EvaluateNigeria is an appraisal project embarked upon by ForeTruckers Limited(Communication Specialists) with the objective of rallying professionals of different areas of endeavour to rate Nigeria’s performance in its delivery of socio-economic dividends and other essentials to its citizenry.
The survey prides itself in its readiness to regularly disseminate its findings to active stakeholders via its media subsidiary, FirstNigeriaTV.
For starters, FirstNigeriaTV rallied a number of professionals in different areas of endeavour to give an account of Nigeria’s development over a 20-year period of ‘unbroken democracy’.
√Mr. Ladi Durojaiye, Lagos based Business Tycoon.
Revd. David Bamgbose, MD, Royal treat Travels Centre Limited, Lagos
In 20 years of Democracy, I can’t readily see any development that attracts attention in the Aviation industry. For these number of years, no sincere efforts have been put in place to flag off our National carrier. Without our National carrier, arbitrary fixture of fares by other international carriers cannot be overlooked. I join my opinion with other experts in the industry to urge the Government to be more sincere in its commitment to establish our own National carrier. Secondly, more terminals should be built while the infrastructure in the existing ones should be upgraded to match the present trend in International standard in other parts of the world.
√Mr. Adeboye Ademikanlu, Education Consultant, Oyo State.
For me, I don’t think we have had any ground-breaking developmental strides in the educational sector in the last 20 years!
It’s been the same merry-go-rounding, motion without movement kind of a thing, palliatives here & there, but really nothing of substance to write home about and therefore to point at as concrete or tangible achievements of successive governments in the sector!
Drawn to the basics, can you imagine what a world of difference it would have made in our general lives & in the polity if we had the followings in place:
i). Free & qualitative education from Nursery level to the University level, complete with absolutely free quality, adequate & up-to-date local/international books, journals, magazines, charts, stationery, et al;
ii). Functional & up-to-speed Colleges of Education & Faculties of Education in our Universities;
iii). Constant/functional training & retraining of teachers at every level of education;
iv). Equipping our institutions with state of the art furniture & up-to-date science laboratories & making the teaching of every science/technology-based subjects/courses practical-based;
v). Developing a broad-based curriculum that is realistic, locally-bred and with contents that address our peculiar nature & challenges but nonetheless international in nature;
vi). Getting true, tried, tested & trusted hands to man the education ministries in our respective federating units (states) & at the Federal level;
vii). Motivating result-oriented & goal-getting, practicing teachers adequately & thereby encouraging our best brains to consider taking up a career in teaching, with all its attendant benefits.
These are my top-of-the-line concepts of what the education sector of my country should look like, it’s realizable, only and only if we can decide to be honest with ourselves as a people, stop being self-centered, stop being parochial in our views, stop being shallow in our reckoning & think more of the general good and the future of the country, rather than just our little corner of the country!
√Mr. Osagie Odiase, Real Estate Consultant.
Well, with reference to my area of endeavour I can say there had been developments over the years but what remains is for those developments to translate into well-being for the generality of Nigerians. For instance, the advent of mortgage institutions was a very good and welcome development by the government and by now had the details been followed to the letter as obtained in the developed economies of the world, Nigeria by now would have been nearly self-sufficient in provision of housing for all. But quite unfortunately, the operators of that period veered into other areas of business with the funds made available to them by the Federal Government and investors and the government of the day also failed to call them to order.
The Real Estate Investment Trust Scheme (REITS) which transformed housing development in the US and UK has not worked here till now due to unworkable government policies and insincerity.
But over and above all, my take is simple and it is that with all our drawbacks, lack of purposeful leadership, ethnic and religious negative draw lines, poor infrastructure and economic downturn, it is wonderful that we have achieved 20 years of unbroken democracy and that gives me hope that somehow NIGERIA will make it.
√Mr. Sunny Odighizuwa, Chartered Quantity Surveyor.
Over the years, no doubt technology has continued to improve service delivery in the engineering sector of the economy in the period in view. But the major problem we have in the sector is what I can call government’s lack of confidence in its indigenously trained engineers. One lacks explanation for this trend but it can be traced to corruptive tendencies. Government officials would prefer to hire foreign nationals to handle development projects instead of making do with Nigerians who are capable of competing favourably with overseas colleagues, there promoting capital flight and depleting foreign exchange. Huge sums of money in foreign currency are wasted on projects awarded to foreign nationals even without surety of good delivery.
√Dr. Bayo Akinsanya, Member, Joint Action Front; Former Chairperson, ASUU, Tai Solarin University of Education.
The Nigerian State is facing serious challenges, it is multifarious, nepotism, corruption, insecurity, bourgeoisie dominance and the rest. However, the transition to civil rule has almost not brought dividends with the elites’ dominance.
There shall come a total upheaval if the tide of joblessness, insecurity, uncontrolled bureaucratic dominance amidst youth recklessness, is not arrested.
√Mrs. Oluwatoyin Ajayi, Teacher and Youth Mentor.
If we have to discuss fully about what has transpired in 20 years of unbroken democracy, it would be needful to take our discussion back to the days of the June 12 struggle. But for this purpose now, it may not be necessary.
But I strongly believe that good leadership is key to the survival, continuity and development of any nation, and Nigeria is not an exception.
The annulment of the June 12 Presidential election inevitably gave room for the installation of bad leadership which we are still paying for up till now.
With reference to my area of specialisation, I strongly urge that the saying ‘charity begins at home’ should be imbibed to the letter. Since our children are supposed to be leaders of tomorrow, the onus is on every parent to ensure that he or she dedicates enough time to monitoring his or her children so that eventually we have spirited and useful leaders to hand over to.
I should not also forget to add that the education sector needs serious overhauling in personnel, infrastructure and the likes and it is disheartening to hear the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recently confess that 58 years after Independence, Nigerian universities still lack ability in discoveries and inventions.
