Nigeria has wasted exactly 52 years and over $2 trillion of Niger Delta’s oil money on politicians and corporate executives’ extravagance.
And here we are still discussing petty issues. If the three (four) regional economies had continued, Lagos would have been Africa’s financial capital; Aba, Lagos, Kano, Nnewi, and Onitsha would have been leading Africa in manufacturing.
Port Harcourt would have been the oil and petrochemical Texas of Africa.
Were regional economic competition continued, there wouldn’t have been anything like Fulani herdsmen menace or Boko Haram, not even militants would have been in the Niger Delta. There wouldn’t have been any such call for Biafra, Arewa or Oduduwa.
That is why we must all champion restructuring and fiscal federalism.
Any section of this country that is happy with where the country is today should have asked themselves, are we not supposed to be better off than we are today in Nigeria had we continued with regionalism? The North, for example, would have been competing with the likes of California, Brazil and Australia as the food baskets of the world. It would have been exporting over $500bn worth of cotton, banana, grain, tomato, orange, grain, ginger, garlic, beef, cheese, processed fruits and vegetables around the world.
It would have had over 30 million northerners involved directly and indirectly in farming, food processing and agribusiness as well as in logistics and in the tourism industry. So, we’re all losers with the exception of politicians and their corporate Nigeria partners in looting our commonwealth.
Let’s, as the good people of this crippled giant, come together to embrace restructuring that brings accountability and less corruption because it’s a win-win agenda we must proactively embark on at least in the interest of our children’s sake.
Odilim Enwegbara, Apo, Abuja
