Founder of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, on Monday identified the development of human capital as a major tool to re-engineer and reposition the social, economic and political landscapes of the country for unprecedented growth and development.
Bakare who stated this while delivering the 10th anniversary lecture of Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin in Ondo State, with the titled: “Nigeria beyond 2023: reversing the human capital paradox” said, “to build Nigeria nation, we must first build Nigeria people.”
He noted that Nigeria had failed to give the adequate and necessary attention to human capital development and said this could be linked to her poor economic growth rates, saying the nation will continue to be at crossroads until a new breed of leaders without greed and radical opposition to corruption are prepared to serve.
Bakare maintained that there is need to reverse Nigeria’s human capital paradox through a compelling national vision for all-round development, lamenting over the poor performance of the country in terms of education, life expectancy and income per capita.
“More than 90 million Nigerians experience multidimensional poverty making Nigeria second only to India. 33.8% of Nigerians are deprived of adequate nutrition, 45.5% lack access to fuel for food preparation and 36%are deprived of sanitation systems.
“25.3% have no access to clean drinking water and 32.8% have no access to quality housing. About 10.5 million Nigerian children are out of school, the highest number in the world; 85 million Nigerians lack access to grid electricity,” he said.
He said “Human capital development begins at the level of the individual and brings to the fore the skills, competencies, training, and experience of the individual. It is the idea that the individual’s investment in capacity building can bring economic returns to the individual in the short-to long-term.”
He however said a new Nigeria is possible, adding that “a New Nigeria is a nation where no one goes to bed hungry and no child is left out of school without access to quality education; where our homes, schools, streets, villages, highways and cities are safe and secure.
“A new Nigeria where Nigerians can work, play or travel with their minds at rest, and go to
bed with their hearts at peace; a Nigeria where our hospitals are life-saving institutions and every Nigerian has access to good quality healthcare; where no youth is unemployed and our young men and women are job creators.
“A Nigeria where businesses thrive on innovation and made-in-Nigeria can compete anywhere in the global market; where homes and businesses have access to clean and uninterrupted power supply and ideas are facilitated by functional infrastructure and cutting edge technology.”
He said the large human capital available in the nation does not commensurate with the level of development in the country, blaming them on leadership, education, healthcare and labour paradoxes.
Bakare, who was a Vice Presidential candidate of defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011, advocated for a compelling national vision, leadership recruitment, National Human Capital Database (NHCD) to change the ugly trend.
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He added that global education philosophy, industry-academia linkage, systemic approach to healthcare delivery and diaspora for development agreements would adequately reverse the human capital paradox.
He said: “I have come today as forerunner to re-ignite and refuel your hope and to enlist you as forerunners of the new Nigeria who are prepared to pay the price to lay a new foundation for a new nation under God.
“I am confident that by the grace of God and the determination of the Nigerian people, Nigeria will be saved, Nigeria will be changed, and Nigeria will be great in my lifetime,” he said.
Speaking on his plan for 2023, Bakare said “My plan for 2023 is to contribute my quota in a very meaningful way with the support of Number 15 to become Number 16 President of Nigeria.
“In 2018, I wrote a book titled the woman who saw the future from valuable lessons my mother told me. In that book, I wrote that from Tafawa Balewa to the current president there are only 15 people who had led this nation.
“I have been destined to have a role to play when it gets to 16th and I knew that since April 1967 and it’s not going to be only me, you’re all going to be involved. We will Change this nation.”
and then