By Christian Okwori

‘PUT your money where your mouth is,” is a 19th century American adage that has and will continue to haunt Nigeria until we start matching our voices with our choices. Before we knew it four years have gone with the wind, and we are still complaining of poor electricity with just about 3000MW (around 1999 figures) from the system operator.

Muhammadu Buhari

With over four grid collapses (meaning zero megawatt total power generation) in the first trimester of 2019 alone, what we have is diminishing manufacturing sector with more industry giants set to leave while the surviving ones are turning their Nigerian plants to warehouses.

Other attendant problems include horrifying housing deficits of about 20 million, inadequate telecommunication infrastructure to drive an e-economy   with prospects thinning out daily, disregard for STEM and Technical education and professionals, and many more issues begging for attentions. For how long must George Santayana’s words that “those who forget to remember the past are bound to repeat them” continue to apply to our national affairs?

After the triumph of his communist party and irked by the widespread poverty of the land and backwardness of his country, Chairman Mao Tse Tung, the father of modern China decided it was time to replace most of   the professional politicians in government with technocrats, particularly engineers and scientists whose expertise are at the core of technology and national development. The idea was to focus the nation towards industrial, economic and technological revolutions badly needed for their global competitiveness. His successors, from Deng Xiaoping till date, all kept to that policy and in just three decades China has emerged the second largest economy in the world with almost  one million megawatt of electricity generation and gross domestic product of over $12 trillion aside being a world power among many triumphs.

If anyone thinks China is alone in this, far from it. The Asian Tigers like Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and the rest escaped poverty and Third World backwardness by respecting and bringing in engineers and other technocrats to run the leadership, especially at ministerial level. Before we forget, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and most of the fastest developing countries in the world all started out in the 1970s and ’80s with similar developmental agenda. But today we are left behind simply because our leaderships have not been respecting technocrats, thinking a nation can be built on words and endless seminars without deeds; hence we have fine policies while poverty still reigns.

Qian Xuesan, a famous MIT scholar in corroborative fashion postulated that governments of developing countries with the intent to truly transform their nations’ technological and economic fortunes should be run like engineering departments due to the pragmatic solution minded approach of engineers towards social, economic and political challenges. This is evident in the best run sectors in Nigeria such as oil and gas, telecoms and the top places everyone wants to work and do business. Engineers and their practical methods must not be sacrificed on the altar of political aggrandizement and ego-massaging. There are many ways of generously rewarding party leaders and loyalists like Mao did without having to have them hold critical sectors hostage. Like a foreign journalist once pointed out, mediocrity and not corruption is Nigeria’s greatest problem. There we have it.

We need 190m litres of petroleum product to complete second Niger bridge – Fashola

These observations are not in any way intent at disparaging or casting aspersion on the competence or otherwise of the nation’s leadership or heads of concerned ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs; rather it is a call for us as a people to start auditing our actions, troubleshooting our failures and most importantly righting our wrongs by putting round pegs in round holes for once and allowing the systems to firm up as a matter of overriding national interests irrespective of political differentials and standoff cases. It is hard for people to give what they don’t have. Even in project management, where people are trained on versatile or globalised management skills, trainees are still advised to focus on management in their areas of technical training and experience; hence there is no point justifying things that should not be in the first place. It is not right to make a medical doctor or mechanical engineer Minister of Justice. In the same reasoning, it’s not right to make a lawyer Minister of Power, Works, Housing or of some technically based sector. It’s not right to make a non-medical professional the Minister of Health. We must stop mixing politics with public interests.

The situation looks bleaker if one recalls the event of Tuesday November 1, 2016, when Mr. Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing told the leaders of Nigerian Society of Engineers to their face that they are laid back, not good enough and would work even without them.

Such unfair, unguarded and incendiary statement coming from the mouth of a priest in the inner temple of justice is rather distasteful, a serious matter which may as well be like telling young university entrants to look for another career outside engineering because any Jack with commonsense can replace them. He went on to mention how no local engineering firm submitted a bid when the Lagos State Government under him as governor threw up the state’s railway project for pre-qualification.

It is not hard to know why no local engineering firm may have submitted bid even though railway project is in no way technically challenging (even my IT students can handle it with minimal supervision) compared to more complex jobs being carried out by local engineers. How can you ask local engineers trying to find their foot in business to sign bonds to the tune of N5 billion? How many local engineering firms can afford that? Which bank will sign for them without them having such liquid cash or asset to lien by the banks?

Don’t we know the attendant risks of doing business with government? Such attitudes by governments invariably means the contracts are open only to the foreign companies who they respect and who can also easily afford the amount. Check out most of the failed projects they accuse local engineers of and you will find that they were awarded to politicians in actual fact.

Why Buhari must split Power, Works and Housing ministry in 2nd Term – Expert

Why are there collapsed structures all the time? Because engineers are not being regarded and everyone (even masons) call themselves engineers without being arrested, neither are engineering bodies empowered to arrest and prosecute such quackery.

Nigerian engineers as top professionals are not insulated from the foibles and ills that have affected virtually all sectors and fields in the country. The judiciary and the legal profession are in desperate need of revival, having had the chief justice of the land sacked few months ago, with victories going more to lawyers who know judges than lawyers who truly know the law. But still, no one condemns the entire legal profession and they are able to still maintain   total control of   the judicial sector as the Federal Government barred foreign law firms from practicing in Nigeria. The medical profession is not left out, given the ongoing brain drain, cases of patient deaths due to negligence and other ills by medical professionals. But still that is not enough to write off a whole profession of noble calling. The military has its own. Even the clergy are not isolated from cases of misconducts.

So, we must respect our doctors, engineers, architects, accountants, lawyers, military officers and all the professionals by not displacing them from their jobs due to sentiments and or whatever. Enough is enough. If we truly want to advance as a nation and develop, we must put professionals where they fit. We must stop giving the jobs of engineers to other professionals.