Yahaya T. Baba
Nigeria’s 60th Anniversary suggests an important milestone in the country’s drive to nationhood and its quest for sustainable development.
The continued existence of Nigeria as a single political entity in spite of its complexity is a thing of great joy that is worth celebrating. This suggests that the Nigerian state survives many turbulent times in its sixty years of existence as a country.
As a post-colonial state, the inherent and self-inflicted crisis that besiege the country undermines its drive for a strong, united and prosperous nation.
For one, the task of nation-building was hardly correctly conceived both as a national agenda and a project to be vigorously pursued by successive governments with the popular support of the people.
For another, the generic political instability in the country squanders all the opportunities to craft and actualize the highly envisaged ‘Nigerian Project’.
Thus within the span of sixty years of Nigeria’s existence, the enormous potentials in human, material and natural resources have not been adequately and efficiently, mobilized, utilized and managed for the country’s political and socioeconomic development.
Persistent instability that manifests in the context of leadership crisis, bad governance, corruption, weak and fragile institutions, disoriented citizenry accentuated by the deep divisions among the governing and nongoverning elites undermine numerous attempts to transform the Nigerian State into a strong, viable and progressive nation.
The obstruction of democratic rule in the country through intermittent military incursion into Nigeria’s politics as well as the mismanagement of democratic process has taken a toll on the country’s dream for a prosperous nation.
Governments after governments and regimes after regimes, Nigeria has been struggling with the challenges of nation-building and sustainable development.
Wrong and/or poorly implemented economic policies and programs have pulled down Nigeria from a potentially promising height of growth and development to one whose prospects for stability and development remain dicey.
Across different times in the country’s life as an independent state, Nigeria’s fortunes have dwindled though with huge hopes that it has the potential and capacity to reorganize itself to compete with some of the emerging economies if not the most technologically advanced societies of the world.
In spite of these setbacks, Nigeria’s mark on the global stage, particularly in the areas of peacekeeping and maintenance of international security, has been markedly recognized and appreciated by the international community.
Its roles in global governance through sub regional, regional and even international organizations and institutions has also been a source of pride for the country and its citizens.
However, the enormity of the political, economic and social challenges facing the country, sixty years after independence, has called to question the resoluteness and commitment of the state for nation-building and sustainable development.
The state of the country’s economic over-dependence, the rising incidences of poverty, unemployment and inequality, the increasing feeling of adhesion amongst the diverse people and above all bad governance constitute huge obstacles to Nigeria’s development process.
These daunting challenges facing Nigeria at sixty have eclipsed the widely acclaimed status of Nigeria as the ‘Giant of Africa’. Many observers and analysts refer to it, instead as a ‘Crippled Giant’ and to some a ‘Giant no more’.
However, the milestone achieved by Nigeria in the context of uninterrupted democratic governance for over two decades, offers it the opportunity to make amends in the governance of the state, economic management and social engineering as panacea to the challenges of instability, economic downturns, crisis of integration among other major challenges that inflict a battered image for the country at the global stage.
As Nigerians and friends of Nigeria celebrate the country’s 60th anniversary, all hope is not lost, as the potential to revive and grow even bigger still exists.
The task to reorganize the country lies in the people, whose contributions remain central as offered by the democratic governance framework that has evidently come to stay.
Happy Independence Day to all Nigerians!