The powerful and narrow sectional
interests have been the bane of Nigeria. I understand that when the initial
plans for Nigeria’s principal container port, the Tin Can Island Port which
handles about 5.75 million tons of cargo each year was laid, it included rail
lines, however, by the time the port was completed the rail lines had been
expunged! What modern nation builds a
seaport without and rail links? The
other port at Port Harcourt, a transshipment port located 66 kilometres from
the Gulf of Guinea along the Bonny River in the Niger Delta, handles about
815,000 tons of cargo each year and has a railway connection but it is not the
commercial nerve centre.
When the old Western Region built
24-storey Cocoa House at one time tropical Africa’s tallest building, all the
materials and cement used to build, it came via rail links because the road
network could never have coped. Yet,
when we built the Federal Capital Territory Abuja with a land area of
713 kilometres square we relied entirely on road links from Lagos to Abuja
to transport all the materials needed, the limited road network was never going
to be able to cope with the multiplier effects of so much traffic. Today we wonder why we do not have any good
roads. The limited rail infrastructure
we have, we have allowed it to be degraded through years of neglect of both the
rolling stock and allowed the right-of-way to seriously reduced the capacity
and utility of the system.
Nigeria
with the largest road network in West Africa and the second largest south of
the Sahara, roughly 108,000 km of surfaced roads in 1990 has had a history of
poor maintenance. In 2004, Nigeria’s
Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) began to patch the 32,000-kilometre
federal roads network, and in 2005, FERMA initiated a more substantial
rehabilitation. However, this has not
kept pace with over use by the powerful interests who we allowed to lay siege
to the Nigerian economy. What of
electricity? Have you wondered why most of the funds invested in the sector
make no difference? It is the powerful
interests that benefit from lucrative generator sales that conspire to make
nothing work. The stark analysis of the
sector reveals Nigeria had 5,900 MW of installed generating capacity, however,
the country was only able to generate 1,600 MW because most facilities have
been poorly maintained. The country has
proven gas reserves and around 8,000 MW of hydro development has been
planned.
The same
extends to the scandal of the refineries where most of the refineries are not
working or under utilised because of sabotage by powerful interests. It simply
pays the few entrenched interest that Nigeria does not work, they thrive and
get rich on the misery of the many.
Whilst Chief Asiodu’s own central
thesis of the problem with Nigeria traces it to the Murtala/Obasanjo purge of
the Civil Service in 1975. He suggests
that before purge, from after the civil war
Nigeria grew at 11.5 percent per annum.[1] That if we had sustained 10 percent per annum
for 20 more years, today the per capital income of Nigeria would not be less
than 20,000 dollars. He makes a
comparison with Malaysia that is reputed to have borrowed palm oil technology
from Nigeria and is now so far ahead of us.
He claims that many countries overtook us because, we destroyed the
civil service; we abandoned the plan of 75 years which was the emphasising of
capital and intermediate products, agro-allied industry, petrochemical, which would
have given us a very serious developmental pyramid.
I suggest
we need a government that makes it its fundamental objective to govern in the
interest of the many and not the privileged and powerful few. This would mean challenging and taking on the
powerful interests that have ground our nation to a halt. But we need a process that compels our
government to take on these interests.
It would require an active imagination, which allows us to think outside
the box and contemplate the unthinkable.
I propose a process, which allows the powerful interests to render a
full and honest account of their crimes and receive amnesty on the basis that a
degree of restitution is made. The next
chapter grapples with the details of such a process one that needs to be free
of government manipulation and interference.
Whilst
this book presents this as a choice, a way forward, the reality is the Nigerian
situation is unsustainable it cannot go on as before and time is fast running
out for the present crop of leaders. I
have carefully considered the option of a truth and reconciliation process
because I want my nation to avoid a schism that would make that of Ghana a
kindergarten play, the process I offer remains the last hope for a peaceful
resolution of the peculiar mess we find ourselves in, the risk is to ignore it
and the peril that may follow. Please buy the book 'I found my voice' for more..
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