‘But we are a rich county now…’ – That must be one of the greatest jokes being branded around for decades. One of previous our rulers once said we had so much oil but knowing how to spend it was the problem. To top that, another ruler jokingly – not sure if it was viewed as such – tried to display to the USA how Nigeria would stop oil supply to them if they ‘misbehaved’. It would have been nice to hear their snide comments in private.
As if that is not enough, another was pondering how we could be classed as poor considering all the Mercedes-Benz cars on our roads. Even mobile phones have not been left out of the picture as a barometer of our wealth status by another or our wise-cracking rulers.
But how can you say we are not rich with all the oil and gas available and earning revenue for the country. Oh, so that is the source of this delusion. Let us break things down. When times were good and we were rolling in dollars, we averaged 100 dollars-plus per barrel. In 30 days of an average of 2 million barrels of oil per day, the totality of what we earned amounted to 6 billion dollars a month. Assuming we are 150 million people, we all know we are more than that, but just for round figure purposes, and we divide 6 billion by 150 million people, we would end up with 40 dollars.
40 dollars is what each of us is roughly worth from a resource which is eighty to ninety percent of our foreign exchange. Imagine for this year since oil is now averaging 50 dollars.
The only other value we command in terms of our productivity is the amount we are able to export in relation to our imports. For now, it illustrates that our import container level is 92 percent while we export 8 percent making us only 8 percent useful for container export.
This export is dominated by non-processed agricultural products and we are not able to add any value to what nature has bestowed on us as an agricultural resource.
Whether on Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, Maitama and Ahmadu Bello Roads in Abuja or Port Harcourt-Abba and Olu Obasanjo Roads in PH, whatever activities you are engaged in, all it amounts to is to contribute your quota to the 8 percent export usefulness and 40 dollars worth of our best available natural and agricultural resource. And this is what is classed as rich?
Inside this ‘richness’, we wallow in survival of the fittest fed of course by the foreigners while they are fattening us up for the kill. Not sure a lot of people would get this.
All they need of us is to get the best of us from whatever natural resource we possess, exploit our human resource capital to the bones, while the rest of us are left in the consumption market for them to feed up our appetite for their products. Lovely template this is!
We are only resource rich, not revenue rich. If 160 million plus of us can only generate an economy of 560 billion dollars, which seems to make us float in giddy heights, mostly from riding on the back of foreigners, then we are not yet successful achievers when it comes to executing any visions we have dreamt up since independence. Brazil by the way, marginally more than our population, has an economy of over 2 trillion dollars.
The real richness is to move away from being grand delusional people to becoming masters of our destiny by utilising products/produce already available and expand their production before venturing into the so-called potentials territory.
We have in abundance furniture makers, metal fabricators, cattle herders, traditional textile weavers, etc. The cattle herders for instance, from each cow would come dairy milk, meat – both processed and fresh, countless products from leather hides – bags, shoes, belts, clothes, furniture, etc.
A lot of this products can be handmade at the beginning if organised into subunits which would achieve employment, reduce rural urban migration, increase revenue, develop rural areas, reduce dependence on federal government and can ultimately earn revenue for the nation and make us worth more than the mere irrelevant 8% we are probably ignorantly proud of while proclaiming our delusional richness.
But where are these potentially rich cows? Roaming our roads practising marathon marches through the bushes, forest and savannah lands that throng the length and breadth of the country. I would not want to stray into the territory of the constant skirmishes that occur between cattle herders and local farmers which would just be an unnecessary sideshow accompanied with the occasional attendant fatalities. If anybody can lead this, it is the President himself. If anyone can name any Nigerian alive who is more qualified than PMB – Fulani, language, cattle owner, authority, power, influence, etc. – then please do inform.
This is one area PMB can make historical legacy as compared to the Petroleum Ministry where no matter what he does, the best he can achieve is nothing of historical resonance.
Once the organisational template for this is put in place, to this can be added any technical-vocational institutes and skills acquisition centres which can have places where the skills would be utilised and not just fashioned out.
As Nigerians fond of making excuses would portend, it is too complex, very complicated, our problems are ‘unique’, our circumstances are ‘peculiar’ – I detest both words – but India, multiple times our size, practically more than the whole of Africa combined, can get its act together significantly much better than us.
This is a country that got its independence in 1947 making them only 13 years older than us, was bequeathed the same civil service structure as ours, by the same colonial powers, with more people, diverse languages, religious diversity and challenges surpassing ours, but is nuclear powered, produces unbelievable number of software engineers annually, currently transforming its husbandry sector to get more yields from cows, already engages in car manufacturing and was in 2014 able to successfully launch a rocket to Mars.
The real dream and challenge is whether we can implement our agricultural, mining, tourism, and industrial dreams – or potentials as we have been exclaiming for decades – extend same to any and every product or service we know exist in every local government all over the country. Or maybe, the local government people are not that visionary enough. But who can blame them, if sugar daddy in Abuja would – not always nowadays – bring home the goodies.
- Owolowo, is an educationist, trainer and rural entrepreneur
