Even as he battles to lead us out of this Corona virus crisis, has President Muhammadu Buhari averted his mind to searching out a man or woman with a wise and understanding heart and appointing such a one to carefully note the lessons the outbreak of this Corona virus pandemic has taught our nation? Such an appointment is necessary, urgent and a ‘’categorical imperative’’, as my socialist friends would put it.
I think we shall suffer a tragedy worse than even the virulent virus itself if we fail to pick out some very useful lessons from this misfortune and re-work our country to become a functional and successful society. We, therefore, urgently need a man or woman or a youth endowed with wisdom beyond his years by the Almighty God to carefully draw the attention of our leaders to the fact that we have neglected to do so many critical things necessary for nation building and that the time to do them is now or like yesterday.
Such a person must, in addition, possess a largeness and generosity of heart that make him or her see things beyond his region, religion, ethnic affinity, political party or class but will be concerned only with Nigeria as a nation that ought to have done better than it has done so far. Such a person must also possess courage to note in his handbook that our nation has been grossly under-governed or ungoverned or badly governed because our leadership over the years have neglected to do so many things that they ought to have paid attention to.
From what I can see, they have failed to provide medical facilities for the use of the people. What the Scribe I am humbly requesting for should note is that there is an urgent need to begin building health centres beginning from each political ward in the country, a general hospital in each LGA headquarters, specialist/tertiary hospitals in each state and a mega hospital that should be named The Answer, in the Federal Capital Territory. At any level where any of these heath facilities are in existence, what needs to be done is to consolidate on them by equipping, provisioning and manning them with the best we can have from anywhere in the world. And where there is none, to commence immediate action at getting them.
Doomsday prophets are saying that another pandemic worse than the current one is coming. The world will laugh us to scorn if that one comes and we are again caught napping. Even if such a dreadful thing is not coming, we just need world class health facilities to treat our ailments, especially our environmentally induced pandemics like Malaria, typhoid, Ebola, Lassa and Yellow Fever. I have studied the Bible and come away with the understanding that some of the exceptional leaders we read about who built their nations to glory adopted forced labour to execute public works project. Today, with our monumental unemployment rates, no leader need go the way of forced conscription. All you need do is to mobilize volunteer labour, properly conscientise them and motivate them and they will execute projects worth several trillions of Naira at a fraction of what it will take to contract them out.
This will save governments money they would have paid to contractors; it will provide jobs, even if ad hoc in nature, to the volunteers and it will ensure that we have vitally needed infrastructure. The Trader Moni we dispense to people, the debt forgiveness money we dispense to poor people under the Social Intervention Programme and the palliative money people are asking for to survive the lockdown should all be aggregated and used in building factories, socio-economic infrastructures and businesses that will offer gainful employment to those volunteers that offer to help us build our nation. In fact whatever pledges we have made to the Paris Club of creditors who forgave us our debt in 2006 should be reviewed and the Conditional Cash Transfers should be stopped forthwith and the money applied in the manner I have suggested. If the creditors will complain that they are not sure of our honesty, we can ask them to come and supervise what we intend to do.
Electricity to power our homes and industries is, of course, one of the number one things we need to fix urgently for Nigeria to take off as a modern developing nation. Every day now I pray that Buhari’s name should not be added to former Presidents who told us sweet lies before they went in and who left our electricity situation the same way or even in worse situation than they met it.
The second important lesson Corona virus has opened our eyes to is the urgent need for a national data base. We have played too much politics with population and that mistake has caught up with us very badly. We must do something now. Let the Scribe note in his book that a credible national census that will give us all the information we need for nation building be undertaken before the end of this year. End of this year? Is that not too short, Mr. Idang Alibi? No, it is not. Where there is a will, there will be a way. We cannot afford to wait. Statistics is too important for national planning and action that a country like Nigeria, or any other country for that matter, should not have it.
Even before Coro came, some have noted our appalling settlement pattern. We live basically in unplanned environment that predisposes us to many contagious diseases. We need to suspend many other things we are doing and pay particular attention to the planning, re-planning and re-building of our towns and cities even if it will cost us trillions. As I have said earlier, if there is the will, there will be a way.
Another major lesson the Scribe should include in his notebook is the great need we have to pay urgent, concentrated and committed attention to the production of medical personnel, medical supplies/consumables and drugs. With the advent of this pandemic, many nations stopped the exports of certain drugs and other medical supplies. If we do not pick up a lesson from this and begin a step towards self-sufficiency or self-production of some vitally needed medical inventories, then we do not deserve to live. Simple.
I also think that there is a great need for us to think of a new national economic philosophy. Today in our country, what we have is an entitlement economic philosophy. Everyone, especially the political, bureaucratic and business elites, think they are entitled to the wealth and resources of the country. This explains why the competition for positions to share national patrimony is so fierce. We want to get into positions where we can share money, give appointments, award contracts and determine the destinies of friends, relatives and acquaintances.
Not many of our leaders know what to do to generate wealth or to get society to be productive. What we therefore need is an entrepreneurial rather than an entitlement mentality. Baba should be ready to mobilize economic philosophers/ practitioners and deep thinkers such as VP Yemi Osinbajo, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Obadiah Mailafia, Tope Fasua, Odilim Nweghara and many other competent indigenous Nigerian economists to help design for us a system that will institute productivity, creativity and innovation.
The Scribe should also note to government that there is a categorical imperative (that word again)that the Federal, state and local governments should jettison/shred the 2020 budgets they have prepared for their domains and in their stead prepare a new one to reflect the new priorities some of which we have identified here. I was taught in Public Policy course that no public policy is devoid of personal, group/class, regional, religious or tribal interest.
The 2020 budgets done by the various levels of government in the federation cannot be an exception. In fact if you critically analyse them you may discover that only about 10 per cent of the projects and plans in them actually represent local, state and national interests. The rest reflect narrower interests so nothing much will be lost if we abandon them and do new budgets that will focus on the new emergencies that we have to address through the partnerships of all layers of government.
This is not a normal time. Local, state and federal executive branches should liaise with their respective legislative branches and come up with plans for new spendings that will commit a disproportionate share of money to projects that will give us better health facilities, a data base, a better transportation system and a new and better settlement pattern than the one we have now.
If he has not already done so, I urge the President as a matter of national urgency to appoint the Scribe and charge him to commence work such that before the lockdown is lifted, the President will have a set of priority projects he should announce to the nation he will embark upon in light of lessons learnt from COVID 19.
I am certain that if the President has such a plan and begins to mobilize other chiefs of the various levels of government to partner with him to do for Nigeria, his approval rating will raise to a level he himself will be surprised about. All the people who now appear as his enemies or critics will become his friends and ardent admirers.
Let Nigeria not miss the unintended benefits of this crisis that has befallen the world. It is a wake- up call on us to begin the building of our nation.
