Achieving much with less resources: The Osun example....

Times are changing. Nigeria’s economy is in a shambles.

The Federal Government is also not left out of the conundrum.

The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had warned of impending gloom which today has become a sreality.

He had dreamt of a society in which all ethnic groups that make up Nigeria would be self-sustained through the development and control of its own natural resources. No state or region in Nigeria is without its own peculiar natural endowment.

We are all blessed in some way with our comparative advantage in natural and even human resources. So blessed are we that each of the constitutionally recognized 774 local government areas in Nigeria also has its own natural resource with which it can survive without an external help.


But over the time, we have failed to harness these God-given endowments.

We always speak about true federalism as a national symbol, but we have been romancing unitary system. Nigeria iss a de facto unitary enclave. Everything begins and ends in Abuja. The economic fate of every state in Nigeria is decided in the federal capital.

We can get out of the woods if we are ready to be real and honest with ourselves and stop living in fake realities. We still seem to live in the old past when allocations from Abuja was more than enough to take care of the needs as states or as local government areas.

We still want our wards to join the already over-bloated civil services of the federal, states and local government areas even though those already engaged are really not getting paid as and when due, due to dwindling resources.

We still go to work from 8:00 in the morning and close by 4:00 in the afternoon without really earning our pay for that day. We chat and tweet verbally and electronically. We still lack that moral honesty to ask ourselves whether we have worked conscientiously for that money we expect to be paid by federal, state or local governments at the end of the month. Yet, we blame our government for not providing enough for us when we, in our own little ways, have refused to create that wealth from which we expect to reap.

We have refused to be resourceful, thinking in our subconscious reasoning that the government is still there to take care of our needs.

We still consume foreign foods which the unavailable foreign exchange can no more provide, neglecting our local staples. Indeed, what used to be an exception in our food and social consumptions are now our regulars: foreign rice, foreign teas and beverages, foreign automobiles, foreign wears and clothing as well as even foreign habits when we have been told that no nation develops if it does not develop the habit of self-sustenance.
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