MY THOUGHTS ON RESTRUCTURING NIGERIA

By Noma S. Patrick

The best asset any Nation can have is a unity that transcends every natural and artificial boundary that seems to discriminate its people into different groups be it virtual or real. Only then can a Nation expect progress. It is from the understanding of this basic truth that Nigeria decided to make it a cardinal duty to preach unity not only by talking it but also making a slogan/motto out of it (“unity and faith, peace and progress”).

Ironically, practically attaining a state of basic necessary unity has turned out to be one of the impossibilities that has evaded the grip of the Nigerian people and as a result stalled our progress over the years even as our democracy keeps accelerating its escalation. The extent to which we have gone the opposite direction as regards the actualization of the unity we understand we so desire has led us to a point in our national political discourse where an idea called “restructuring” is given birth to. Nigerians are now either for or against the concept of restructuring the nation into a likely more workable system and order. I passionately belong to the former school of thought and this is an attempt to explain my own views on why restructuring should be the best thing any people in our position should clamor for.

The basis upon which the new found yearning for restructuring was born is the desire for an unadulterated federal system of government in which federating states, provinces or regions enjoy total economic and appreciable political autonomy as it concerns right to control and ownership of resources in their respective territories and a cooperation geared mainly towards maintaining a federal government that is only concerned with protecting the territorial integrity of the country, maintaining diplomatic relations with the international community, overseeing and executing a framework of economic cooperation and such other matters. This, I believe, is the right definition of the tendency towards which the work of restructuring should be for many wonderful and blissful benefits we stand to gain from as a people. In my view, restructuring, in the context of my argument as presented here will go an unimaginably long way in solving our problems politically, economically, socially and in much more other ways directly and indirectly connected to these that have over the years appear to defy all efforts toward solutions. I take these respectively in the paragraphs that follow.

In our game of POLITICS that has turned out, in recent years, to be characterized by an alarming level of immaturity audaciously shaking the very foundation of our cohesion and harmony both among the elites and the poor masses alike, restructuring will be the light that will lead us out of the dishevelment in quite a magical fashion.

The agitations, bitterness, desperation and do-or-die approach to politics that has accompanied the fifth republic and exposed our political puerility in recent history have just one main root cause. This cause is nothing short of the fact that there is a very lucrative and attractive center that every group defined by ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, regional sense of belonging etc. desire so fiercely to see “their own” in that lucrative place where wealth sharing (and embezzlement of course) is decided and where laws that affect everyone else are made (or at least where those making the laws are controlled). And in what has sadly turned out to be more like a natural disposition towards a total disregard for enthroning justice, fair play, equity, neutrality, evenhandedness and nonpartisanship which are supposed to the cardinal guiding principle of leadership in especially a plural society like ours, Nigerian politicians strive to get to leadership position to help “their own people” completely forgetting that every Nigerian must be considered as the leader’s immediate own and must be treated with all the love and care they need and deserve.  Of course the result is a further amplification of the agitation, competition and despair to have “our own” on the throne. It is not unusual to hear Nigerians rain curses on leaders that do nothing to help his village, his community or something one moment and still abuse somebody doing that the next moment for caring only for his immediate own.

Restructuring that ushers in economic and political autonomy through devolution of powers will go a long way of relieving the center of these lucrativeness and hence the attractiveness and easing out the resulting fierce and unhealthy contention among regions to be there. This will serve as a galvanizing spur for a unifying political inter-relations.

The pressure and desire to have “our own” over there will ease out and the unhealthy political machinations, conspiracy, connivance and mistrust that has bedeviled us will be alleviated. The politics of bitterness that we seem to have developed will become less tense and there will be respect to and fro among the federating regions.

The ECONOMIC freedom that will accompany restructuring will be a flabbergasting stimulant for healthy economic competition and hence unprecedented growth and vibrancy in economic activity especially when blended with laws that ensures fruitful economic cooperation among the federating units. It will greatly cut down on our collective lethargy and unrepentant indolence. The units will have no option but to succumb to a spontaneous force that will excite them into a concerted evolution of leadership towards the maximum development and tapping of their human and material resources. When every region or unit is made to depend on its own resources and work towards the development of same for the betterment of its people, the competition that will ensue will be a competition to develop which shall, in the end, serve us all well rather than our current kind of unhealthy competition just to grab power. The competition for political power has distracted us so badly from the path of economic progress to the extent that we seem totally and astonishingly oblivion of the fact that we are collectively and actively on the path to a consummate economic (and of course literal) suicide.

During the reign of the trio of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a federal system where economic autonomy dominates supreme and anybody that is aware of Nigeria’s history can attest to the fact of how these leaders fiercely led towards outdoing one another in developing and maximizing an excellent human resource, agricultural resources and solid minerals. This is the kind of competition that everyone that mean well for Nigeria will yearn to have back and this is only possible if we make it to come naturally through restructuring.

Where federating units feel it will be beneficial for them to create an economic collaboration between themselves, agreements that are aside the economic coorperation framework established for the entire federation can then be entered into towards that goal.

When the desired economic autonomy is accompanied by laws aimed at promoting economic cooperation among units such that, for example, goods and services produced by these regions are made to satisfy the needs and demands of the entire federation, by the legislation, first and foremost before any consideration for export, Nigeria will become an economic envy of the world. The development that Singapore experienced under Lee Kuan Yew will be nothing compared to ours. Through an intra-exchange of goods and services where energy in ample supply from the Niger-Delta is made to serve the demands of agricultural entrepreneurs in the north, industries in the east and west and a vibrant transport and communication network between and within these regions, the speed with which the accompanying economic growth will come will leave Nigerians and indeed the whole world astounded. And what more, the beauty of it all is that it will come so spontaneously that even an inborn tendency to be inert will inevitably give way.

In our SOCIAL atmosphere, after all the frayed nerves of mutual anger, animosity, friction bitterness and tension prevailing through politics has eased out, Nigerians will begin to consider one another respectfully. In fact to achieve a workable and practicable unity we so much desire verbally, to wield better National cohesion and comprehensive mutual respect and understanding, autonomy of regions and decentralization should be taken very seriously. In his article titled “The Intellectual Case Against Nigeria’s Breakup”, Farooq Kperogi noted “the vibrant pre-colonial inter-ethnic relations between such northern minorities as Igalas, Tivs, Idomas, etc. and Igbos” and went further to say “to this day, Igalas and Idomas have councilors in some Igbo states, and there are ‘indigenous’ Igbos in Benue State”. This historic reality, in my view, was only made possible because of the fact of the existence of mutual respect from one ethnicity towards the other and this respect was born out of autonomy of these ethnic Nationalities in which none strive to be a ruler over the other. This same mutual respect, understanding and beautiful social order is still possible with a restructured Nigeria where everyone is considered with dignity and held in high esteem.

Lately, Nigerians have become fund of misinterpreting and misdefining peaceful coexistence as a Nigeria that remains not only as a one whole entity but closely knitted in its current structural state. Peaceful coexistence actually involves not only the existence of a nation as one country but also many sovereign countries coexisting in a geographical space in complete peaceful harmony. Indeed, by extension from points raised in the previous paragraph, African countries seams to coexist with one another more peacefully when compared to how people within their respective borders coexist. So just like we are coexisting peacefully with Ghana, Cameroun, Niger, Chad, Benin Rebulic etc, an even more peaceful and harmonious coexistence is very possibly and most likely for us when we are restructured.

PETROLEUM RESOURCES: THE INDISPENSABILTY OF ENERGY

By Noma S Patrick

The basic science defines energy as the ability to do work. In the linguistic sense of this definition, it's easy to be misled into viewing energy as some kind of abstraction. However, in the real sense − which is of course the scientific sense − energy is actually a precisely quantifiable commodity that nations consume on daily basis in various forms and ways. Energy is the very 'victual' that nurtures the economies of the world.

Labourers working on farm fields, mines, construction sites and factories is one form of energy input into a nation's economy; machineries consuming power from gas powered plants in a factory is a form of energy sinking into the economy of a nation, electricity generated from dammed rivers and used up by the people is yet another form of energy input in the economic life of a nation. It is therefore only logical to conclude that the amount of energy powering a given economy determines how strong such an economy can be. This translates to the GDP of that economy. The standard of living of the people and the extent to which luxury is enjoyed by them are all tied to this. And, besides many other sources of energy, the major, most efficient, most effective, most dynamic and most versatile source of energy with the most flexible applications in the world today is the petroleum mineral widely known as crude oil.

America is today the world economic power chiefly for this reason. It is simply the result of the natural law of the working of things. They have a nonpareil understanding of the need for energy for economic power and hence make it a frontline conscious duty to wield, promote and advance every effort towards acquiring it, maximizing it, consuming it, educating it, researching it and developing it. Little wonder, then, that when Arden Hayes, the then five year old American genius, met the former vice president Al Gore, the gift he received from the American leader was an energy book. To America, such smarts must be tapped towards developing energy. The US has been among the top three crude oil producers in the world, continually permuting positions with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Yet the US consumes the entire quantity it produces, imports about the same amount produced by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and still consume half of it.

It is therefore utterly perplexing when Nigerian leaders make comments about contemplating policies that will make the Nation shift attention from oil and gas. This in actual sense translates to “shifting attention from energy”. It is a position that smacks of the lack of understanding of how things work and the possession of a false sense of economic vision for the Nation by Nigerian leaders. And to think that they actually say this to impress the people shows how far we have gone in being collectively lost.

Energy is the very last thing any Nation can ever consider shifting attention from because the world is a world of work and work is only possible when there is constant supply of energy. Rather, a nation like ours should be talking about changing the way it uses its energy resources.

A little further look into US' energy consumption will suffice a helpful insight. Aside its crude oil consumption level, the United States is the second largest producer of coal with a net export of less than 10% of its total production. It is the largest producer of natural gas and still a net importer (meaning that it consumes more than it produces). It is still the second largest producer of renewable energy after China. It is no surprise therefore that the US is the strongest economy. This is despite the fact that the Chinese population is more than quadrupled that of the United States of America. The energy input into the US economy is far more than what a 1.2 billion population provides into the Chinese economy. Human energy is less efficient than the crude sourced energy and China’s use of the more efficient source lags behind US'.

Nigeria as a nation must understand this principle and be submissive to its motivation. We are a Nation so much blessed with the best resource any right thinking people should yearn for in the world − energy. This is what solves every problem of mankind and place Nations above others. We instead choose to sap this resource dry, earn dollars with it from people who use their head to use this energy, and at the end spend much of this money buying luxury from the same people. The nation must pursue self-sufficiency in order to have a stable economy that never wobbles simply because someone elsewhere suddenly decides to temper with equation of things.

This self-sufficiency and all the economic strength we need to flourish and secure a better future for our children is not going to be attained by taking away attention from crude oil and, consequently, energy. The main pointer to the fact that we are being innovative, creative and that our education, in science and technology especially, is counting is whether we are producing our crude for ourselves or for others. A nation can only have what to spend a vast amount of energy like the one we produce if its human resource uses its brain to create and/or assemble technologies and businesses that will use up that energy. Entrepreneurship stimulation by government through human resource development, target legislation and economic policy, infrastructural development and seed capital provision should be our focus. This is what will ultimately count as our economic strength and power in the end.

The key thing is the human capacity that is able to turn the energy into useful products. Nigeria must rise to concentrate on the technologies, innovations and human capacity that avail the means through which petroleum is used up to create value, enjoy the value so created and only sell the excess to capable buyers to exchange for the things they lack. This is very material because apart from maximizing the usefulness of petroleum with the resulting reward of an unshakable economic backbone, our human capacity is going to be developed at an exponential rate and we will become more likely to continue to be as independent as possible. It is therefore vital that Nigeria make legislations that limits crude export and maximize its utilization in-home to provide cheap energy for industrial revolution and consequently spur economic activities.

This is what ultimately determines the strength and stability of our currency and how less susceptible we can be to economic recession and downturn. We have a population big enough to use its human resources and manpower providing very affordable labour to create and produce solutions that take care of a lot of our needs, importing strictly only that which is unavailable for us.

This is the war of the modern day − economic war. The most diligent and prudent wins. With a natural gift right under our feet that is the very requisite ‘arsenal’ for this war, loosing amounts to an immeasurable folly. This is the way we should be using our energy, exchanging only strictly for the things we can not create. This way, we can become very strong as a people. 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND NIGERIA'S EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

By Noma S Patrick

Effective communication is the major deciding factor for a successful educational process because it is the only means through which knowledge is passed from one individual to the other. It therefore will not be out of place to say that a thorough understanding of the language of communication by both teacher and student can never be overemphasized.

In Nigeria, the English language inherited from the British has been our official language and therefore the only medium of effective communication in our formal educational system. Our education is therefore inevitably limited to the extent to which we can communicate effectively using this language medium and hence tied to our ability in learning as early in life as we are expected to start learning arithmetic, sciences, social studies and the rest.

It is thus never out of place to say that a society like ours that has a major part of its young population growing up learning one language at home in their early years only to end up in a school, when they are ripe for one, that tries to teach them a new language while using the same strange language to tell them how arithmetic is done, what science is all about and what social life should be is a burden that weighs heavily against meaningful learning and hence workable progress in the society. It can only be said to be even worse if we consider the fact that many of the teachers of the language hardly understand it well enough themselves to teach it effectively.

Our progress in science, technology and engineering has been generally too slow to compete favourably in a rapidly advancing world and a major reason for this is our lack of 'true' understanding of these subjects. This is linked to our near total collective inability to grasp the basic concepts as early as possible during the foundation period due to the communication shortfall. The concepts then appear boring and completely uninspiring to us. The result is that we ultimately run short of the number of scientists and technologists with "true" understanding that is needed for a practicable synergy in the scale that is congruous with the Nigerian society.

Fancy a situation where a child's first word he ever uttered was from the Jenjo language. He then went on to develop his communication skills in this language becoming socially and spiritually comfortable and stable in it. Then at school-going age, rather than teaching him some strange and abstract ideas using yet a strange language he has hardly known in his life, a teacher stands to teach him just the formal rules of the language he has been communicating with and introducing more vocabularies, and another teaches him arithmetic and what science is all about using his Jenjo mother tongue. The child is bound to assimilate effortlessly, the class never boring, and inspiration and the joy of learning becomes boundless. Decision towards choosing the path to take as a career turns out less up-hill, his knowledge and skills in such a career becomes nothing short of being consummate and practicing his profession grows into an enthusiastic and fun-filled activity he'd fall sick if he take a break from.

I was in a Junior Secondary School class and, being a public school with kids that a typically from poor homes that haven't been blessed with the opportunity of expensive play classes and nursery education, our understanding of English language was relatively limited. Our Introductory Technology teacher, being fully aware of this fact, decided to switch to the Hausa language we all are most comfortable with and on that day he was to teach us the principle used in manipulating the aeroplane so it can fly despite its weight. My teacher took us through that lesson so encyclopedically giving me the opportunity of a profound and immeasurably exciting understanding of how a plane flies. I was so captivated that day, I left school totally confident that I shall be building a plane immediately. I got home, explained the same concept to a friend, he was so inspired too that he joined me in the "project". All I can remember at this moment is that I succeeded in destroying a pot from my mother's kitchen and forming some shapes from the aluminium scraps produced. This is how inspiring, captivating and exciting learning can be if we understand what is being taught as we should and such understanding only comes if communication is effective.

Sadly, what we have today is a large population of school going kids and teenagers learning sciences, mathematics and the likes with a seldom good understanding of the medium of communication. Students are trying to understand what a certain combination of words meant or even the very meaning of the individual words yet they are still being taught difficult ideas using the same sets of words. The result is total or partial misconception of the points, boring and uninspiring lessons, lack of motivation, lost of passion and at best a crop of students that put effort only to memorize definitions and points to give back to the teacher in order to pass to the next class without necessarily understanding what was taught. Misunderstood principles accumulates so much so that by the time one has successfully learnt the language, the basics have already been missed which are necessary and most needful for understanding at higher levels of education. The culture of memorizing then continues in cycles that never ends. The passion and the understanding needed to apply these things for greater achievements is then totally lost.

Advice would have been towards advocating for Nigeria as a country to start adopting it's local languages for educational purposes. But such would be too radical and extremely costly a change. It is comparatively easier to achieve our educational goals by simply grounding our understanding of the English language as early as possible. Endless new words would have to be introduced,so much translations of texts and we will indeed end up trying to learn a new language, our own language again! Our best options therefore is to work on our English language learning process.

Government must enlighten parents through public and private school educators on the importance of teaching the child English language to the child's development in both the short and long term. Parents on the other hand must take communication with their kids in English language right from infancy seriously. Recruitment of teachers of English language into public schools must be taken seriously on merit and a good reward and incentive system must be established to promote excellence in the teaching of this subjects especially in Nursery, Primary and Junior Secondary schools. That way we can make significant gains and facilitate teaching and learning generally.

NIGERIA OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY : THE URGENT NEED TO WAKE A SLEEPING GIANT UP!

By Noma S. Patrick

It will be quite incredible to say that an industry that has seen crude oil produced at 2 mil b/d and sold at a price of $120 per barrel with guaranteed buyers across the globe has actually been a sleeping giant. Yet the sad reality is that, just as with many other sectors of the economy like Agriculture, Solid Minerals, Power etc., Nigeria's Oil industry, despite it's relative vibrancy, has indeed been a sleeping giant. One can but conclude then that with the recent free fall of international oil price, it wouldn't be wrong to say the industry is headed towards being a 'dead giant'. The fact is that the potential in this industry is so tremendous and we never cared and still don't seem to care about exploring such; rather we chose and still choose to depend on just the 'crumbs' it has to offer. The good news is that this giant can be awaken and made to reach it's maximum potential and the present administration should not miss the great opportunity that this presents ~ a chance to prove it's worth in the business of 'progressive change'. Having this alone done is enough to place Nigeria at an unprecedented level economically.

The consumption of refined petroleum products in Africa is enormous ranging from PMS, gas, bitumen, synthetic plastics to aviation fuel. Even more is the consumption at this time when every country is struggling hard to develop and advance. This is supposed to be a big opportunity for a country like Nigeria with huge reserves of the most wanted commodity on earth. The great majority of African nations have continued to depend on countries virtually all outside Africa for their refined petroleum products needs. The biggest irony is that these are mostly countries that don't produce crude oil themselves but depend on importation of the crude products. The reversal of this prevailing situation is a chance Nigeria must open it's eyes to and take seriously because it comes with an assured golden prize of taking our economy to an unprecedented vibrant level.

The economic advantages that Nigeria stands to gain within the ECOWAS alone in the business of refining and sale of petroleum products is overwhelmingly immeasurable. Add other African sub-regional market we can tap from and one can clearly see the great economic position that awaits us as a Nation.

We have long depended on countries like America to buy our crude oil placing ourselves deliberately at their mercy so that whenever they sneeze we instantly catch cold. This is what is happening right now. America can't buy from us and the rest of her suppliers any longer because they are now self-sufficient as far as their crude oil needs is concern and the international oil price have no option but to fall freely like a body under gravity. If only we weren't sleeping, if only we apply our understanding of economics and submit ourselves to its motivations and refine our products within our shores and add value to it before selling to whoever need them after helping ourselves to contentment with the products, we wouldn't be in this economic mess we have found ourselves.

Then are we going to fold our arms yet and keep biting our lips in regret while we just look? Not at all! in fact there is no time for regrets right now. The most important thing needed is action by the government and people of Nigeria. Nigeria should be a hub for petroleum refining business and the number one supplier of PMS, gas, aviation fuel, LNG, LPG, petrochemicals and related products to the entire West Africa and beyond. The market is huge. Africa had a total refinery capacity of 3.317 million b/d as at 2011 with an actual throughput of 2.219 million b/d giving out products mostly used up (albeit unsatisfactorily) in far northern and Southern Africa. They still have to import. The rest of Africa like the West, East, central and parts of Southern region wallow in scarcity and high cost of the products as they depend largely and almost wholly on imports of the refined commodity.

The government seriously need to take up this huge opportunity and turn the economy of Nigeria around. Nigeria has to invest heavily in the refining business and knock our foreign suppliers out of business as far as the great majority of African market is concern. We can't continue to depend on these foreign nations to give us both what we don't have and cannot produce and what we have and can produce. We are doing our selves great economic harm to their advantage. We import technological products from these countries; we should not be lazy to the extent of importing even what we have as a natural resource right under our feet. We should not leave the markets of such a commodity like fuel that is closer to us than them for them to be the ones to enjoy such markets.

Nigeria needs to build five more mega refining complexes like the one being built by our beloved business mogul, Alh. Aliko Dangote as urgent as possible. Larger refineries have proven more profitable, feasible and cheaper when the overall operation is considered, this is more so considering the prevailing economic condition of the oil and gas market. Such refineries will produce fuel and other products at a cheap rate to the west African market and beyond and knock out smaller refineries that are more costly to operate as they will ultimately find it impractical to compete favorably with us. We can actually make countries like South Africa and other big African economies that depend on imports from overseas for their refined petroleum products needs to turn to us for supplies. This will go a long way in building the foundation for a stronger economy for the country. It can take us to a position where we may even begin to be the ones importing crude oil for refining from countries around us.

This will also go a long way in supporting other sectors of our economy. It will lead to the supply of diesel and gas at an unprecedented cheap price level to power other sectors of our economy. Electricity will be stable and cheap and investment in other sectors that depends largely on power supply will be spurred. It will increase interest in the fabrication of agricultural machineries for food processing because the demand for such will grow in the face of cheap and available energy. Transporting these produce will come cheaper because fuel for the transport sector will be available at cheap rates. We will produce and process agricultural produce competitively and start exporting these in enormous quantities overseas. It is definitely going to be a blessing to us that will come in thousand folds and even much more unforeseen ones.

With the rise in demand of electric vehicles for cleaner energy use the demand for plastics is bound to go high. Companies like BMW are leading the way already in their Leipzig factory where the entire electric car chassis is made of plastic. There is high likelihood that manufacture of such vehicles will commence in Africa too in the near future since they are simpler as regards the technology involved. Nigeria will then ultimately be the supplier of chemicals for the plastics needs of these and other potential industries. Meanwhile there is already a very high demand of plastic products ranging from containers, PVC pipes to textile materials just within Nigeria. We wouldn't have to jostle to import these again and the pressure on our forex reserve will go considerably lower pushing the value of our Naira up. No Nigerian road will be left untarred as bitumen will be more than enough.

America has and is still strategically trying to cripple the oil and gas industry through technology, a mix of politics and international relations and economic policies. The aim is simple, make crude price go as low as possible so that energy can be cheap for them. They are now going into the business of exporting crude after strategically opening the door for Iran. It will therefore be a stupid and a total economic suicide for us to still depend on them and others for petro-chemicals and other related products.

What should the government do? Removing subsidy and deregulating the petroleum sector holistically is the first and necessary step. Government should not fear the removal of subsidy simply because it is cautious of loosing popularity among the masses. Make laws compelling all oil companies that wish to be given exploration license to build refineries and refine at least 50% of crude they produce within the country. Enter into partnership with the oil and gas industries (indigenous and international) to build refining business replicating the NLNG model. Our locally owned oil companies like SAPETRO, OANDO, FORTE, CONOIL and the likes should be made to understand the gains of investment along this line. The business of producing crude alone is no longer sustainable in the present era. Dangote with excellent business foresight has seen this already. Next the government should produce an action plan that will guide implementation and follow it as if the country is no more without that. Even if this is the only economic plan that this government focuses on it will certainly prove to be worthwhile at the end of the road.