AS Nigeria marks its 51st independence anniversary today, there have been various reactions from people, especially eminent Nigerians calling for peace and tranquility.

Security is our headache— General Yabuku Gowon former head of state.

Former ehad of state Gen Yakubu Gowon said Nigerians should pray to God for His guidance and success. The General who spoke with Saturday Vanguard said, “commenting on Nigeria’s 51 anniversary, the best thing to do is to wish Nigeria well.

“Although, at 51, we have quite a lot of security problems and we pray that Nigerians will be determined to get behind that and sue for peace and understanding within all the sections in the community in the country.

“There is not too much to say than to wish Nigeria well especially on this occasion. I will continue to do my best to bring about the understanding between us and it is up to other Nigerians to do similarly.

“We are having a special end of jubilee year prayer at the National Christian Centre, especially for this anniversary. This will be a prayer of thanksgiving to God, especially what he has done for us during the past year and to help us achieve the peace and tranquility that this country deserves to be able to move forward.

Umar, Oyebode and Gowon

“We should also pray to God for His guidance and success of the coming years. In the one past year, we have had a successful election and the democracy was reasonably restored and we have a new President that we should all pray to God to guide that he can lead the country aright which I know he has the capability, capacity and the zeal and that grace of God that he will be able to do.

“No one can advise anybody on what to do than doing the right thing and work hard and ask for God’s guidance to be able to discern what is good and do the right thing for the country. I know he has the wisdom, grace, capacity and capability to be able to do that. He should always seek for the good of the country.

Colonialism better than this independence—Umar

Col (rtd) Abubakar Umar called on Nigerians to embrace Jonathan’s transformation agenda. “This country is in dire need of transformation, the situation is that 80- percent of the population is living below poverty line. Five percent of the half a million graduate every year cannot get employment, therefore unemployment is high and the level of insecurity is not explainable.

The level of corruption has also gone up, so in this kind of economic social, Nigerian needs a new transformation. The transformation doesn’t require not only the president but every Nigerian to put hands on deck and make sure that this transformation happen. If not sooner than later, Nigeria might become a failed state.

“My opinion is that if there will be any transformation in this country, everybody must be ready. And the elite must be responsible. They are trying to build more various constituencies, they are pushing the country into state politics and which is most irresponsible. The politicians are trying to gain more power to be in control of this country.

“It has always been said that we have not made progress but I think, everything boils down to leadership. The leadership has failed to march on to the success leading to development and what accounts for this is corruption. Some persons in the country have succeeded in acquiring the resources of this country that whatever they do is based on their personal interest.

All this has been contributed to not moving the country forward. There is no opportunity left to the common man to survive which hasn’t contributed to the development of this country. I’m sure even the colonial masters that have felt sorry for this county because things were more organised and functional during the colonial days. The colonial period was said to be more organised and stabilised than now.

Looking at 1960 to this present time, the level of development we have achieved is nothing to right home about. For instance, the Nigerian Railway Corporation established by the colonial masters is not the same we are using today. The expectation was that we were free from colonial exploitation and that we would be able to move our resources to our own benefit but this has not happened. It will appear that the colonial time was better for average Nigerians than the situation we find ourselves in today. ”

Colonialism was better but SNC needed—Oyebode

Prof. Akin Oyebode, Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence at the University of Lagos, said there is need for Sovereign National Conference. Going down memory lane, the professor said, “I was in form one when Nigeria got her independence in 1960.

“My school made a big feast: slaughtered cow, gave us jollof rice, a bottle of coke and some momentos for Nigeria including the National flag, coins, memorabilia for Nigeria’s nationhood and as young people we had great dreams that we thought we would have gone into eldorado of its independence. So, it was tremendous optimism and lots of razzmatazz in the country.

“And looking back now, 51 years, our reaction is that Nigeria’s dream has been a deferred dream. We have not fulfilled the dreams of our crusaders for our national liberation. And according to a book written by late Sam Epelle, The Promise of Nigeria, and by all indications, Nigeria has under performed and we are said to have tremendous potential which we are yet to actualise. Paradoxical as it might sound, it seems that life under colonialism was seemingly much better than what it is now.

Because at that time, there was peace. There was no Third Mainland bridge but Carter bridge. Marina didn’t have those parking lots, hustling and bustling. There were fewer vehicles on the road, life was saner. I think the serious crisis that we experienced which brought the military into power in 1966 and for the next 30 years caused us tremendous loss in terms of achievement.

The military brought the hands of the clock back. They might have built more roads and few structures but they arrested Nigeria’s political development. Every time we go back to the drawing board after the restored so called civilian rule, there was no sense of continuity.

If we had kept the old political parties including the Action Group, NCNC, NPC, Nigeria’s development would have taken a different turn in terms of continuity, perspective. Economically speaking, I believe the so-called oil boom that we had after civil war became a burden on our economic development because we had growth without development and we acquired consumer risk taste.

We had the impression of an easy life where we were spending and the implication of that production was de-emphasised in favour of consumption and the situation which Nigeria experienced was characterised by my late friend Claude Ake, which the President in his address quoting Claude Ake when he was a student in UniPort.

Claude Ake used to describe the Nigerian economy as a dis- articulate economy and by that he meant an economy that produces what it doesn’t consume and consumes what it doesn’t produce the gap between production and consumption magnifies what economists call under-development.

By the time one bridges the gap between production and consumption, it will no longer be described as a developing economy. What that means is that the economy has taken a bashing because we continue to export primary commodity especially petroleum without any value added. Even cocoa that we export would have been improved upon thereby producing cocoa butter before exporting.

“Our failure to transform the Nigerian economy means that we have occupied and continue to occupy the periphery of international trade. And the laws of international trade in terms of balance of payment, exchange rate, deficit means that the more we sell, the less we can acquire because we trade in foreign currencies. And the relationship between the currency of trade and our own economy is queued, we have a lop-sided international division of labour and skilled balance of payment international trade terms, so we seem to be in a cogma, which means, the more we struggle, the deeper we sink. We are not making progress, we are increasing under-development because of very backward fiscal and monetary policies.

“We have not learnt to put our emphasis where it should belong in terms of creating a self-reliance economy, in terms of generating a self-propelling. We are servicing economy of foreign countries and acquiring pieces of paper in the name of trade. The relationship between our economy and the foreign one is in-equitable because of the exchange rate. Right now, a dollar fetches about one hundred and sixty naira.

“There was a time when the Nigerian naira fetched one dollar twenty cents, it is terrible.

We have massive unemployment the graduates of our various institutions can’t find jobs and there is a lots of distortion, a situation where doctors working in banks lawyers, engineers selling recharge cards and riding okada. The result is therefore instability in terms of social malle, armed robbery, juvenile delinquency, drug trafficking, human trafficking and de-instrialisation. There was some certain things we were supposed to be producing especially after independence but now many of the companies have relocated or folded up including batteries, textile industry. We are just enduring a situation of living everyday at a time.

“There is no enough investment in terms of savings, as foreign investment has taken a flight due to collapse of its capital market, Nigerian economy hasn’t recovered from the effect of the global meltdown. Looking at this scenario with the economy it become problematic.

Tieing that into political instability, to economy like ours epitiomise the restlessness in the Niger Delta and exacerbated by Boko Haram, the whole recipe is on for chaos and imminent failure of the Nigerian State.

“Nigerian State has not completely failed but definitely Nigeria is a failing State. I believe that is what impelled President Jonathan and his government to adopt a low key celebration. Because there is nothing to celebrate. Are we celebrating mass poverty or continued impoverishment of the generality of the Nigerian populace. It is only a few people that are creaming off the goodies available in this political economy. Those who have access to foreign currency. We don’t have basic needs, education for children, no employment, quality health care, the infrastructure is collapsing, we cannot guarantee twenty-four hours power supply in any part of the country.

“Looking at the totality of the Nigerian State is more bad news. And all we need to do to access to our contemporary Nigeria is to take a look at the faces of the people on the street, bus-stop or market places. People who don’t know when and where their next meal is coming.

My conclusion is that aside from keeping the country as one, we are just wasting our time. Even the survival that we might want to celebrate is put in a question by those argue that the solution is taking to one’s heels. That this system can’t go on that if we don’t want a hot African summer, then, there is need for Sovereign National Conference reviewing the modalities of our cohabitation.

Nigerians must take drastic decision to arrest this inexorable drift to exploitation. It is clear in the minds of social observers that Nigeria is facing implosion. Anyone is genuinely patriotic should know that there is fire on the mountain and we have to do something to arrest the drift to chaos.