Milestones for Progress for a Nation at 63

Rebooting Nigeria: Nigeria 2.0, by Andrew Haruna and Emmanuel Dandaura, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, 2023 

Bukar Usman

The 164-page publication titled Rebooting Nigeria: Nigeria 2.0 being the Report of the Citizens Summit for National Integration, Peace and Security held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja from August 23-24, 2022 embodied the outcome of the discussions at the Summit with recommendations on several critical areas of concern including:

• The youth

• Reputation 

• Governance

• Global competitiveness 

• Civil Society Organizations 

• National Integration 

• Education

• Communication culture

• Core national values

• Traditional institutions 

• Security challenges

• The economy

• Diaspora Nigerians

• Infrastructure 

It is quite a commendable effort by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) to organize the Summit at which it gathered opinions at zonal levels including diaspora and at the national level to get the feel of 93 organisations and Nigerians on matters affecting the well-being of Nigeria, a country of great diversity. Truly, our diversity is both a source of strength and weakness on account of the fault lines that flow from the ethnic-religious diversity and the need for careful management.

As the Report rightly concludes, though Nigeria is far from where it ought to be, greater number of Nigerian Citizens still have faith in the federation and that rebooting Nigeria is a joint task (p.103). 

The following points among others in the Report were well made:

a.widening trust gap among citizens, divisive leadership, exacerbating frictions across socio-political divides… (p.01).

b.discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance, and patriotism as core national values, not many citizens have internalized them… (p.08).

c.encourage local processing of raw materials and value chain addition… (p.12).

d.challenges of insecurity, corruption, unstable industrial climate and policy inconsistencies are disincentives… (p.13).

e.inability of educated, able-bodied youth to get gainful employment, acquire appropriate skills, or live independently… (p.24).

f.Nowadays, people hardly travel freely, especially by road, across the country… (p.29).

g.poor public perception of the readiness of law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies to bring perpetrators to book (p.29).

h.possible causes of the existing trust deficit between governments at all levels and the people:

i.Unfulfilled promises by the political class;

ii.Widespread corruption, scandals, and abuse of power by the political class and public officers;

iii.Inequitable distribution of resources and dividends of democracy;

iv.Lingering challenges of insecurity;

v.Deteriorating quality of service by public officers;

vi.Dilapidated public infrastructure;

vii.Insensitivity to the needs of the people by the political leaders (p.36).

i…most CSOs in Nigeria are foreign-funded, their allegiance naturally lies with their funders (p.47).

j.How information is communicated will affect how it is received… (p.68). 

k.A nation’s core values are ultimately shaped by its culture, traditions, social norms and practices (p.69).

l.The journey towards a new Nigeria lies in good leadership and good followership (p.72).

m.increasing ungoverned spaces in Nigeria require the presence of traditional authorities and institutions (p.74)

n.deployment of huge amounts of scarce national resources for the purpose of securing the nation…is at the expense of other, and actually productive, sectors of the economy (p.78).

o.The Government’s policies on integration over more than half a century have come a long way in achieving some degree of unity and integration in Nigeria (p.81).

p.tinkering with governance models has still not met the expectations of citizens and stakeholders (p.85).

q.presidential system or model of government, we adopted has saddled us with a bloated bureaucracy and political offices of questionable value (p.86).

r.there are no access roads for many communities and States …coupled with inadequate power supply… (p.89)

s.  Food security is controlled by lack of security in the food-producing areas… (p.89).

t.The lack of ease of doing business, lack of roads, inadequate power supply, and rise in oil prices have led manufacturing companies to close shops and leave Nigeria (p.90).

u.Nigeria has a massive Diaspora population (p.92).

v.prevailing political, economic, and social environment makes it difficult for many Nigerians in the Diaspora to make a final return… (p.93).

The main problem areas are fairly known over quite a long time. It is the solutions that are taking time to come. Hence, the restiveness, anxiety and agitations in the society. To cite a few examples:

i.Energy and Power supply

With little or no progress in refineries rehabilitation and in spite of the Dangote refinery that was also commissioned with fanfare by the last administration, dependence on refined petrol importation remains problematic with all its wider implications.

With lack of gas to power the plants installed by electricity Generation Companies (GenCos), several electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) under receivership and insufficient transmission lines to carry power supplies, the problem of power supply is still overwhelming.

ii.Iron and Steel Industry

The backbone of a nation’s economy is a functional iron and steel industry. For upwards of 40 years since the Ajaokuta and associated mills in Jos, Katsina, Oshogbo, and Aladja were initiated, they are yet to take off for inexplicable reasons. Add to that is the fate of the alluminium smelting plant at Ikot Abasi while the repositioning of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) has been a matter of touch-and-go. 

iii.Transportation 

Rehabilitation of rail lines appears to be at a standstill not to talk of rail lines expansion. Air Nigeria launched with fanfare in the twilight of the last administration tenure is bogged down by controversy. And no where do we have a functional water transportation to be proud of. The concept of mass transit is virtually nil despite our huge population.

iv.Forex Management

With the removal of subsidy on petrol, Government may have a lot of Naira. However, the major problem is availability of forex to meet up international transactions against depleted reserves, heavy foreign debt, with no immediate prospect of rise in earnings from oil export.

v.Agriculture 

Rain was late in coming in several parts of the country and although some people have managed to till the land there is loud cry of access to farm input aside from the lingering insecurity in the countryside to overcome.

vi.Social

Government has made pronouncements of access to loans by underprivileged students. 

Several months have since lapsed with no machinery on the ground while students go about cap-in-hands begging for money for registration.

With rising inflation and no firm assurance about downward reduction in electricity and petrol pricing, societal concerns remain high.

For sure people’s response to policies and programmes on the ground is the barometer for an assessment of the impact of government performance.  So far much of the response is in the negative. 

The resolve of NIPR leadership to present the Report to relevant stakeholders across the board (p.100) is quite in order and should be pursued with vigour. In that respect, it is advisable for the NIPR leadership to still deliberate on the key elements of the recommendations that can be vigorously pursued to make the greatest impact. 

The ground work by NIPR having been laid thus far, future Summits should be further opportunities to assess progress made on the select key recommendations. NIPR leadership should guard against chewing too much.

•Dr Usman, OON, former permanent secretary in the presidency, writes from Abuja