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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Redesigning Nigeria Beyond Oil By Gbenga Adebambo (970 Views)
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Redesigning Nigeria Beyond Oil By Gbenga Adebambo by montezz(f): 8:21pm On Sep 19, 2015 |
You can’t feature in a future that you can’t picture. The future
is not meant to be waited for, the future is what we design it to
be today! In the Ancient Greek mythology, the story was told of
how everything is achievable through adequate preparation.
There was a boy who wished to be strong when he grew up, so
strong that he would be able to lift a fully-grown bull. In order
to realize his ambition, he started to train by lifting a bull calf
daily from the day that it was born. Each day, he would lift the
calf onto his shoulders and carry it on the same defined circuit.
As the bull calf grew, so did his strength, until the day arrived
when the bull was fully-grown and the boy had become a man.
The man lifted the bull onto his shoulders and carried it round
the circuit as he had done everyday previously. The spectators
were fully amazed at his strength but not the man or the bull; to
them it was a daily routine that had become a part of them!
That is the power of preparation; it makes herculean tasks look
casual.
‘’Proper preparation prevents poor performance.’’ –Charlie
Batch.
Malaysia and Nigeria gained independence virtually around the
same time but while Malaysia has evolved over time to become
a robust economy, Nigeria has consistently struggled with the
load of corruption and consequences of a mono-cultural
economy that depends solely on crude oil. Nigeria emerged in
the first decade of her independence as a leading exporter of
many major agricultural commodities. Agriculture was the
pride of the nation as we became leading exporters of palm
kernel, and the largest producer and exporter of palm oil. We
‘dominated’ the world also as the second largest producer of
cocoa in the world. Nigeria was the cynosure of all eyes as a big
player and contender in the agricultural industry and even the
evolution of Malaysia as one of the world’s largest producer of
palm oil has its origin in Nigeria. Malaysia, a country Nigeria
gave palm oil seedlings and expertise to, has overtaken Nigeria
in the production of palm oil! Nigeria has lost its place among
agricultural exporters; her might in agriculture has sunk into
fading oblivion. It is poignant that the groundnut pyramids in
the North has become a myth to the present generation; but the
basic truth is that the situation is still redeemable if we go back
to the drawing board to redesign and diversify the economy
towards maximizing the potentials in agriculture and other
sectors. Every time we refuse to plan and prepare, destiny is
delayed. The 21st Nigerian economic summit will be coming up
between October 13th-15th at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja. The
theme of this year’s summit: ‘TOUGH CHOICES: Achieving
competitiveness, inclusive growth and sustainability’. An advert
on the summit in the Guardian newspaper carried a rhetoric
question worth pondering on: Once upon a time, our groundnut
pyramids towered to the skies. What happened? Let’s get back
on track!
‘’By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’’ –Benjamin
franklin.
Malaysia gained independence on the 31st of August, 1957 from
the United Kingdom. On the 31st of August 1963, the British
territories in North Borneo and Singapore were granted
independence and formed Malaya (Now Malaysia) but it wasn’t
until 16 September 1963 that Malaysia fully became a sovereign
nation. After many years of war, corruption and stark poverty,
the Malaysian government embarked upon a critical redesigning
to reduce Malaysia’s dependence on commodity exports (mainly
rubber and tin), which put the country at the mercy of
fluctuating prices. The government was also aware that demand
for natural rubber was bound to fall as the production and use
of synthetic rubber expanded. The Malaysian government was
able to see beyond the proceeds from rubber and developed
alternative sources of employment. Today, the capital city of
Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur holds the tallest building in South-East
Asia (Petronas Twin Towers) and has become one of the most
industrialized cities and fastest-growing metropolitan regions in
Southeast Asia and also serves as a beehive of tourist
attractions.
Malaysia and Indonesia have evolved over time to become the
largest producers of palm oil in the world. Malaysia, a country
that was solely depending on revenues from rubber and tin
metamorphosed into a giant in the palm oil industry under the
Malaysian government’s agricultural diversification programme
in the early 1960’s. Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Columbia, and Ecuador have already perfected their
diversification initiatives and are already moving towards
stabilizing their economies. Since the 1960s, the Malaysian
government policies have moved from import substitution
initiatives to export-oriented diversification detailed in the
industrial Malaysian plan. The Malaysian story has validated
that it is impossible to enter a future that we never prepared
for.
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for” –
Anonymous.
Malaysia targeted the year 2020 to achieve its vison 2020(a goal
about reaching ‘developed nation’ status). The economic
revolution in Malaysia and Indonesia stemmed from their great
investment in diversifying their economy. Apart from the
agricultural sector, tourism also plays an important role in the
evolution of the modern Malaysian economy. Kuala Lumpur is
the sixth most visited city in the world, with 8.9 million tourists
per year. Fourteen companies that were listed in Forbes 2000 are
based in Kuala Lumpur. We need leaders, policies and initiatives
that will awaken our latent potentials in agriculture and other
sectors of the economy. We need to set realistic and well-defined
goals that will take us beyond our limiting beliefs. We must
learn from the Malaysian story and maximize the opportunities
in other sectors of the economy, especially the agricultural
sector. In his paper titled: Palm Oil and Economic Development
in Nigeria and Ghana; Recommendations for the World Bank’s
2010 Palm oil Strategy, Dr. Matthew O. Eshalomi, the Chairman,
Vegetable and Edible Oil Section, Manufacturers’ Association of
Nigeria, made a concrete recommendation to the World Bank to
invest subsequently in Palm oil as a highly effective tool of
poverty reduction and economic diversification.
‘’You have a goldmine when you have a goal mind.’’ –
Anonymous
President Muhammadu Buhari has severally reaffirmed his
administration’s commitment to the diversification of the
country’s economy. The downturn in the international price of
crude oil is gradually validating the fact that any country that
puts its survival on the oil sector is marked out for ‘economic
suicide’. Every sustainable economy, institution or business is
traceable to the level of its preparation. Poor planning and
preparation are sure ways to the downfall of any economy. We
must rearrange our priorities because to change your life, you
need to change your priorities. We have to be resolute and firm
in our shift towards diversifying the economy.
‘’The eyes are useless when the mind is blind.’’ –Anonymous
We must open our minds to the listless potentials that abound
around us. The drift of the Nigerian economy to total
dependence on the oil sector has polluted our priorities and
blinded us to several opportunities that can be afforded in the
Nigerian economy. Our overdependence on the oil fortune has
placed the destiny of the nation in the hands of infidels and
corrupt-minded Nigerians. When Chief Obafemi Awolowo and
Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa (both of blessed memory)
suggested the idea of Nigeria opting out of OPEC, in order to
massively pump out crude oil and use the immediate proceeds to
develop national infrastructures and then go back to diversifying
the economy with major focus on agriculture, so many people
thought they were men of wild and erratic imaginations. The
present state of Nigeria has actually vindicated their school of
thought because the proceeds from the Nigerian oil have
actually been used in
‘lubricating’ classical corruption and impunity in the present
Nigeria.
‘’Change will not come if we wait for some other person or
sometime. We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. We are the
change that we seek.’’ –Barack Obama
We need a major shift from our ‘destructive’ preference for
imported goods at the detriment of our local contents. The
alarming high rise in our demand for foreign goods can be
serviced locally. On Thursday, 10th September 2015, members of
the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress
(TUC) held a rally on good governance and corruption in Abuja.
One of the placards displayed carried the inscription: NIGERIA:
PRODUCE WHAT WE CONSUME, CONSUME WHAT WE PRODUCE!
We need an attitudinal overhaul towards our ‘foreign taste’ at
the detriment of our local contents.
I am encouraging the Nigerian youths to fully participate in the
evolution of a new Nigeria under the leadership of President
Muhammadu Buhari. The youths are indispensable to this
dispensation; Nigeria is blessed with multi-talented youths and
we must harness our potentials, ideas, innovations and man-
power towards evolving the Nigeria of our dreams. Let us
embrace the philosophy of diversification. Let us put the might
of technology into agriculture. We must evolve a modern way of
practising agriculture, so that it can be more mechanized,
productive and attractive to the Nigerian youths. We must
evolve a new way to resuscitate the agricultural sector. Let us
explore tourism, I.C.T sector, the entertainment industry,
fashion and cosmetic industry,textile industry, art and crafts,
and our indigenous telecommunication industry in advancing
our economy beyond average. They call us the giant of Africa; it
is high time we put our name to the test!
‘’You can suffer the pain of change or suffer the pain of
remaining the way you are.’’ –Joyce Meyer
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/09/redesigning-nigeria-beyond-oil/ |
Re: Redesigning Nigeria Beyond Oil By Gbenga Adebambo by huntila(m): 8:38pm On Sep 19, 2015 |
We just have to diversify. Look at other options. |
Re: Redesigning Nigeria Beyond Oil By Gbenga Adebambo by BishopMagic: 8:41pm On Sep 19, 2015 |
BishopMagic: |
Re: Redesigning Nigeria Beyond Oil By Gbenga Adebambo by BishopMagic: 8:42pm On Sep 19, 2015 |
BishopMagic: 1 Like |
(1) (Reply)
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