Nigeria and Independence--- At 56.
Time for the re-framing of her consciousness.
1st of all, let’s go over what we know about Nigeria.
You may already know that Nigeria is the largest black nation in the world and the most populous nation in Africa.
You may already know that Nigeria has great dependency on crude oil
Mainstream Western media believes that we are mostly a nation of scammers, drug dealers & a den of corruption.
The facts state otherwise…
5 IRREFUTABLE FACTS ABOUT US
1. The first television station in Africa was NTA Ibadan (1960) long before Ireland has their RTE station.
2. 60% of Nigerians in the US have college degrees. This is far above the American national average of 30%.
3. The designer of the famous car, Chevrolet Volt, Jelani Aliyu, is a super talented Nigerian from Sokoto State.
4. The World’s fastest supercomputer was designed by a world renowned inventor and scientist, Philip Emeagwali, a full- Blooded Nigerian whose patent was awarded in 2015. This means Nigeria has the patent to the world’s fastest computer: by a Black man and proudly Nigerian.
5. Before there were street lights in European cities, ancient Benin kingdom had street lights fueled by palm oil.
There is so much to be proud of our heritage. We have a verifiable track record of greatness. Our issue is that of good governance and management of our resources.
Which brings us to the main theme of this piece. We need to understand that our most valuable resource is not our oil; it is our people. All of our people.
We should seize the current opportunity to innovate and revitalize our economy. We should focus on growing our economy to diversify and encourage our investing in human capital development to produce the entrepreneurs, inventors and workers of the future. In other words, do what Singapore did, focus on restructuring our educational system for the growth of the ENTIRE nation.
As we can see our people blossom in countries where there is structure.
There needs to be major reform in our education and above all our mindsets. We need to empower our people to unleash their creative and productive energies to set up vigorous businesses which in turn leads to the creation of jobs which enables circulation of money across the economy.
Yes, we need radical reform to do away with bureaucracies and facilitate innovation relentlessly. We also accountable processes that ensure that public money gets us great infrastructure, education that our children deserve and healthcare.
The truth is THAT WE ALREADY HAVE WHAT WE NEED, WE DON’T HAVE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX, WE NEED TO WORK INWARDS.