Nigeria Content Online

We
live in an age of unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges.
East Asia has experienced spectacular growth, with China recording
quantum leaps by way of an annualised average of 15 percent growth over
the last two decades. India and Brazil have joined the club of newly
prosperous nations as have Malaysia and Indonesia. The digital
revolution has made the world ‘flat’, as Thomas Friedman tells us,
while discoveries in genetics and biotechnology are opening new
prospects in medicine and food production. The search for renewable
energy sources is gathering new momentum.

The particle
accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC) developed by European
scientists at CERN in Geneva holds immense promise for cheap, renewable
energy.

The prospects of supersonic flight based on green energy seem closer than ever before.

But we also face
new dangers and vulnerabilities. Climate change is no longer the stuff
of science fiction. The warming-up of our biosphere is altering
rainfall patterns, speeding up desertification and engendering
devastating natural catastrophes. ‘Failed states’ such as Somalia and
DRC remain a challenge to global governance even as the scourge of
poverty continues to afflict a billion people on our planet; nor could
we ignore the challenge of new pandemics and viral diseases that
recognise no national borders.

We also live in a
cruel and divided world. What Harvard professor Joseph Nye terms the
‘clash of civilisations’ has become one of the defining elements of our
age. Formerly harmonious societies are reaching breaking point.

There is widespread alienation and crises of identity. We in Nigeria can no longer take our nationhood for granted.

We also face a
global financial crisis that is worse than anything that has been
witnessed since the Great Depression. Financial markets lost an
astonishing US$14 trillion – equivalent to the annual GDP of the United
States – from their book balances. The major currencies have been in
turmoil, with many fearing that the Euro may be in its death throes
even as the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency comes
increasingly into question.

We in Africa have
not been immune to the crisis. The Nigerian capital markets, once
considered the most attractive in the world, have been badly hit.
Foreign investors have recalled more than US$15 billion of their
portfolio investments. The collapse of oil prices has led to a growing
fiscal crisis, even as our parliamentarians and the state/local
governments continue on a spending spree that borders on profligacy.
Our manufacturing sector has all but disappeared while the few
remaining industries are relocating to our neighbouring countries in
droves. Our policy choices have wiped off the life-chances of millions
of teeming youths, many of whom have taken refuge in hustling, armed
robbery and prostitution. All the symptoms of social decay are there –
kidnapping, criminality, cultism,

ethno-religious
killings and the retreat into primordial cocoons. Amid all this chaos,
our leaders are engaged in a vacuous debate on ‘zoning’. None of the
pretenders to the presidency has put forward one single idea on how to
make our country go forward, which is what truly matters to most
Nigerians.

Four priorities, in my opinion, would be crucial in the coming year.

First, we must
speedily conclude the arrangements for the conduct of free and fair
elections, on which depends the future of our democracy. Updating the
electoral register is crucial. I would strongly recommend that we
borrow the Indian model where IT has been used to ensure successful
voting by over 670 million voters.

New laws need to be put in place to prosecute vote-rigging and any form of bribery aimed at changing electoral outcomes.

Second, we must
take bold steps to exorcise the demons of crime which have made ours a
byword among the nations. Crime is not in our genes. Some of us are old
enough to remember when our country was not like this.

Third, we need
extraordinary measures to revamp our parlous infrastructures,
particularly power. While there have been some modest improvements, we
are still a long haul from the minimum international standards for
civilized nations. Massive investment in the sector should be linked to
wide-ranging reforms and more severe laws against vandalisation.

Fourth, we must
speedily ensure structural diversification of the economy. We have to
think the unthinkable. We would be fools to stake all our future on
oil. Structural diversification entails looking at sectors such as
solid minerals, agro-allied industries and biofuels. Improving the
business climate is imperative, in addition to enhancing private
sector-led growth, strengthening public institutions, tackling
corruption and ensuring financial deepening.

Industrialisation linked to agriculture is key to rebuilding our economy and creating jobs for millions of our people.

The mass of
evidence from economic literature shows that an open, competitive
economy is the best way to ensure accelerated transformation while
hooking on to the digital world economy. Promoting inward investments,
particularly to the non-oil sector, is vital. We must reposition our
country to grab a large chunk of the estimated US$1.7 trillion of
global capital flows. Many are saying that Africa and its 900 million
market is the next global frontier. No country, in my opinion, is
better placed than ours to lead this renaissance and rejuvenation of
our continent.

(Summary of a Presentation at the Breakfast Talk Series at Abuja Investments Ltd, Abuja, Thursday 22 July, 2010).