Does Nigeria matter?

As an alumnus of this illustrious university, I consider it a great privilege to be invited to address this esteemed body. I am particularly humbled by this opportunity, as it is the third time since my graduation in 1976 that you have graciously asked me to be guest lecturer at our Annual General Meeting, (AGM).
I have decided to take as my theme for today, the question: “Does Nigeria Matter?” I was inspired to speak to this subject for a variety of reasons. First, there are many centrifugal forces challenging the existence of the Nigerian State in varying degrees of gravity. Many of these forces are rooted in our recent history and they can be viewed from economic, political, social and national security prisms. Every now and again these forces ebb and flow, appearing and receding like the tidal waves of the ocean – pushing the country to a tipping point whenever they charge forward with ferocious intensity. There should not be much disagreement that today we stand at one of those pivotal moments when the nation is severely challenged by these forces.
Secondly, given the constellation of cool rational heads residing in ivory towers, the Ahmadu Bello University is a pre-eminent platform where such a burning issue can be subjected to rigorous analysis and a fair and balanced judgment. Therefore regard me, if you will, as the “agent provocateur” whose role is to light up the fire and trigger a conversation; recognizing that as one of the shining beacons of academic excellence, you will, if you may, shape and mold the national debate in ways that enlighten all of us and in a manner that makes us more sober, contemplative and reflective in dealing with such a delicate question which carries huge ramifications for our national destiny.
Evolution of Nigeria as a Nation State
Speaking of Nigeria as a nation, we should ask ourselves whether such a concept applies to us as we are composed today or is it a fallacious misapplication of terms to consider Nigeria as a nation? To address this question, we must look through the lenses of history and examine the process of state formation in our part of Africa, to determine whether indeed a historical process of nationhood has been interrupted or enhanced by the imposition of the colonial system, and the subsequent transition to independence. According to social scientists, there are many theories about state formation and various definitions of what a state means. I do not propose to go into such a discourse since I shall assume that you are all familiar with this subject, suffice it to say that from Ibn Khaldun to Hegel, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, to modern scholars like Max Weber and Francis Fukuyama, various interpretations about the state and state formation have been proffered, and to some degree, while they all have succeeded in addressing some aspects of the phenomenon, they have however remained silent on others. The greatest drawback in most of the theories about state formation is the lack of proper contextualization about this process among people with no written records such as most of the Nigerian societies before the arrival of the colonial power, the British. In this respect, many of our achievements have been classified as outside the pale of history since none of it was written down for posterity, and as the bias of the outside world was more towards written records rather than other sources of history such as oral traditions and recollections of elders, the processes that attended the formation of the state system in this part of the world were deemed inconsequential at best, or primitive at worst, and therefore not worthy of the notice of serious historians. This perception has been corrected to some extent by the outstanding research of historians and anthropologists like Dr. Abdullahi Smith, Professor R. A. Adeleye, Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman, Dr. Mahmud Tukur, Professor Kyari Tijjani and Professor Ali Mazrui among many others.
Going beyond conjecture and polemics and standing us on firmer ground, it can be said that the modern state as it came into being can be traced to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 that ended the so-called Thirty Years War in Europe.
Following from that document, identifiable entities with clear boundaries, possession of coercive powers and capacity for enumeration of populations and taxation came into being, and became designated as states.
The British found in existence in most of the Northern part of the country, and to some extent in the Western part as well, clearly defined state structures with hereditary rulers in the form of Emirs, Kings and Obas, who controlled armies, conducted warfare, imposed taxes and meted out justice to offenders in accordance with the laws of their land.
The British incorporated this system which they called the Native Authority system into their form of administration, and perfected the model that they called “indirect rule” particularly in the Northern Emirates. The evolution of the various entities that comprise Nigeria today towards nationhood may not have been coordinated, synchronized or even planned, but the drive towards a semblance of states was indeed emerging with the consolidation of vast territories under the Fulani dynasties that were established across Northern Nigeria by the Jihad of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio. Likewise, the consolidation of the ancient kingdom of Kanem-Borno under the new El-Kanemi dynasty was a transformation and reformation of the moribund state into a more compact and cohesive entity under a new system of governance. The various Hausa States particularly the “Hausa Bakwai” or the Seven States, and those others in Central Nigeria such as the Nok Culture, the Jukun Kwararafa State, the Nupe and Igala Kingdoms, the Lamibe of Fombina, and even the decentralized states like the Tiv and Igbos in South Eastern Nigeria, all portend towards the evolution of distinct state and national structures that served the needs and purposes of their various constituent units.
This country encompasses two of the most precious resources – abundant water resources and over 80 million hectares of arable land. Expressed in economic terms, Nigeria has been amply equipped by Mother Nature to play to its comparative advantage, raise the quality of life of its citizens, create a resilient, prosperous and globally competitive economy and build a just and egalitarian society.
Unfortunately in the real world, you cannot depend on some magic wand or miracle to climb the ladder to success. Even a gifted child endowed by the Creator with a large and powerful brain has to do some hard work to convert his latent potential into a powerful success story.
The moral here is that natural resources, in and of themselves, cannot help you much unless you apply imagination, skills and wisdom in exploiting them to secure the future of your country.
Nigeria’s Scorecard
Just 56 years after her independence, Nigeria is still a country in the making with excellent prospects before her, but burdened by a mixed bag of successes and failures. On the positive side,   we emerged from the civil war a more united country where many others faced with similar challenges have since fragmented into smaller pieces.
After a long military interregnum, the nation has learned to settle down and accommodate a popular democratic form of government which is now nearing its 20th anniversary by 2019. This, in and of itself, is a very big deal. Another big deal is the current war being waged against corruption. Although in its infancy and therefore still work in progress, it is a monumental landmark project for a number of reasons. First, because corruption is a cancer that has been devouring the very fabric of our society and literally crushing us down to our knees. Second, the man behind this crusade, President Muhammadu Buhari, is known for his huge moral fibre and Spartan discipline. Third, if anybody doubts his grit and determination to pursue this war, they should read the President’s authorised biography by Professor John Paden which was launched recently in Abuja.
On other economic fronts, we have registered a string of victories since the mid-1980s. Through an orderly program of privatisation and commercialization, a large chunk of our public enterprises have been transferred to the private sector resulting, in many instances, in significantly improving performance levels, propelling expansion and diversification of these enterprises and making available to the public better quality products. Although spurred by high oil prices, it is fair to say that we posted significant economic growth for 12 years leading up to the beginning of 2015. GDP more than doubled with average year on year GDP growth rate surpassing 6% over this period.  The other noteworthy achievement is the ability of the Obasanjo administration to sanitize the country’s balance sheet by seeking a large unprecedented debt relief from the international club of creditors thus freeing us from the shackles of the IMF/World Bank bitter pills.
Relative to our struggle to move out of underdevelopment, Nigeria ranks 152 out of 188 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) with Niger Republic at the tail end. We have been hovering around this score for almost a decade. We are 124 out of 140 on the Global Competitiveness Index, sandwiched between the Gambia – a country of 2 million people – and Zimbabwe which has been in economic free fall for a considerable period of time. Legatum Prosperity Index ranks Nigeria 125 out of 142. This turns reason on its head when contrasted with HDI rankings where Niger Republic is 188 but ranks ahead of Nigeria at number 114 in Prosperity Index. The implication being that Niger Republic is better able to galvanise its lean resources to provide a reasonable measure of prosperity to its people.
Take a pause and compare Nigeria’s performance with some of our peers who were not any better than us at independence. I am talking of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea. Let us examine Malaysia as a case in point. Malaysia has posted one of the highest economic growth rates in Asia averaging 6.2% per annum real GDP growth since 1970. Thanks to a patriotic, dynamic and  progressive leadership coupled with a world class public service delivery system – Malaysia successfully transformed itself from an essentially agriculture – based economy in the 1970s to manufacturing in the mid-1980s and to modern services economy since the 1990s. Malaysia’s national per capita income increased from $400 in 1970 to almost $11,000 in 2014 and is expected to join the league of high income countries by 2020 when this figure is expected to exceed $15,000. Incidence of poverty has been reduced from 49% in 1970 to 0.6% now; approximately 76% of the population are home owners and over 96% have access to both potable water and electricity. Today it ranks 20th out of 144 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index. Based on these compelling statistics we can conclude that while Nigeria got quite a few things wrong, Malaysia got quite a few things right in their forward march to development.
To be continued next week
Hayatu-Deen is CEO, Alpine Investment Services Ltd, Lagos and delivered this paper at the 11th Annual General Meeting of the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Alumni Association at the Assembly Hall, ABU main campus, Zaria on October 14, 2016.