Happy New Year Friends. I am starting this year with a message to my countrymen Nigerians. Today I choose to celebrate Nigeria. I’m tired and fed up of all the evil reports. While I don’t deny all the issues and failures of our nation and in particular of our leaders, I want to intentionally move away from all the stories of woes and point my countrymen to the other side of the coin.
There is always another side to any story as with any coin. So in Nigeria’s story there is also the other side that we hardly hear about.
In this article I’m using 60 years as an approximate age for Nigeria.
- Ever heard that Nigeria can’t produce anything even ordinary pencil? Stop speaking down on your country. Nigeria produces; automobiles, trucks, cars, copters, military wares, ships, pharmaceutical goods, agric machinery etc. How many countries have done this after only 60 years of independence?
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At independence we had only one university. The University of Ibadan. Today, we have 170 Universities, 105 Polytechnics and about 100 Colleges of Education. Compare that with what’s obtainable in other countries with similar fundamentals.
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At independence our colonial masters only left us with 200 qualified medical doctors in the whole country. Today Unilag alone produces 250 doctors per annum. Nationwide Nigeria produces 12.000 doctors annually. ANPA – Association of Nigerian Physicians in Northern America, New York branch has 5000 Nigerian Doctors and Medical Professionals. 2nd highest ethnic group of Physicians in the United States and UK after India. Would you say that’s of no essence intellectual development, bearing in mind where we are coming from? Yes, they move abroad for greener pastures but this too shall pass, it’s a stage most countries pass through in their history.
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Thirty years ago, Lekki Peninsula was a mangrove, including Ibeju Lekki that now houses the Dangote refinery, which is said to be the largest single-train refinery in the whole world. Today, that whole axis ranks among the fastest developing estates in the world.
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When the British colonisers left our shores there was not a single Nigerian Pilot 60 years ago. We are still not where we need to be, but Nigeria doesn’t need to import all her pilots as was the case a few decades ago. Today, we have female Nigerian Pilots flying planes with international airlines.
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In sports we were not represented before independence. Now, Tobi Amusan and others before her have put us on the world map in athletics. In soccer our feats especially in junior football is unmatched and unparalleled in the history of the sport. The first African Nation to participate and win a junior world Cup. We’ve won it five times, becoming runners up three times, the only country to come close to us is Brazil with four titles and two runners-up. We have even won 27 Olympics medals, Gold medals in Football, Sprint and High Jump.
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Too many people glorify our past as if we were doing better than now. In reality it’s not anything close to the truth. All the so called cotton, groundnut pyramids, cocoa, timber etc gave us only about $4 billion GDP as at 1960, today it’s over $500 billion.
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Within 60 years of corporate existence, we’ve produced a Nobel Prize Winner, A Pulitzer Award Winner, and other professional leaders of global repute.
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Nigeria now has five satellites in space. In 60 years we now do Renal Surgery, IVR, organ transplant, and some good scientific breakthroughs. Could we have done better, yes of course and we should do better. But the point of this write up is that we often don’t even acknowledge what we have. To go higher we must take inventory of who we are and where we are. If we don’t know what we have we can’t be able to improve on it.
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At the time of independence more Nigerians were dying than alive. Poor hygiene has now reduced to the extent that polio and cholera had been eradicated. This had dropped the number of children per woman from an average of eight in 1960 to three to four in 2019. Infant mortality dropped from about 300/1000 to 100/1000 in 2021.
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Nigeria contributes about 5 per cent of global fossil fuel. This had earned billions of dollars, though not properly managed but had kept our finances as a nation going, helping us to experience the level of growth other nations couldn’t boast of.
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We had fought the civil war and recovered, 20 regime changes, we had survived about five military regimes we now have 20 years of uninterrupted democracy. Let’s compare this our instability with that of some countries in Europe, Italy has had about 50 regime changes in the same period. Some other nations didn’t even have the privilege of regime change because of the overbearing of dictators who won’t leave office until death do them apart.
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Most of us reading this post are living in a “Cement Building” want to know how houses were built 60 years ago? Pay a visit to your granny’s building in the “village”. Yes, we are not where we need to be but we have moved a long way from where we used to be. Progress is not always in a leap but in gradual advancement.
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The Sardauna of Sokoto, late Ahmadu Bello once complained that the entire Northern Nigeria had less than 10 graduates as at independence. Today the university named after him yearly produces about 10,000 graduates.
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Today we don’t often hear of cases of human sacrifice by the authorities of the land. Yes we unfortunately still suffer in the hands of kidnappers and money ritualists. However in 1960, the Oba, Igwe or Emir of your village was a god! They even have power of life and death. Today you can even take him to court if he infringes on your rights. Let me tell you it’s far from where we were.
18. Almost two million Nigerians write JAMB per year. That’s two million people that can at least read compare to 90 per cent of Nigerians that could not even read and write as of 1960, today we still have illiterates but not close to what we used to have.
- How many military generals did we have 60 years ago? How many naval Admirals? How many air force commanders? How many professors? How many Vice Chancellors, How many military bases, Banks? Bank directors and managers? SME directors, music producers, world class singers and composers, authors, engineers, architects, business men and women? At independence all we had then were itinerant subsistence farmers and the elites were the village teachers.
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The entire south west Nigeria had only one TV and one radio station as at 1960. Today, we have over 200 functional private radio and TV stations in Nigeria.
. Adelaja is a Nigeria born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He was based in Kiev, Ukraine.