Nigeria, Poised To Reclaim Past Glory?

A country with diverse cultures, traditions and interests, more than 140 million people, an oil rich giant with a land mass of approximately 923,773 sq km, Nigeria is indeed endowed with human and natural resources.

After gaining independence in 1960, the country with a complexity of different administrations of both military and civilian, has had her fair share of wars, riots, ethnic and religious rivalry.

Although a creation of European ambition, 51 years after, the country has yet to get to the peak of her potential.

Issues of insecurity, unemployment and lack of power, lack of faith in the health and education sectors still plague the nation.

However, on the heels of its 51st Independence anniversary, many are agitating for the sleeping giant to be roused from its sleep and reclaim its former glory.

For the Presidential Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Sen. Joy Emordi there is every reason to be thankful to God for attaining this age, though not yet perfect, Nigeria has tried to develop in spite of all odds.

“There is no way you can have a perfect situation in anything so I must say that Nigeria has tried to develop given the challenges of multi-ethnicity, multi-religion.

“She was able to harmonise all these things to make the stride even though we may feel that we’ve not developed as much as we think we could have done.’’

She attributed the non perfection to the incessant coups that robbed the country of many years of development.

“It did a lot in trying to stunt our rate of development vis-à-vis other African countries or even other countries of the world like Malaysia that we started at the same time with, but it didn’t have as many coups like we had.’’

Emordi said the coups were responsible for the lack of focus because “before then development in agriculture and solid minerals were fast, but when we started having incessant coups, it dis-organised a lot of things.

“The polity was so dis-organised that we just started picking bits and pieces but I thank God that we now have what I can call consistent democracy unlike what it was.’’

Emordi said that focus should be diverted from the oil sector to other sectors like agriculture to provide for the teeming populace and also create employment for the youth.

She added that the agricultural sector if properly developed would not only create staple food for the country but would also encourage foreign investors and provide other means of revenue generation through trade and investment.

According to her, the nation has a lot of potentials, President Goodluck Jonathan should identify them and tap into them for the development of the nation.

On the issue of constitution amendment, she said it’s a long and tortuous one, but is already in the review process.

She said emphasis would be placed on state creation because of equity.

“If we are talking about equity there is need to have maybe equality of states in a zone, a situation whereby we have some with seven, some five there is still need for us to push up the zones with less number of states.’’

Emordi, however, described the thriving peaceful relationship between the legislative and executive arms of government as harmonious.

“That’s exactly what my ambition here is, my mission and vision is to build a strong harmonious relationship between the executive and the legislature based on love for Nigeria, patriotism, respect and trust.’’

She said the relationship was capable of fostering faster development “instead of spending most of the time quarrelling which will delay consideration of bills and assent to bills because it is only when you have a peaceful atmosphere between the two that the nation will be able to develop”.

Emordi appealed to all Nigerians to be prayerful saying “all these people that are bombing people, we have to continue praying for them to have a change of mind. It’s only through peace that we can achieve something in this country, we can’t achieve anything through violence.

Some other Nigerians, however, believe that despite all the problems trailing the nation’s democracy, someday the country will achieve her goal.

Tolu Adelakin, a youth corps member, said: “I think this is just a trying time for Nigeria, I know a time will come when Nigeria will be better because Nigeria of today cannot be compared to four years ago, the will of the people has started to manifest, but we really want them to do more.

“Look at the elections of times past, we could really tell that the people’s will was not carried out, but in the last elections we saw that there was a bit of revolution in Nigeria where the masses stood up and said this is what we want.

“ I know that time will come when it will be the people’s will that will be done.’’

Veronica Chukwu, a civil servant, said these are “trying moments for Nigeria and we believe that with God all things are possible, so if we keep praying, and trying our best, humanely and economically we will be able to put ourselves together and organise ourselves, to achieve what Nigeria is meant to achieve.

“I don’t think we should give up despite the fact that so many problems are coming. I believe that we are not losing hope, I personally I’m not losing hope because I believe that God made Nigeria for a purpose and we are really going to get there”.

After 51 years, Nigerians believe the country is poised to reclaim the past glory.

Folarin writes for News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

Folasade Folarin