Last week the richest black man in the world, our own Alhaji Aliko Dangote, signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the Federal Government of Nigeria for the establishment of a $1 billion integrated rice-producing company in Nigeria

The Executive Director of the group, calling itself, The Environmental Rights Action/friends of the Earth Nigeria, Dr Godwin Uyi Ojo, was reported to have said that, “We, as civil society groups and as community members, are disappointed in the National Assembly for playing politics with peoples lives. The PIB has been on the desk of our lawmakers since 2009 and another lawmaking session is coming to an end. Yet, the passage of this bill appears not in sight.

“For this reason, I seek the concurrence of the National Assembly for external borrowing of not more than $1 billion..” President Jonathan in the letter to the Senate President, David Mark on July 15, 2014.

I cannot recollect which one of my classmates wrote that report, when after a Scouts’ Adventure we returned to school at Igbobi College, Yaba and were asked to recount our experience. Mostly, we got totally lost in the forest and it was the benevolent appearance of a hunter which got us out.

Nigeria lags behind all the countries – South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, to mention a few – which were either at the same level of development or were even behind us in 1960 mostly because we never learn from our mistakes. Every twenty or so years, we are faced with a major shift in economic policies based on new global realities or technology and we end up messing up the transition – at our own peril