There is a point a lot of persons miss when they comment on Nigeria. The country called Nigeria has never made one real progress on any front since 1914. It has always been tales and rehearsals of running round a certain circle. The reason for this is not hard to decipher if you have the cognitive content to see beyond what is written in newspapers and shared on social media. Nothing ever functions beyond the intent and imaginations of the original designer. It is for this reason that no one flies in a bicycle, no one crosses an ocean using a Range Rover Sports, no one makes a phone call through a manual typewriter, you cannot send a BBM message from an old Nokia 3310 just as you cannot employ the golf club on a football pitch.

The message is simple: anyone and everyone who creates anything has something, a particular function, a need that product or design is structured and equipped to meet. That is why you see product designers and innovators spend endless hours working on a particular feature of a product, making sure it comes out really nice and functionally accurate. Ask those who work in Nokia, Samsung, Apple and automobiles. Product design is a serious business that needs the most intelligent and creative minds.

Fundamentally, every country is like a product. The founding fathers go out of their way to craft the kind of country they want to live in and ultimately- the kind of space they want those coming after them to inherit. They sit down for years, to look at options, imagine scenarios and outcomes and put in measures to counter every eventuality. They talk about infrastructure, human rights and obligations of citizenship. They want to build a country that respect the rights of her citizens, they don’t want to leave their would-be nation at the mercy of scavengers and carpetbaggers. They leave nothing to chance. They also factor in leadership and qualifications of leadership in their considerations. They want to make sure that persons who aspire to leadership meet certain basic qualifications. Whatever they imagine, they draft into a document which is made available to the public. The intelligent men and women who “designed” all the countries that have become models of excellence thought much about everything and anything. That is why hundreds of years later, you can still hear US make reference to “the dreams of our founding fathers,” our founding documents and so on.

So situate my point above with the scenario you find in Nigeria. What kind of “product” was Nigeria “designed” to be? Who are her founding fathers, what are their visions? What dominant issues did they imagine would be in contention a few years from when the country starts running? Did they create or leave any user manual? Where there spare parts to take care of damages? I will answer.

Nigeria was formed by the British as a space for the evacuation of British commodities and wastes. In essence, those who crafted Nigeria had a dumpsite in mind. That is why no real work went into its design and formation. You cannot give serious thoughts to electricity and human rights when creating a dumpsite as an architect. Matters of leadership can certainly not feature when you are creating what is more like a toilet. All you care about is making sure the space is large enough to accommodate all the wastes that can be generated in the town by individual households and factories.

Nigeria is about the most fraudulent and criminal enterprise on earth. Everything about the country from leadership to history is false. It is possible today to hear school teachers tell you that characters like Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo and co are founding fathers of Nigeria. Pray, what is their role in the founding of Nigeria? Can anyone tell me where they were in 1914 when the amalgamation was proclaimed? Where were they when the territories were crafted and European leaders appointed and imposed on the people? What was their inputs in matters such as taxation, urban planning, agriculture and rural development, education and infrastructure?

So if they played no roles in these regards, how then can they be called founding fathers? I have been searching long and hard, can anyone point to any book written by Tafawa Balewa or Ahmadu Bello where they outlined their vision for Nigeria and their individual leadership missions? Can anyone point to a nationalistic motivation of say- Obafemi Awolowo? Did Nnamdi Azikiwe demonstrate the grit and gumption needed to stand the ground and not flinch when the going gets tough? What was Zik’s ideas on conflict resolution, dealing with impossible situations and managing subordinates? So how then can someone be called a leader when there are obvious gaps in his approach and style to managing people and events?

So my dear, the reality many try to deny or ignore is that Nigeria is just the way it was meant to be. It was imagined and designed as a hopeless space where no real progress can be made. Is it any wonder that the country has not overcome one problem since founding in 1914? Ethnicity is still a crippling issue all over Nigeria causing the death of tens of thousands every year, tribalism was elevated to a top game under the leadership of certificateless and cognitively challenged Muhammadu Buhari. Unemployment crises worsens every year with millions roaming the streets idle, merit gets no mention in consideration for serious jobs and you find all over the place- square pegs in round holes.

Most importantly, a nation that has continually been run by murderers and killers in over 50 years cannot in all honesty be expected to grow much less develop. Since July 1966, the only qualification for leadership has been active participation in the ethnic cleansing of the Igbos. You are promoted on the basis of number of brutal deaths attributable to you. Characters like Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Muhammed, Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha and others all rose to their respective military positions and ultimately, the commanding heights of power in Nigeria because they caused the death and murder of thousands of Igbo officers and soldiers and superintended the death of over 12 million infants, aged men and women in Biafra.

Nothing in their profile prepared them for leadership. No serious company in the world would allow say a Muhammadu Buhari to sit in a decision making desk, much less as CEO, the best a Sani Abacha could have hoped for was a gatekeeper in a structured factory. An Olusegun Obansanjo could not have been any more than a roadside mechanic and yet- these were the characters that found themselves running and managing the affairs of Nigeria.

Nigeria is also hobbled by a dishonest elite- men and women whose only motivation is their stomach. In 2015 during the general elections, characters like Profs Wole Soyinka, Charles Soludo, Patrick Utomi, Tam David West and so many others- seeking to be appointed into cabinet positions in Abuja threw their weight behind a certain Muhammadu Buhari who could not provide as little as secondary school certificate. How on earth would a country grow on the wings of self-seeking elites who would support the worst candidate over all other aspirants?

The country too also has since the return of democracy in 1999 become a heaven for criminally minded politicians. Do you imagine that any serious government would have a Rotimi Amechi, a Raji Fashola and other discredited individuals as ministers? These are men who have serially failed in previous offices but a vindictive president brought them in to spit those who opposed him. So are you really expecting a Raji Fashola who knows nothing about electricity beyond turning off sockets to deliver in the power industry? Only a fool could have so-hoped. In less than two years, the minimal gain made in the electricity sector in the past few years have been speedily reversed. Today, we are back to long hours of blackouts and the irony of rising electricity bills for power not supplied. You see that Nigeria is indeed a criminal enterprise where her many billionaires and trillionaires cannot point to one productive means of livelihood.

To conclude my dear friend, Nigeria cannot expect 18 hours of power supply any time soon because as a country, such plans never featured in the designs of the patent holders. With a hypocrital Muhammadu Buhari at the centre driving national policies and programs, the likely scenario is 24 hours of darkness.

Dodoh Okafor, https://www.quora.com/When-will-Nigerians-receive-up-to-18-hours-of-power/answer/Dodoh-Okafor

Nigeria my country

Anyone living in Osun kindly answer his question esp , Ede people

Simple and succinct! Nigeria was not designed to ever be a success story. Until the roots are visited and disentangled and then consciously reworked, it remains all motion without movement, marking time while stuck in a rut!

What do you suggest? You are too ethnocentric.

Probably 1000 years to come...

When the rocket scientist leaves office