I  BELONG to the school of thought that says: ‘indigenise our plans, focus and strategies or remain stagnated’. We hear it all the time that the only constant in this world is change. Change is inevitable, the world is dynamic, which means that things are constantly moving and changing.

In the developed world, the people adapt to these changes according to their peculiar needs and wants. While over here, we react to changes in other climes and societies, that is trying to be like them. Because we are not exactly like them and do not share the same environmental space with them, we are forever playing catch up.

In all ramifications, Nigeria is not a more corrupt country than India. India is also a country of diverse cultures and religion like ours, but, why is the Indian economy growing at such extra ordinary pace and that of Nigeria  declining? How did India manage to stay afloat, competing with the top nations in the field of technology science, medicine and others, while Nigeria remained stagnated? I believe that, if our researchers and those in position to implement policies in this nation, diligently and sincerely find answer to these questions, we will be on our way to conquering our challenges.

We need to change our ways of doing things, especially as it concerns those in government. Our government must be able to work according to specific goals and strategies, which will be  monitored through performance benchmarks. Our strategy and work plans, must be indigenous to us, according to our peculiar needs – power, transport, manufacturing, agriculture et al.

When India was practicing restrictive trading in the ’70s, you dare not import any item on the prohibitive list into the country and  industries and manufacturing firms were compelled to transfer technical know how to the locals within a given time frame. I use to work for one of the biggest agent of Agfa films, chemicals and paper in this country. While we  imported heavily here, their representative in India worked at manufacturing their own products and so when Agfa went under, the representative in Nigeria divested to other areas of business. Meanwhile, Nigerians started importing paper, chemicals and other products from India. What is it that makes us unable to reason rationally to the glory of this nation? Is it a culture that allows for slothfullness or it is that of incompetent leadership?

Who drives policies of government?  Do they  run these policies to build or to destroy? Is our civil service equal to the task? Why are people more interested in their private pockets than that of the whole? Why is the average Nigerian, ready to allow the nation to sink than for him to lose a Kobo? Why are Nigerians more comfortable doing business with foreigners, than with fellow Nigerians? Why are our leaders fond of running abroad for solutions to Nigeria’s problems, rather than stay at home and sort it out? Why is there not one fully equipped hospital that can cater for the health needs of our President and other very important people? A genuine answer to the above questions will give us insight to the problems of this country, it does not require rocket science.

Some people say Nigerians are wicked, if we were not so in the 70s and 80s, why are we so now? We have the human capital resources, but where are the leaders to harness these resources to their full potentials? If we can tap into our abundance of human resources, all over the world, without sentiments of ethnic bias and religion, if we can just be truthful to ourselves and act accordingly, we will be out of this mess in less than four years.

We can leverage with Nigerians in diaspora, experts in diverse fields, prodigies and geniuses, we can locate them and seek their help. You do not need to bring them home, they can still be useful from anywhere but our intentions must be sincere. They will only agree to relocate home if their future and peaceful stay in this country is guaranteed and for now, we cannot guarantee this. So, we can use them from abroad. Every Jew, any where in the world is working for the state of Israel, same with many other countries, why can’t Nigerians do same? We cannot keep playing catch up. We are not in competition but in a race for the well being of the nation and her citizens. We must chose to develop according to our peculiar needs and wants.

I illustrate here an example of the then nation of USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic trying to catch up with the United States of America in the early sixties. In his book Aligning Strategy And Sales, published by Harvard Business Review Press, Frank Cespedes narrated as follows; “In 1961, Nikita Krushehev pledged to out produce the United States in steel, coal, cement, and fertilizer within twenty years. You may have seen old news report of Khrushev pounding his shoe on a table at the United Nations and pledging that “we will bury you!”…somewhat like the typical football and war rhetoric of many motivational speakers at sales meetings. What we tend to forget is that the Soviet Union actually made quota, producing more of those goods by 1981 than did the United States. The difference, of course, is that over that time, the United States was adapting to a changing world and pioneering a different economy, one based on plastics, silicon, transistors, the Web, life sciences, and many other innovations, while the Soviet Union ……”lumbered on building it’s mighty edifice of obsolescence…”. While the Soviet Union was concentrating on competing with the United States, the US was adapting to the demand of real change. That is the message in this illustration.

The above further validates the reason we must look inward and amongst Nigerians for solution. In line with our peculiar needs, we must upgrade our science and technology department. A country that is not research based will remain a consuming country like we are right now. Allocate huge resources to technological and research developments and institute key standards for measuring, that will include project time frames. We have the man power, therefore, if it is being done successfully in other places, it can be done here.

During the civil war, the Biafrans successfully refined Petrol on their own. Pray, why more than forty five years after, we are still dependent on fuel import? Why can’t we standardise the local or so called illegal refineries? There must be some demons responsible for our situation. This government must begin to rethink it’s strategy of getting our economy out of the woods and most importantly, it must remember that the people come first. Therefore, it must court their support, not through arrogance and disdain.

According to Sheikh Ahmad Gumi in the interview with Leadership newspaper; “….what Nigerians needs now is not just to tighten the mouth but to spend more judiciously on even the private sector. There are airlines that are collapsing, give them a lot of soft loans, banks are collapsing, give them money. What truly Nigeria needs now is first aid, let food be cheap and available, let fuel be cheap and available, let education be a priority”. I hope those in authority are reading.

Mr.  Sunny Ikhioya.  www. southsouthecho.com Twitter: @SunnyIkhioya