaurants, inns and motels, mechanic workshops, recreation centres, group homes, private retail outlets, etc. Thirdly, encourage and help business starters. Singapore did this by creating various facilities and centres for training educated and skilled people in the basics of business, and various aspects of business management. She also did it through various financial supports to businesses. Some of our state governments have given small loans in the past; but they have done it in unproductive ways, and have usually linked it to politics. We must learn from a country like Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea how micro-credit systems are properly organized and managed to boost the economy.
Fourthly, set out to attract foreign businesses to come and invest and do business in your state. Learn from a country like Singapore the many ways it did this successfully. But I can say now that one cardinal step is to ensure that your politics is predictably orderly and stable. The rulers of Singapore tell us that a predictably orderly and stable political life is NUMBER ONE STEP in attracting business people from other parts of the world. In this matter, being part of Nigeria is a big problem – since every Nigerian president believes that it is his right to rig elections in any part of Nigeria, no matter how much turmoil that may cause. How should our South-west states handle this unpredictability? We should learn to deal with it as best we can – and strive towards having a separate country of our own soon.
Fifthly, while raising up businesses among our own people and attracting foreign businesses to come, we must give special emphasis to businesses that produce goods for export to other countries. Experience has shown that such businesses are the leaders in quickly building a country’s prosperity. When your workers produce goods that are exported, the income they earn is essentially from abroad – it means the people of other countries are providing good jobs for your people, and that is a great thing. Exports can be from our farmers, all the way to our workers employed in the most sophisticated technological businesses. To make our goods acceptable all over the world, we must ensure high quality in our goods.
Snatching our educated people from the streets and quickly turning them into skilled workers and business owners is the first stage of our development – the “remedial stage”. The next is the long-term stage. In this stage, we reorder our educational system so as to prepare our children to grow up to be mostly skilled workers, businessmen, managers, etc. It is a new ball game in education. We will need to give totally new emphasis to mathematics, science, language and civics in early elementary schools; and, later,more mathematics, science, technology, knowledge of trends in the wider world. To achieve these, we must sharply raise the training, competence and prestige of our teachers, and make our schools proud centres of learning and exploration. This stage is the real gateway to our future greatness.
All these would be easier in our own separate country, but we must start now. And we must integrate our states’ development agendas to improve our chances of success.
