If you conduct a random survey and ask the average ‘Joe’ on the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Calabar or anywhere else, in Nigeria, what he thinks are the problems facing businesses, you are likely to get a long list. However, top on the list would probably be access to finance, funding, money, and cash to run and grow the business. Similarly, if you were to inquire about what is considered the number 1 obstacle to the country’s development, you are almost certain to hear that it is corruption.
I happen to agree with Joe on both but only, to the extent that they are the symptoms and not the problem.
Undoubtedly, the inability to access funding for business is a fundamental challenge that stifles almost all businesses, anywhere. As for corruption in Nigeria, it can be likened to an aggressive cancer that keeps spreading and ravaging the body, in spite of curative efforts. These 2 issues are so much talked about that you can be forgiven for thinking if both issues could be solved we will have arrived in the promised land of development. But you would be wrong.
Corruption, no matter how pervasive and funding for businesses, no matter how bad, is not the root of our socio-economic stagnation. They are mere symptoms of a greater problem. Both, especially corruption, have however become colossal distractions.
You can liken the root cause of our underdevelopment to the effects of the medical phenomenon known as ‘stress’ on our physical and mental wellbeing. Most medical doctors refer to stress as a silent killer. It is often painless. A long-time friend often describes it as the fuel you do not see, when fire is raging. It is the unseen and often ignored agent that is the active culprit of the destructive inferno. Similarly, those, whose health issues are stress related, are most times unable to make the connection. They live in denial and pay only minimal attention, sometimes just enough, to dispute negligence. After all, it is painless and so, highly under-estimated or even ignored completely.
Such is what lies at the root of our socio economic malaise. It is the plain, simple, dull and painless matter called education. Our inability to recognize education as the underpinning factor of national development makes us under-estimate its role, as our most important resource. Education is, unarguably, the cornerstone of socio economic development but you may yet not take my word for it.
According to an article, titled Why Education is the Key to Global Peace and Prosperity, published on June 7th 2017, by the Department of Management, London School of Economics, it is generally assumed that everyone knows that education is important for the progress of the society and all need to invest in it. Governments too are supposedly concerned about this and they are working, to deliver the best possible quality in education. However, the statistics presented at an event covered by this publication left the audience “baffled by the dire reality in the field of education”.
At the same event the former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard was quoted as saying: “Education reduces poverty, improves health, increases gender equality, and boosts economic growth. Education is an investment that pays dividends for many generations”. She went further to say: “As Nelson Mandela said, education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”.
The greatest travesty of the Nigerian story is the myopic neglect of the education sector by successive governments. They either lack policy direction or the political will, to execute the right policy. Federal and State Governments alike, opt to focus on policies, programs and sectors that produce immediate but unsustainable gratification.
Though education receive an allocation of N398 billion (2nd largest) for recurrent expenditure and N142 billion (4th largest) allocation for capital expenditure in the 2017 Federal Budget proposal, the confusing irony is that, in spite of these annual high figures, the end does not seem to ever justify the colossal figures. The majority of our population are either uneducated or poorly educated. Whichever way you look at it, the end product is an unskilled, uninformed, unexposed and largely unemployable populace.
We have an aging population that is both poor and corrupt alongside a young population that is completely unprepared, to tackle the headwinds of the future, in that they are unable to come up with the innovation required, to sustain growth and accelerate development. They lack the moral compass to navigate the murky waters of modern day life. Is it any wonder then that in Nigeria today, octogenarians are still being nominated to fill cabinet and ambassadorial positions? Meanwhile in civilized climes, millennials are the ones in control.
Nigeria’s population is by far its greatest and most sustainable resource. It is neither energy nor agriculture. We can start to take advantage and benefit from this resource by making quality education available. It is what can prepare the country for the future and guarantee development.
Let us be clear about this. The operative word is ‘future’. What we are witnessing at the moment are the results of more than 20yrs of deliberate neglect. You may carry out the research and you will find that the most productive sectors of our economy are driven or manned by individuals and groups of people, who completed their formal education in Nigeria, during the 80s to early 90s or were educated abroad. Subsequent years leading up till now were thrown to the wolves. What obtains now is, at best, a revolving door of mediocrity.
We can therefore set up a hundred EFCCs and a hundred SME funds. If we do not inculcate the right values and prepare our people, to lead and innovate, corruption will remain and businesses will continue to fail. What we need is a comprehensive reform of our education sector and a heavy investment on the development of our human resources. Sadly, our beloved country will continue to motion but may not move, until we do the right things first and do them, in the right way.
We need to stop treating the symptoms and start addressing the disease that is responsible, for our underdevelopment.
Written by Dayo Omotayo
