October 03, (THEWILL) – A former Minister of Education and co-founder of ‘The Rescue Nigeria Project’, Prof Tunde Adeniran, speaks on Nigeria’s 61st Independence anniversary and other issues of national interest in this interview with AYO ESAN. Excerpts:
What is your assessment of Nigeria at 61?
Well, thank God for Nigeria that in spite of our challenges, God is faithful. He is keeping us and I pray that we will rise up as a nation and face the challenges with vigour, with determination to fully overcome the problems. And we should stop the blame game. This person was responsible for this and that so that our leaders will guide us in facing these challenges. And we the followers will also play our part.
With regard to the security challenges, which represent our greatest problem, we should not leave everything to the military and police alone. Citizens should also be alert and whatever role the community will play should be played, so that we can collectively overcome the challenges. It is unfortunate that the resources we should be using to develop and improve the quality of lives of our people are being spent on maintaining security. Of course, without peace and security we cannot develop. That is why Nigerians must come together and fix the challenges. And not pass the blame here or there. We have gone past that stage. There are things we ought to have done in the past, which we failed to do. But it is too late now to agonise over such things. The challenge before us now is to fix whatever is confronting us and overcome it. And God, who has given us all the resources, particularly the human resources, will enable us to use those talents to confront and overcome the challenges.
Many people believe that at 61, Nigeria still has a lot of problems to worry about. Do you think the country should have been better than it is? What can we do to improve?
We have to pay more attention to our priorities and values. Instead of pursuing the core values that used to define us as a people, we seem to be pursuing material resources. I believe at this point, we need to pay attention to three important things. Number one is the issue of leadership at all levels. Our process of leadership recruitment is faulty. We need to get it right. We need to concentrate more on the younger generation and encourage them to key into the core values that used to define us as a people and as a nation: Hard work, love for our neighbours, being our brothers’ keepers, aspiration to excel, being trustworthy, devotion to duty and of course, the determination to make Nigeria proud of us as a people and for us to be proud of Nigeria as a nation.
We also need to focus on those things that will add value both to us as a people and to our country. They are the things that will make our life more meaningful and worthy. For instance, we have neglected agriculture, which ought to have remained the pillar of our development. Because God gave us oil, we abandoned the other natural resources, the mineral resources that should have been developed for future generations. Because of oil, we have also forgotten the essence of production and the clamour has shifted to sharing, sharing, and sharing.
Instead of being productive as a nation, we have become a people and a nation that concentrates on sharing. Once you concentrate on sharing you cannot extend the scope of production. That is what we should have focused on and people began to struggle and to clamour over limited resources, whereas God gave us unlimited possibilities to produce, to grow and to develop.
I believe that we need to work on two major things as our immediate challenges, aside insecurity. These issues are germane and we should do something about them. One of them is the issue of population. We seem to be paying less attention to our population. There is population explosion in Nigeria. Nobody wants to talk about it and nobody wants to do anything about it.
When we do not control our population growth, it will be very difficult to control other things. Our planning will be meaningless. We should pay attention to it, make sure we produce and reproduce humanity to the extent that we can cater for them. Individuals may feel free to procreate endlessly, and boast about having dozens of children. The country has the responsibility to perform since the country is going to provide for the security of those children, for the future well-being of those children and the infrastructure they are going to use.
The government has a responsibility to control and make sure that citizens restrict themselves or are restricted to what the government can cater for. If there is no control, there will be chaos. Nothing is more harmful to an underdeveloped country than a chaotic population that is uncontrollable. From the way things are going, the greater percentage of Nigeria’s population is youths and those below them. If that trend continues, it will be disastrous for our country. We are starting rather too late now, but something can still be done about it.
Decisive steps should be taken by government at all levels. People should be encouraged or guided not to politicise the issue of population explosion. This is a subject that can affect the well-being of future generations of Nigerians and the quality of lives they will live.
Why you have to place more attention on this population control is because we have to limit population to what we can give education and medical services to. In other words, we must be able to produce for the children we are bringing to the world. So that we just don’t give birth to people whose welfare we won’t be able to cater for.
The other issue to be confronted is the issue of climate change. The song now is about climate change and related matters. Why our governmental policy should identify with the issue. We should also find ways to not neglect or abuse our environment. That is why we end up with massive flooding in all places, leading to loss of lives and properties. That is why we have terrible pollution all over the place and parts of the consequences are diseases and deaths. We have to pay necessary attention to these areas.
How will the Rescue Nigeria Project help the country to overcome some of its challenges?
Well, it is a patriotic duty, something we see as an urgent call. We have been drifting aimlessly and members of the political class have been playing politics of convenience. You have seen the way they cross the carpet, the way they move without remorse, consideration or conviction. Once they see that Party A is the one that will provide the avenue for personal aggrandisement, they move in and when that opportunity is not forthcoming, they move again. That is not right. It is not good for our system.
We have to play politics that is rooted in ideology. Our politicians should be made to appreciate not just the role of ideology, but also the essence of principles. Politicians should be able to guide the people, their followers, based on some core values. People should know where they stand on a particular national issue, which should determine what position they take, because this country is drifting in such a way that we are becoming more divided as a people. We believe there is a need across the various divides.
We need to reconcile our people, reconcile Nigerians and unite the nation and move on as a united people so that people will be guided less by ethnicity, religion and selfish pursuits. Our actions should be grounded on principles and clear indices of patriotism. We should have a country that is run by a leadership based on capacity, competence, courage and the will to move it in the right direction. We believe in people of like minds from various zones and persuasions. We even have some people within the leading political parties who have the type of orientation that could help in rescuing the country if they worked together with others and are not suffocated within the mass of their present grouping that does not give room for the manifestation of the types of ideological orientation that we are talking about.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
