By Sam Eyoboka and Olayinka Latona

A TRANSFORMATION strategist and planner, Chief Lugard Aimiumu has picked holes in the transformation project of President Goodluck Jonathan, saying that the president means well and deserves commendation but that the odds against Nigeria are monumental though surmountable. Speaking as the guest lecturer at the 12th Mike Okonkwo Annual Lecture in Lagos, the past president of National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria who spoke on “Nigeria:

A beauty begging to fly”, said the transformation the country needs at this moment cannot be achieved by mere rhetoric, motherhood statements, but by professionally articulated visions and strategies, best-practice-driven plans and programme, with process discipline and outcome focus, to attain sustainable world class performance.

Speaking further, Chief Aimiuwu commended the president for settling for transformation as a management process to activate sea changes in the pace, quantum, and quality of Nigeria’s development, stressing however, “he must now walk the talk. Nigeria needs to become productive, instead of remaining self-destructive.”

According to him, the nation has a reservoir of potentials both in human and material resources but certain forces had wasted these abundant resources over the years and the task of rebuilding the nation will take a Herculean task, seeing that we are striving to become among the 20 best developed nations in nine years from now.

Chief maintained that the world is experiencing a ‘tsunami change’. Business cycles are accelerating, product design cycles are getting shorter, decision making cycles are moving faster, action and reaction cycles are moving quicker, and smarter but Nigeria appears overwhelmed by the challenge of poverty, squalor, disease, plus the perennial scourge of corruption.

“A cardinal lesson from history is that those who fail to board the vehicle of change, will, like the dinosaur, go extinct. In the words of Lord Alfred Tennyson (King Arthur), ‘the old order changeth, yielding place to new; and all shall not be the same again,’” he lamented.

Narrating an experience he had aboard an Ethiopian Airline several years ago when the Ethiopian captain said rather philosophically commended the greenery of the Nigerian land which always made him happy to be an African, saying “tears rolled down my eyes. Add to these the reality of overflowing minerals and natural resources, and arable land so fertile that if you plant a finger, a human being can grow”.

According to him, the only natural disaster has been, for much of the lives of this generation, her long tradition of underperforming, under-achieving leadership, across sectors and other divides. “Due to abysmal performance over the years, Nigeria’s Human Balance Sheet, in spite of the country’s enviable potential, is confined to the bottom quadrant of the league. We wish to be in the top 20 of the world league, yet we are the least performing amongst OPEC countries, and amongst the worst performing countries on MDG 2015 goals,” he argued.

Taking a cursory look at our competitors in the world, Chief Aimiuwu painted a very ugly picture of our performance index, saying “our neighbours and former minions are all ahead of us on the Human Development League. Whilst 2010 UNDP HDR HDI lists us as 142, ranked ahead of us are Ghana 130, Cameroun 131, Benin 134, and Togo 139. This is why poverty has been so pervasive and devastating. Manufacturers’ logistic costs are about twice the African average.”

He enumerated several other areas where the nation which gave economic aid to South Korea some decades ago and that nation now deluges our market with high tech electronics and electricals, plus fine cars; which at the instance of the UN helped to train Congo Police but have so destroyed and demoralized our Police Force that maybe we invite Congo to assist.

Aimiuwu who over the years has been campaigning for transformation told his audience that transformation involves a paradigm shift, in a holistic, co-ordinated, integrated strategy, that ensures that integral parts relate and move in synchrony. “It involves a sea change, and must be bold and ambitious. It delves into the story behind the story, and addresses fundamental maladies, not stop at symptoms. It MUST FLY.”

Continuing, he said transformation is about people, and it is by people, stressing that “fundamental to the desired progress is a mindset shift. We must quit nibbling at the fingernails (reforms) and go for the jugular (transformation).