By SUNNY IKHIOYA

IF we keep going the way we are, it will take another century for any real change to take place. That will be by another generation that would have learnt the vital lesson of the people’s power; that real development and growth will come from a self-willed people, instead of the perpetual wait for outsiders to come and solve our problems for us. That will be our lot, because past and present generations have displayed a total lack of capacity to steer this nation of the biggest congregate of Blacks in the world to the required heights that have been reserved for them.

The whole world is shouting about Israel today, and the lazy theorists are ascribing everything to the historical records of the Bible. If we take this approach, Africa should not be where it is today as occupier of the centre of the world and custodian of all the best natural resources Almighty God has deemed fit to bestow on man. In fact, based on this analogy, Africa should be ruling the world.

But the rise of nations are not only based on prophecies from the supernatural world, they are consciously and deliberately cultivated, planned and put to work with the ultimate goal in focus. No country comes to help another for nothing. Technological transfers do not just happen; you have to cajole, purchase, steal and if possible, fight for it.

Every great nation today has gone through these phases, but in Africa, we have been blinded by religion and so much brainwashed that we see what is originally ours as bad, hence the clamour and rush for anything foreign. That is why we cannot keep our currency steady at the foreign exchange market; our economy is in free fall and the people are suffering unbearable hardship.

Americans fought a war to free themselves from British colonial stranglehold, but that is not the point I am trying to make here. In his book, Cotton, Stephen Yafa narrated how an American cotton investor travelled to England to learn a thing or two about the Industrial Revolution, especially the ones that had to do with farming irrigation and farm processing. After observation, he did a sketch of everything he had observed and scattered them in pieces amongst his luggage, so that he will not be discovered, for even at that time, it was an offence to steal technology in any form. He took it to the US and after many trials, they got it right and that began the cotton farming revolution in the United States of America.

You cannot get technology transfer free of charge or out of sympathy and love. Even your religious brother will not make that available. You will have to fight for it and properly sensitise the minds of your people at home. 

That is why our Ajaokuta Steel, Aladja Steel, aluminium smelting companies, paper mills, refineries, railways and others have not been able to work. The leadership must charge our indigenous professionals and remove all forms of corruption — with serious sanctions for defaulters — for things to work in this country. 

Our President must stop his frequent trips abroad and come home to face the challenges squarely with the right examples of sacrifices together with his co-politicians at the national and state assemblies. We must learn to process our raw materials, even if we have to begin at a basic and unsophisticated manner, for therein lies our future. A nation’s progress and development are consciously planned; they are not done haphazardly. 

When Mao Zedong discovered that his friends in the West were not sincere in their dealings with China, especially in the areas of technological transfers and governance, he decided to take China on its own path and started the cultural revolution, promoting that aspect of China that has marked a clear identity for them. He started with education and brought the children under one government umbrella. Loyalty was first to the state of China before anything else, including family. They were encouraged to develop their own science and technology, including indigenous medicines. It is also noteworthy that in all of these processes, the people driving it were men of knowledge, the eggheads, university professors, lecturers and researchers, coming together in partnership with government, to project a clear path for the country’s future. And they did take the bull by the horn.

Israel is arguably the greatest nation today in terms of technological innovations. But Israel tapped its diaspora Jews all over the world. They were ready and willing to give assistance to their country, irrespective of their positions in other countries. Their first loyalty is to the state of Israel and that is where the comparison with Nigeria comes in with so many professionals and experts in diverse fields of endeavour scattered all over the world and working for foreign countries, while their country remains in the doldrums.

It is incumbent on those in government to set up a data bank of Nigerian professionals living abroad and establish contact with them. The contact should include debriefing and aligning their established competences with the nation’s goals. It requires a focused leadership with a sense of purpose to see this through, one who will understand the importance of such venture and will be ready to put in enough time and resources towards its actualisation. 

It requires a realignment of relationship between government and our academia, our higher institutions, to place the needs of government in line with their research departments, to come up with solutions to the myriads of the country’s challenges. Government will need to take note of this and pump in enough funds to promote researches in all of our institutions. It will also require sincerity of purpose from all and sundry, but the beginning must be from our educational curricula. It has to be changed and patterned towards the contemporary needs of Nigeria, to make the sleeping giant of Africa play its proper role in the comity of nations.

Someone has to start this revolution, and it must come from the leadership.

Ikhioya wrote via: www.southsouthecho.com