A renown critic, Dr Junaid Muhammed, has said that Nigeria’s attainment of 59 years of independence is nothing remarkable because over 80 per cent of its population is still living below poverty line.
This is just as Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, a former special adviser on National Assembly Matters to former president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, said it was a pity that though the country got independence 59 years ago, the country and its citizens are still striving to survive economically.
Speaking with Sunday Tribune on Saturday by phone, Dr Muhammed said, considering all available indices of development, the country has not done well at all.
According to him, “you do not assess a country by the huge amount of money it is getting from a single commodity (oil), but you assess a country on how it has done in a holistic development.”
He added that “the economy had been poorly managed, but even if with best management, you cannot have about 200 million people solely dependent on only one commodity.
“The country needs to diversify its economy and must pave the way for an enabling environment for people to participate in seeing the economy grow by providing job opportunities for people, especially the youths.”
He, however, added that for the economy to grow, insecurity in the North-West, North-East and North-Central as well as cases of unrest in the Niger Delta have to be addressed.
He noted that the country should then give itself a period of another 10 years to tackle all myriad of problems affecting its development so that by the time the country attains 60 years of independence, it can now look back on whether those issues had been addressed and necessary adjustments made.
Speaking in the same vein, Alhaji Yakassai noted that when Nigeria is compared with other nations like Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and a others, one would conclude that “there is nothing to write home about in Nigeria as far as economic development is concerned.”
According to him, the country started a vehicle assembly plant at the same time with Brazil, but today, Brazil has graduated to the level of a vehicle parts manufacturer.
“Brazil is now into manufacturing of its own vehicles, building ships, planes and also manufacturing hardware, but we (Nigeria) have not done anything in that direction.
“We generate huge amount of money but it is pathetic that the citizens are poor. The country is getting huge revenue from oil, but it has been squandered by our leaders.
“You would find out that we have not achieved much though we have independence, had it been things had worked well, we should have been at the same level with Brazil, Singapore, Korea and Indonesia.
“In short, the country’s progress is nothing to write home about. By and large, military intervention in our political space has produced retrogressive effects,” he said.
A former governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, also expressed disappointment with the state of the country after 59 years of independence, saying “Nigeria is now a complex country where you don’t know where the next arrow is coming from.
“Disappointments about Nigeria and Africa are worse than I can think of… starting from the fact that we cannot even feed ourselves.in a vast land. Since we have land, if we have serious people that can cultivate and process crops, we will overcome the challenge,” he said.
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