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UNEDITED: Full text of Ex-President Obasanjo’s ‘fulanization’ speech that is shaking Nigeria

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“MOBILISING NIGERIA’S HUMAN AND NATURAL RESOURCES FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY”

Keynote Address by

His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo

At the 2019 Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Oleh Diocese                   Isoko, Delta State, May 18, 2019

PREAMBLE

1 . Let me begin by saying that it is quite an honour for me to be chosen to give the keynote address at this most distinguished gathering of the people of God.  Before continuing, please permit me to commend and congratulate Yourlordship the Bishop of Oleh Diocese, Rt. Rev. (DR.)John U. Aruakpor, the clergy, and, indeed, the entire laity of the Diocese for sustaining the time-honoured tradition of and requirement for annual synods.  As all of us are well aware, synods such as this affords us all including the bishop, the clergy and the laity the opportunity, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to rejuvenate our relationship with Almighty God by reviewing the events and activities of the diocese over the previous year, and then map out the events for the coming year. I sincerely pray that by the time the synod ends, the aims and objectives for which it was called would have been realised a hundredfold.

2 . Your lordship, it is gladdening to note that the Church in Nigeria has continued to provide not only for the spiritual growth of the people, but also, for the overall physical wellbeing and welfare of Nigerians generally. The church has continued to play a very critical role in the overall growth and development of the country.  It has continued, in the face of daunting challenges, to mould opinions, make critical interventions, and influence policies and general directions of the various tiers of governments in Nigeria. A clear testimony to this ennobling role of the church can be seen from the topic you have asked me to speak on, which is: Mobilising Nigeria’s Human and Natural Resources for National Development and Stability. Yes, the main mission of the Church is salvation of the soul but without ignoring the physical, mental and the general social well-being of humankind.  Jesus said, “I come that they may have life and have it to the full”, John 10:10 (NIV).  This topic is, to me, very apt, particularly as our dear country Nigeria keeps seeking for ways and means of overcoming the developmental challenges that confront it. I say this because, when closely examined, it can be seen that the topic is prescriptive, as against the general norm nowadays which tend to dwell only on the ills that afflict us as a peopleand they are many and consequently end up with only criticisms.  But I must also hasten to say that criticism particularly objective criticism is good and important for development and growth and generally for human development.  I, therefore, once more, commend Your lordship and the brains behind the Synod for deciding on this approach whose ultimate output would be recommendations on how to deal with the multifarious developmental challenges confronting Nigeria.

3 . Accordingly, within the next 60 minutes or thereabout, I am going to try to complement your efforts by attempting to look at the topic in some detail, and in so doing, share with you my views, ideas and experiences on how to mobilise the country’s immense human and natural resources in such a way as to facilitate Nigeria’s overall national development and stability.

4 . To do the above, I am going to first look at the topic as a whole and try to break it down into its various components for ease of understanding by the audience. I will then, briefly explain some of the more important terms associated with the topic. Next, I will try to look at the ‘Nigeria Project’. This will entail trying to find out what the nation Nigeria is all about. I think that it is very pertinent and, indeed, apt to interrogate the notion of this entity called Nigeria, since, without doing so, could equate to building on a weak foundation!

5 . Closely allied with the interrogation of the concept of the Nigeria Project will be an examination of those human and natural resources which it has pleased God to bless Nigeria with, and, of course, the ways and means to mobilise them to promote the country’s development and stability.

6 . Next, we will try to look at the core issues surrounding Nigeria’s National Development. We will start by first establishing the facets and parameters of national development, and then trace its historical evolution as a national development tool in Nigeria. Continuing, we will compare the state of Nigeria’s national development with those of some other countries of the world.  In my opinion, one very good way of doing this is to consider the concept referred to as the Human Development Index (HDI). We will look at some of the issues that go into the compilation of the index, with a view to seeing how our dear country fares in them.

7 . After this, I will then come to the meat of my address, which is how to mobilise the country’s human and natural resources to engendersecurity and stability of the polity and promote overall national economic and social development and growth.

8 . All these will lead us naturally to an examination of some of those challenges that have debarred us from achieving our goals as a nation, politically, economically and socially.

9 .  We will finally end by proffering right way forward and I will point at possible grave danger of moving knowingly or unknowingly on the wrong way.

THE TOPIC

10 . Let us now start by looking at the topic to try and break it down into its component parts (for ease of understanding).  As given, the topic is: Mobilising Nigeria’s Human and Natural Resources for National Development and Stability.

11 . The first word in this topic is the action verb ‘mobilise’, and it is saying that we need to do something. Specifically, it is saying we need to ‘mobilise’: which is to put together to make ready, but mobilise what?

12 .  The answer forms the second segment of the topic, which is: Nigeria’s Human and NaturalResources, which then leads us to the third and final segment, which can also be framed as another question as follows: for what purpose? For National Development and Stability. So, taking as a whole, the topic wants us to discuss how to mobilise Nigeria’s human and natural resources for the purpose of achieving the country’s Development and Stability and I will add growth and progress just for emphasis.

EXPLANATION OF SOME KEY CONCEPTS

13 . Looking at the topic, the first term that I believe we all must be clear about is Mobilise (or Mobilising). Within the context of the topic, what do we mean by Mobilising?

14 . The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English language lists several meanings and usages of the word ‘mobilise’. However, for our purposes in this address, we go with the one which tells us that the word is the same as:to marshal, to bring together, to prepare (something such as power, force, wealth, etc.) for action, especially of a vigorous nature. In other words, we are looking at ways to marshal, to bring together or to prepare Nigeria’s abundant human and material resourcesin such a way as to realisethe essence, the rationale, or the raison d’êtreor main objective of government, in other words, the welfare and security of the people. Of course, the welfare and security of the people is, to a large extent, synonymous with national development and stability.

STABILITY

15 . Stability as a word also features in the topic. Referring once more to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, we are told that stability is: the quality, state, or degree of being stable, such as the strength to stand and endure: firmness – against or in the face of upheavals (social, political, and economic) and natural and man-made disasters.

16 . With regards to our country Nigeria and for the purposes of this address, we are concerned with how to ensure that the Nigerian Polity (i.e., the State as a whole) is stable by efficiently mobilising and harnessing our human and natural resources to achieve the purpose of governance – welfare and well-being of the citizenry.

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

17 . Next, is National Development, or simply put, Development. So, what do we mean by Development?  According to Wikipedia, Development is the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced. From this, I want to believe that everything that is created by God and has life need to grow and develop; whether it is we collectively as a people and as a nation Nigeria, or as individual human beings.In other words, growth and development are positive attributes. Anything God creates needs to grow and develop. To drive the point home, we must emphasise that the opposite of growth or development is to decrease, to diminish, to reduce or to become stunted. Later on in this address, we shall look at the state or status of Nigeria, especially as it was in 1960 when we gained independence, and compare it with what it is presently, to see the extent of growth as a nation or lack of it.

18 . Explaining further, Wikipedia continued by telling us that Development is a process that creates growth, progress, positive change or the addition of physical, economic, environmental, social and demographic components.  It further added that for any nation, the ultimate goal of development is a rise in the level and quality of life of the population, and the creation or expansion of local and regional income and employment opportunities and choices, without damaging the resources of the environment.  Development is visible and useful, not necessarily immediately, and includes an aspect of quality change and the creation of conditions for a continuation of that change. Development cannot be static.

CHANGED NOTION OF DEVELOPMENT

19 . Until the last two or three decades of the last century (especially while the Cold War was still on), when nations talked about national development, the emphasis was more on the growth of the economy (or economic growth as measured by GDP per capita), that is infrastructure, industrial output and growth, etc. Except for the western nations perhaps, very rarely did the welfare and wellbeing of the individual citizen come into reckoning. In fact, in some jurisdictions, the citizens themselves counted more as means of production, which explains the historical listing of population as one of the elements of national power. Human beings were expendable commodities in the quest for greatness – that can be reduced to a single dimension as economic creatures.  Hence, GDP growth matters more than the welfare and well-being of the people.

20 . However, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1990, there emerged a changed notion of the concept of development which now holds that people must be at the centre of all development: in other words, the central focus of all development efforts (or national development) must be to ensure the advancement of human flourishing and expanding the richness of human life.  According to this new thinking, the end point of any developmental thinking or process must be the welfare and wellbeing of people themselves.  Development, therefore, is for all the people, about all the people, for all the people and by all.  This implies that no aspect of the development of any nation must be seen as an end in itself, but rather, as a means to acquiring human wellbeing and welfare. From this, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) espoused the concept of Human Development as the ultimate goal of National Development. In short, from 1990 onwards, the new paradigm of national development championed by the UNDP is called the human development approach – which emphasises enlarging people’s freedoms, choices and opportunities rather than economic growth. This has inspired and informed solutions and policies across the world, including, supposedly and I emphasise supposedly, our own dear country Nigeria.

THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX (HDI)

21 . Accordingly, the body (UNDP) defines human development as “the process of enlarging people’s choices,” said choices allowing them to “lead a long and healthy life, to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living,” as well as “political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect.  By 1990, the UNDP’s Human Development Report published the first Human Development Index (HDI) as a comprehensive annual tool for the measurement of human development in various nations of the world.  The index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development i.e., a long and healthy life as measured by life expectancy at birth, being educated which is measured by an education index (calculated using mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling), and ability to achieve a decent standard of living calculated on a nation’s gross national income (GNI) per capita.

NIGERIA’S HUMAN DEVELOPMENT SINCE 1960

22 . Now, having established the fact that the end product of every aspect of any nation’s national development agenda (be it GDP growth, industrial output, power output, infrastructural growth, agricultural advancement, etc) is the enhancement of human development of the people, we must now proceed to see how Nigeria, or, rather, Nigerians have fared since the country gained independence in 1960. For emphasis, it needs to be restated that irrespective of the level of growth in GDP and industry, infrastructural development, military prowess and power, even advancement in science and technology (all of which constitute indices of National Development), the now agreed ultimate indicator of any nation’s progress or development is in the advancement of human flourishing and expanding the richness of human life – i.e., how healthy and long one lives, and how happy, contented and fulfilled you are. All we are saying is that even if we have sent people into or conquered space, even if we have fast-moving trains, built ten-lane expressways linking all of our cities and towns, acquired or developed all the trappings of modernity, however in spite of these, the people themselves live a short and brutish life, then all the so-called development is superficial and nonsensical. This, in short, is the new paradigm of national development, and should be the focus of this gathering and any group of Nigerian citizenry as far as development is concerned.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE WORLD ON THE BASIS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

23 . By 1960, as it is today (and for historical reasons beyond the scope of this gathering), the nations of the world have always been classified into four categories as follows: highly developed(corresponding to highly industrialised), developed (industrialised), moderately developed, and under-developed (but to make it sound less offensive, developing). In terms of human development, these correspond to nations of very high human development (with very high HDI), nations of high human development (with high HDI), nations of medium human development (with moderate HDI), and lastly, nations of low human development with low HDI.

24 . Specifically, and according to the UNDP standard of measurement, peoples living in nations with very high HDI have, on the average, a life expectancy (LExp) of 79.5 years; those with high HDI have LExp of 75; those with medium HDI, a LExp of 69.9, while the LExp of those with low HDI is 60.8 years. By the way, the UNDP tells us that life expectancy (at birth) indicates the number of years a new-born infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life. It is a simple statistic indicating the level and quality of healthcare in any given country, the level of sanitation, and the provision of care for the elderly.

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25 . So the question now is: following this definition and classification, where was Nigeria by 1960, and where are we now – 58 years down the line? What was the average life expectancy of Nigeriansby 1960?

26 . By 1960 and having just gained our independence, Nigeria was classified as an underdeveloped (or developing) country with very low HDI and anequally low LExp of just 37 years! However, just last month in April, the Acting Chairman of the National Population Commission, Alhaji Hassan Bashir, while delivering Nigeria’s statement at the 52nd Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development in New York, informed the world that Nigeria’s average life expectancy has now increased to 52.2 years which puts us below low human development index of 60.8 years. To adequately appreciate whether this represents advancement or not, we must see how a few other countries have fared over the same period.  We have moved down from 53 years which we were in 2015.  We were only better than Chad and every other country was better than us.  And at 52.6 years, Chad is better than us today at 52.2 years.

Selected Nations’ Life Expectancy 1960 – 2018

27 . From the above table, it can be seen that apart from Chad, Nigeria has the lowest life expectancy amongst its other three immediate neighbours.In fact, on the life expectancy index published by the WHO, Nigeria placed 177 out of 183 countries and territories surveyed. This means that in the whole wide world, Nigeria is only better than six countries in terms of early death or short life span!

28 . In its 2018 edition published just last October, the UNDP was in a jubilant and triumphant mood in celebrating what it said was its 30 decades of PROGRESS in Human Development across the globe. Its happiness derived from the fact that ‘even though the global population increased from 5 billion to 7.5 billion between 1990 and 2017, the number of people in low human development (with average life expectancy of 60.8 years) fell from 3 billion to 926 million (i.e. from 60 percent of the global population to 12 percent), and the number of people in high and very high human development more than tripled, from 2.8 billion to 3.8 billion (or from 24 percent of the global population to 51 percent). This is certainly cheering news for the global body whose efforts have led to such dramatic improvement in human development across the world.  It is also cheering news for the many nations and territories across the world whose governments harkened to the advice of the UNDPand adopted measures and policies that helped uplift the quality of life of their peoples.

29 . While the rest of the world are celebrating this improvement in human happiness and human quality, it is appropriate to ask where Nigeria fits into this scale of advancement in human development. My lord Bishop, distinguished audience, without belabouring the issue, the summary of the state of human development in Nigeria over the past 30 years or even since independence in 1960 can be summarised by that CNN headline news of 26 June 2018 and which proclaims as follows: ‘’Nigeria overtakes India in extreme poverty ranking’’. Explaining further, the news outlet said: ‘’Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians, or around half of the country’s population, thought to be living on less than $1.90 a day. The findings, based on a projection by the World Poverty Clock and compiled by Brookings Institute, show that more than 643 million people across the world live in extreme poverty, with Africans accounting for about two-thirds of the total number’’. When this is juxtaposed with the fact about 962 million people in the world now are grouped under the low human development index with average life expectancy of 60.8 years, which is even far higher than the average of 52.2 for Nigeria, then the abysmal state of this here become obvious. To further compound the depressing picture of life and living here in Nigeria, the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2018 (a publication of the Institute for Peace), which ranks nations of the world according to their level of peacefulness, places Nigeria at the 148th position out of 163. In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria places 40th out of 44, more peaceful only than CAR, DRC, Somalia and South Sudan. According to the GPI, all of our neighbours are more peaceful than Nigeria: Niger and Cameroon are ranked 33rd and 34th respectively, Sierra Leone is ranked 3rd, Ghana 5th, while Liberia is ranked 11th.

30 . My lord Bishop, distinguished audience, having seen the totality of the practical side of Nigeria’s national development as summarised by the very low average life expectancy (or life span) of the average Nigerian, we must now turn our attention at what needs to be done to improve the situation.  This entails mobilising the nation’s human and natural resources to ensure improvement in the quality of life of Nigerians. But first, what are these human and natural resources?

NIGERIA’S HUMAN RESOURCES

31 . According to the World Population Review, Nigeria is currently the 7th most populous nation in the world. With a median of 18.3 years, the country’s population as on 14 April 2019 was199,915,717. I say 200 million. At the current growth rate, in six years’ time, i.e., by 2025, Nigeria will become the 4th most populous nation in the world with an estimated population of 233,691,888.

32 . Of the country’s present population and according to the CIA World Fact Book, those aged 0-14 years constitute 42.45%; those between 15-24 years make up 19.81%; while those in the age bracket of 25-54 years are 30.44%; the ones between ages 55-64 years make up 4.04%, those 65 years and over constitute 3.26% of the entire population. From this, it can be seen that those within the most economically active or working-age range (15 – 64 years of age)constitute about 54.29 % of the population, which is relatively high. The question now is: what percentage of this group are actively employed?

33 . With regards to being actively employed, Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stated in its Labour Force Statistics released on 19 December 2018 that 23.1 percent (i.e. 24,370,500) of the work force is unemployed by end of September 2018.   Frightening high!

LITERACY RATE

34 . Of Nigeria’s entire population, about 59.9 percent are literate (i.e. can read and write in a particular language). Let us take it for 60 per cent.  Males constitute about 69.2 % of this figure while the percentage for females is 49.7%. With this literacy rate, Nigeria, as in other fields of human development, ranks a lowly 144 of 162 on the global literacy index. To compound matters, Nigeria also has the dubious reputation as the country in the world with the highest number of out-of-school children. The Federal Ministry of Education estimates these to be about 10.5 million but others put real figure at about 13million.

35 . The summary of this brief survey of Nigeria’s human resources is that, although it is huge, a good percentage is unproductive to the extent of positively contributing to positive, great and economic and social development and growth and the enhancement of human life in general. Education is the most important and most potent instrument of development for an individual and for the society.  And where they cannot contribute positively, they then contribute negatively or at best not at all, hence Boko Haram, kidnappings, armed robbery, bandits, terrorists, human trafficking, and other organised crimes and all the well-known ills and misconduct and other crimes that currently plague our nation. The challenge that confronts us all now is how to arrest this slide into negativity due to lack of properly empowering 40 per cent of our population for development.  And more importantly today, how do we prevent external influence and impact like ISIS that are dislodged from Iraq and Syria and are taking comfortable haven in Sahel Africa and linking up with Boko Haram?

NIGERIA’S NATURAL RESOURCES

36 . Nigeria’s total geographical size is923,768 square km, with land area of 910,768 square km and water constituting13,000 square km.  Given the countries huge population, this land size is considered to be relatively small.  Unlike its immediate neighbours to the north, Nigeria is a maritime nation with a coastline measuring 853 kilometres, territorial sea of 12 nautical miles (nm), exclusive economic zone of 200 nm, and a continental shelf of 200 metres depth or to the depth of exploitation. These maritime endowments are great assets that if adequately mobilised can lead to wealth and subsequently improvement of the human capital.What today, they call blue economy.  But we should ask ourselves, how much attention have we paid to blue economy other than for oil and gas?

37 . Of the country’s total land area, 37.3 % of it is arable, with permanent crops and permanent pastures occupying 7.4 and 33.3 percentages respectively. Only about 2, 930 square kilometres of the land is irrigated. Nigeria’s varied land types support a great variety of agricultural products including cocoa, rubber, coffee, palm products, groundnuts, cotton, cow pea, ginger, cashew nuts, fruits of various types, animal products, aqua culture, just to mention a few. As all us well know, these agricultural products constituted the base of the nation’s (anticipated) industrial growth in the years preceding independence and immediately thereafter.

38 . Just as Nigeria is blessed with abundant agricultural products, she is also blessed with numerous mineral resources.  These include coal, tin, gold, iron ore, zinc, limestone, niobium (formerly known as columbium), salt, and, of course, natural gas and petroleum, just to mention a few. Studies have shown that there is no State in Nigeria that is not richly endowed with abundant mineral resources. The challenge now is to adequately mobilise these to ensure the stability of the polity and the peoples’ human development in terms of enhanced livelihood.

STRATEGIES TO MOBILISING NIGERIA’S HUMAN AND NATURAL RESOURCES

39 . Any keen observer of the Nigerian situation will easily agree that the country’s inability to adequately harness her abundant human and natural resources for national development, and thus,ensure a happier, more qualitative and longer lifespan for her citizens has nothing to do with lack or absence of plans and strategies. On the contrary, Nigeria has always being blessedwith some of brightest and most endowed human beings in the world, who have churned out fine plans and strategies for the nation’s rapid socio-economic development. Let us briefly outline some of these plans.

Brief History of National Development Planning in Nigeria

40 . Being a former British colony, the country’s first experience with a formalised development plan came on stream in 1944, when the then Secretary of State for the colonies sent out a circular requesting the governments of all the then British colonies to formulate plans for the economic and social development of their territories.  This was in anticipation of the Second World War.  For Nigeria, the response from the then colonial administration was a plan referred to as “Ten Year Plan of Development and Welfare for Nigeria”, for which a total expenditure of about N110 million for the period of ten years was envisaged from April 1, 1946 to 31st March 1956. However, following the granting of semi autonomy to each of the three regional governments in 1955, each of them along with the federal government lunched its own 5-year development plan for the period 1955-1960. Then it was in preparation towards independence.  This 5-year pre-independence development plan was the beginning of Fixed Medium Term Planning for the country, and was to be the model up till 1985.

41 . After independence, 4 more Fixed Medium Term plans were executed as follows: (1) First National Development Plan from 1962 to 1968, and extended to 1970 because of the civil war.  It was the first after independence.  About the sum of 2.2 billion Naira was provided for capital expenditure under this plan.Some amongst you here might also recall that an integral part of this 1st Development Plan was the establishment of the National Manpower Board (NMB), a scheme that was launched in 1962 to develop the requisite manpower needs of the newly independent nation.  (2) Then followed the1970 – 1974 Second National Development Plan for which was earmarked the capital expenditure of 3 billion Naira. (3) For the Third National Development Plan, (1975 to 1980) a capital expenditure of 30 billion Naira (later raised to 43.3 billion Naira was provided for. Recall that this was shortly after the Arabs imposed an oil embargo on the West following the 1973 October Middle East war.  As a result of the embargo, Nigeria earned an unprecedented amount of foreign exchange. As I am sure some of you remember, following the unfortunate events of 13 February 1976, it fell on me to implement this 3rd Plan up till 1st October 1979, when I handed over to the now late Alhaji Shehu Shagari. We build almost all the airports and sea-ports that we are proud of today.  The power stations, Shiroro and Jeba with Egbin commenced.  The roads – Lagos-Ibadan was completed; Shagamu-Asaba, Enugu-Onitsha, Calabar-Makurdi, Badagry-Sokoto, Yola-Numan, Kaduna- Kano, Warri-Benin, Portharcourt-Enugu were commenced. Airports were built in Calabar, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Makurdi, Sokoto, Yola, Kaduna, Maiduguri, Ilorin, Ibadan, Kainji, Kano and Jos.  Lagos airport was completed and Lagos ringroad with Third Mainland Bridge and replacement of Carter bridge with concrete were carried out.   We launched and established nine unity schools and seven universities.We also launched UPE and Primary Healthcare Scheme countrywide.  The 4th Plan covering 1981 to 1985 followed and for this, a capital expenditure of 82 billion naira was envisaged.

42 . After the 4th Plan, the fifth was to be lunched at the end of 1985.  However, due to the prevailing economic crisis and the subsequent administration’s self-induced socio-political scenario, it was abandoned. In all these, specific emphasis was placed on planning because of ‘the urgent need to rationally ‘tap the available scarce resources for the socio-economic development of the nation’. But did this happen?

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43 . Instead of having a 5th development plan to cover the period 1986- 90, Nigeria adopted a policy plan known as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which was initially designed to last from 1986- 88 but which was later extended to last till 1990. SAP was adopted on the advice of the World Bank and IMF and it really sapped the Nigerian socio-economic development through heavy devaluation, and non-promotion of agriculture.  Then from SAP, Nigeria graduated to the three-yearly National Rolling Plans: Rolling Plan 1 (1990 – 1992), Rolling Plan 2 (1993 – 1995); and Rolling Plan 3 (1996 – 1998).  Of course, in 1996, Nigeria decided to take the bull posed by the challenge of under development by the horn by deciding to look far into the future.  We, as a country, with much f