Nigerias-vision-20-2020-another-example-of-plans-on-paper-without-execution
September 7, 2020 | News
NIGERIA’S VISION 20:2020 - ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF PLANS ON PAPER WITHOUT EXECUTION
We have often reiterated the fact that the bane of Nigeria’s economic growth and development that would improve the living standards of its citizenry, is the issue of having countless plans, goals, visions and dreams on paper, but which never gets to the see the light of the day because of the selfishness of past and present political leaders across all levels of Government.
The one that is right before us, as we have entered the year 2020, is the country’s ‘almighty’ ‘Nigeria Vision (NV) 20: 2020,’ regarded as an economic plan aimed at making Nigeria to be amongst the world’s first 20 most developed economies by year 2020. But despite the so-called “The Transformation Agenda”, which was a medium term development strategy to speed up the actualization of the said NV 20:2020, and a framework for the actualization of the then Federal Government's economic growth agenda during 2011-2015; and also despite the so-called First National Implementation Plan (1st NIP), with the theme "Accelerating Development, Competitiveness and Wealth Creation", which was a medium term plan for the actualization of the long term broad objectives and targets of the NV 20:2020 – NIGERIA’S ECONOMY AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF ITS NIGERIAN CITIZENRY, HAS NOT EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE OF IMPROVEMENT, WHEN COMPARED TO WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OTHER CLIMES IN AFRICA AND ACROSS THE GLOBE THAT ARE LESS ENDOWED IN TERMS OF NATURAL AND HUMAN RESOURCEFULNESS. This again, justify the fact that it is not to have lofty Plans On Paper to tell the world that they are working, but it is to implement these plans to the latter and with all sincerity of purpose to the benefit of the Nigerian people.
In another though-provoking tv programme The Advocate, anchored by Liborous Oshoma, he gave a summary of some of the thoughts we have on this subject matter. In his words: “A vision without a corresponding mission, will end up becoming a delusion. Welcome to Vision 2020. Years ago, our leaders set a national goal, and they named it Vision 2020, to be amongst the first 20 most developed countries on earth by the year 2020. The discerning in many then, was that we were up to our usual jokes…But how do we expect to attain such heights when there are no legal framework to dealing with negligence in our professional endeavors like Medicine, Law, building Engineering, and even Government? Apart from “leave am for God”, how can we achieve a vision for the Nigerian Education when it is not good enough to educate the custodians of the same educational system, who would rather send their kids abroad?
“How can one translate the vision of making the country a medical hub, when the ‘world class’ hospital built by a former Governor was not found good enough to treat the same former Governor’s minor bruises sustained in a motor accident? How can a nation whose Pastors are amongst the richest in the world, with the congregation of the poorest people on earth, achieve greatness by mere vision, without corresponding efforts to accomplish that vision? We must be joking!
“Our manufacturing companies buildings/warehouses are being bought over by Churches, and we would rather build a 13km Church auditorium than build a 10km Expressway, or a 5km Juice making factory, despite the abundance of natural fruits? Let somebody shout hallelujah! Who fo you want to achieve such a huge feat, when the worst of us are the ones ruling over the affairs of the best of us? Which country can achieve greatness when its Government officials would rather invest in properties in Dubai, than set up businesses here that will create employment opportunities for the teaming youths?
“Dubai had a similar vision 40years ago. They created a mission to actualize same and today, they are one of the most visited countries on earth with 50 million visitors annually, including our Nigerian Politicians who go there to hold meetings, spending an average of $5,000 per visit. We mouth Farming as if that is all there is about development. Until we realize that Farming without value-added; like transport, storage and processes – equals poverty. If we like let us close our borders for 100 years, we would wake up one day to realize that the world has moved on without us.
“We celebrate a Governor for tarring roads with four times the cost price, as though he spent his money. Yet we expect the realization of a vision. A politician rigs election, or a friend is given an appointment, and we troop out to Churches and Mosques to do Thanksgiving. Yet, we expect them not to steal. A Custom Officer at our airport borders control-gateway into the country, turns his duty post into a begging booth: “Oga wetin you bring come for us,” “Oga your boys are here,” without sanctions. Yet, we want the world to take us seriously! Since then, the endless shortsightedness will continue to grow.
“It is clear that we are not as serious as we like to boast, when the vision was set two wasted decades ago. Then 2020 was a far away landing post. Now, the year is here. But we are in a deeper hole than the one we were in many years ago. Hurry! Let us set another vision, based on divine hope, with no work, we would still reach our destined Eldorado. We need not plan or think to attain newly set goals. After all, our rich land still yields the inexhaustible black gold. My advocacy today is, until Government and everyone of us in positions of authority in Nigeria show selfless leadership example, even if we set visions for eternity, without a corresponding mission, it will still end up a vision of delusional grandeur.”
Truth is, Nigerians political leaders in all spheres of Government, should no longer be talking of planning anything or coming up with any other vision/goals, but what they should focus on is ‘effective execution/honest implementation of what we already have.’ They should pick up all our past Development Plans, that is, go back to the drawing board, and ask – what went wrong? Why is there still power outage in Nigeria? Why are our refineries not working to installed capacity? Why are tens of thousands of mileage roads across the country in a state of disrepair? Why is the Nigerian economy driven by generators and not steady and reliable power supply? Why are we so dependent on oil and gas revenue for development as a nation? What is happening to our Agricultural sector, Tourism sector, Solid minerals etc? What happened to our railway transport system? Why do Nigerians not have enough food? Why do the people not own their own homes, or be able to stay in affordable houses? Why can’t most parents and guardians afford school fees for their children and wards? Why do we have so many universities graduate as jobless youths on our streets either looking for jobs, involved in one crime or the other, or looking for illegitimate ways to migrate out of the country at the risk of their lives? Why do we live in a state of perpetual insecurity?
It is a slap on our face as a nation that smaller and even less endowed countries in Africa and across the globe are far ahead of us in terms of development, human capital-index, and modern advancement in all sectors. And today, many Nigerians, including our political leaders prefer to go abroad to enjoy the various sectors of foreign economies; be it Education, Health, tourism, etc. imagine a place like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in spite of their vast resources in natural minerals (just like Nigeria is blessed), they still depend on only 7% of their oil, gas and condensate revenue to develop their nation. The government gets the rest national revenue from Trading, Tourism, and Banking etc.
Until we sit down as a nation and ask ourselves these critical questions, and find honest answers to them, we will never get to the “Promised Land”. Rather, we will continue to Plan yearly, and deceive ourselves like a farmer who clears his farm of weeds but never gets around to planting any crops.
Zik Gbemre.
January 24, 2020
We Mobilize Others to Fight for Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes
We have often reiterated the fact that the bane of Nigeria’s economic growth and development that would improve the living standards of its citizenry, is the issue of having countless plans, goals, visions and dreams on paper, but which never gets to the see the light of the day because of the selfishness of past and present political leaders across all levels of Government.
The one that is right before us, as we have entered the year 2020, is the country’s ‘almighty’ ‘Nigeria Vision (NV) 20: 2020,’ regarded as an economic plan aimed at making Nigeria to be amongst the world’s first 20 most developed economies by year 2020. But despite the so-called “The Transformation Agenda”, which was a medium term development strategy to speed up the actualization of the said NV 20:2020, and a framework for the actualization of the then Federal Government's economic growth agenda during 2011-2015; and also despite the so-called First National Implementation Plan (1st NIP), with the theme "Accelerating Development, Competitiveness and Wealth Creation", which was a medium term plan for the actualization of the long term broad objectives and targets of the NV 20:2020 – NIGERIA’S ECONOMY AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF ITS NIGERIAN CITIZENRY, HAS NOT EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE OF IMPROVEMENT, WHEN COMPARED TO WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OTHER CLIMES IN AFRICA AND ACROSS THE GLOBE THAT ARE LESS ENDOWED IN TERMS OF NATURAL AND HUMAN RESOURCEFULNESS. This again, justify the fact that it is not to have lofty Plans On Paper to tell the world that they are working, but it is to implement these plans to the latter and with all sincerity of purpose to the benefit of the Nigerian people.
In another though-provoking tv programme The Advocate, anchored by Liborous Oshoma, he gave a summary of some of the thoughts we have on this subject matter. In his words: “A vision without a corresponding mission, will end up becoming a delusion. Welcome to Vision 2020. Years ago, our leaders set a national goal, and they named it Vision 2020, to be amongst the first 20 most developed countries on earth by the year 2020. The discerning in many then, was that we were up to our usual jokes…But how do we expect to attain such heights when there are no legal framework to dealing with negligence in our professional endeavors like Medicine, Law, building Engineering, and even Government? Apart from “leave am for God”, how can we achieve a vision for the Nigerian Education when it is not good enough to educate the custodians of the same educational system, who would rather send their kids abroad?
“How can one translate the vision of making the country a medical hub, when the ‘world class’ hospital built by a former Governor was not found good enough to treat the same former Governor’s minor bruises sustained in a motor accident? How can a nation whose Pastors are amongst the richest in the world, with the congregation of the poorest people on earth, achieve greatness by mere vision, without corresponding efforts to accomplish that vision? We must be joking!
“Our manufacturing companies buildings/warehouses are being bought over by Churches, and we would rather build a 13km Church auditorium than build a 10km Expressway, or a 5km Juice making factory, despite the abundance of natural fruits? Let somebody shout hallelujah! Who fo you want to achieve such a huge feat, when the worst of us are the ones ruling over the affairs of the best of us? Which country can achieve greatness when its Government officials would rather invest in properties in Dubai, than set up businesses here that will create employment opportunities for the teaming youths?
“Dubai had a similar vision 40years ago. They created a mission to actualize same and today, they are one of the most visited countries on earth with 50 million visitors annually, including our Nigerian Politicians who go there to hold meetings, spending an average of $5,000 per visit. We mouth Farming as if that is all there is about development. Until we realize that Farming without value-added; like transport, storage and processes – equals poverty. If we like let us close our borders for 100 years, we would wake up one day to realize that the world has moved on without us.
“We celebrate a Governor for tarring roads with four times the cost price, as though he spent his money. Yet we expect the realization of a vision. A politician rigs election, or a friend is given an appointment, and we troop out to Churches and Mosques to do Thanksgiving. Yet, we expect them not to steal. A Custom Officer at our airport borders control-gateway into the country, turns his duty post into a begging booth: “Oga wetin you bring come for us,” “Oga your boys are here,” without sanctions. Yet, we want the world to take us seriously! Since then, the endless shortsightedness will continue to grow.
“It is clear that we are not as serious as we like to boast, when the vision was set two wasted decades ago. Then 2020 was a far away landing post. Now, the year is here. But we are in a deeper hole than the one we were in many years ago. Hurry! Let us set another vision, based on divine hope, with no work, we would still reach our destined Eldorado. We need not plan or think to attain newly set goals. After all, our rich land still yields the inexhaustible black gold. My advocacy today is, until Government and everyone of us in positions of authority in Nigeria show selfless leadership example, even if we set visions for eternity, without a corresponding mission, it will still end up a vision of delusional grandeur.”
Truth is, Nigerians political leaders in all spheres of Government, should no longer be talking of planning anything or coming up with any other vision/goals, but what they should focus on is ‘effective execution/honest implementation of what we already have.’ They should pick up all our past Development Plans, that is, go back to the drawing board, and ask – what went wrong? Why is there still power outage in Nigeria? Why are our refineries not working to installed capacity? Why are tens of thousands of mileage roads across the country in a state of disrepair? Why is the Nigerian economy driven by generators and not steady and reliable power supply? Why are we so dependent on oil and gas revenue for development as a nation? What is happening to our Agricultural sector, Tourism sector, Solid minerals etc? What happened to our railway transport system? Why do Nigerians not have enough food? Why do the people not own their own homes, or be able to stay in affordable houses? Why can’t most parents and guardians afford school fees for their children and wards? Why do we have so many universities graduate as jobless youths on our streets either looking for jobs, involved in one crime or the other, or looking for illegitimate ways to migrate out of the country at the risk of their lives? Why do we live in a state of perpetual insecurity?
It is a slap on our face as a nation that smaller and even less endowed countries in Africa and across the globe are far ahead of us in terms of development, human capital-index, and modern advancement in all sectors. And today, many Nigerians, including our political leaders prefer to go abroad to enjoy the various sectors of foreign economies; be it Education, Health, tourism, etc. imagine a place like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in spite of their vast resources in natural minerals (just like Nigeria is blessed), they still depend on only 7% of their oil, gas and condensate revenue to develop their nation. The government gets the rest national revenue from Trading, Tourism, and Banking etc.
Until we sit down as a nation and ask ourselves these critical questions, and find honest answers to them, we will never get to the “Promised Land”. Rather, we will continue to Plan yearly, and deceive ourselves like a farmer who clears his farm of weeds but never gets around to planting any crops.
Zik Gbemre.
January 24, 2020
We Mobilize Others to Fight for Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes