By Princewill Ekwujuru

Elder statesman and delegate to the just concluded National Conference, Professor Anya O. Anya has urged Nigerians to believe in themselves and in their nation in order to evolve a new Nigeria.

Professor Anya made the call, weekend, in Lagos at the public presentation of ‘The Niche,’ a Sunday newspaper published by Acclaim Communications Limited.
Delivering a paper entitled: ‘The challenge of believing,’ Professor Anya, who was the chairman of the launch, said that “if the truth be told, there is no other nation today whose citizens deride her and speak ever so often in such negative terms as Nigerians do to Nigeria.”

According to him: “Nigerians are always competing even within the leadership of the nation, in our telling of the most derogatory and unwholesome tales of our nation, and we have all contributed to a new definition of the meaning of patriotism through our negativity. We encourage others to deride our nation.
“Over the last 15 years Nigeria’s economy has been growing far above the global average higher than at any other period since the 1960’s.
“The re-basing of Nigeria’s economic fundamentals has now revealed that the Nigerian economy is now by far the largest economy in Africa.

“Indeed, it is easy for us to forget that Aliko Dangote, operating in this inclement Nigerian environment in less than 15 years became wealthy and earned the accolade of Africa’s richest man.
“I saw it happening from 1997 to 2012. It only dramatised that which we have always intuitively known but ignored, the potentiality of this nation is way beyond the normal, not only in the economy, but also in education, in health, in infrastructure and in the ‘can do  spirit’ that the world sees when Nigeria competes with others outside Nigeria.”