The purpose-driven nation

Without vision the people perish. So said the ancient Hebraic sages. Nations, like individuals, must have a vocation or they will be nothing at all. It is an open fact, universally acknowledged, that Nigeria is among those countries in the world whose performances in all the indices of development are grossly below their actual potentials and promise. To transcend its proverbial mediocrity, it is vital that the country recovers its sense of national purpose and destiny.

For us to become a purpose-driven nation, several building blocks are required.

First, and most crucially, national power elites must evolve a consensus on the Nigerian national project, for the simple reason that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Our diversity should become a source of strength, not a burden of weakness. We have to agree that we need a national rebirth and that we can join hands together to build a strong, united, virile and prosperous democracy.

Linked to this is the need for an overarching public ethic which all of us can identify with. The late American strategist John R. Boyd argued the case for the articulation of such a national ideology to bring a nation’s elite together. He called for a ‘grand ideal’ that represents a “coherent paradigm within which individuals as well as societies can shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances—yet offers a way to expose flaws of competing or adversary systems”. According to him, such a unifying vision should also be as compelling as to serve as a beacon “around which to evolve those qualities that permit a collective entity or organic whole to improve its stature in the scheme of things”.

Second, political reform and constitutional reengineering is imperative. I believe that the best constitutions are those that reflect our national conditions, temperament and historical experience – that ensure the sovereign equality of all sections of society, creating a political community that is harmonious and just. It should also be one that enables the institutionalisation of a system of rulership that is accountable and responsible. Government should be cost-effective and the process of selecting our rulers should be fair and transparent. The current 1999 constitution is highly defective in this sense. Nobody knows who crafted it. It was certainly not a product of “we, the people”. We need a revised constitution that represents the genuine collective will of all the Nigerian people; a constitution that safeguards our liberties whilst advancing our prosperity within the context of freedom, justice, equality and solidarity.

Third, we need to reboot the foundations of economic prosperity and growth. If we are to become a player on the world stage we must willy-nilly have to reengineer our economic and production system to serve those requisite national goals and purposes. Economic capacity must begin with adequate energy and electricity, a solid infrastructure base, development of the iron and steel sector, creation of a reliable network of railways, a vibrant heavy machinery and machine tools industry, development of high technology, an elaborate research and innovation system, ensuring food security, and a project for massive industrialisation that generates jobs and produces high value goods for domestic and world markets. Ultimately, we must strive to become a knowledge-based society.

Ultimately, what is needed is not just reform, but structural transformation. I have always said that with her size, resources and potentials, Nigeria cannot afford to play the routine game of developmentalism as if she were Togo or Costa Rica. A policy anchored on transformation must revisit the fundamentals of the political economy, including the reshaping of institutions and mindsets, the restructuring of public institutions and revamping ‘the commanding heights’ of the economy, macroeconomic policy and management and the juridical foundations of economic regulation, the enforcement of contracts and the sanctity of property rights. Attitudes and beliefs must change for Nigeria to make a quantum leap out of its vicious cycle of poverty and innate mediocrity. What all this calls for is the need to forge a new direction in economic strategy, and ultimately, a fundamental geopolitical repositioning of our national system.

While I believe that, in an ideal Liebnitzian world, market-based solutions work best, I am also persuaded that we need to reinvent government as a driver of transformation and accelerated government.

Fourth, and one flowing from the preceding, we must evolve an effective national system of innovation and technological-scientific capability. The most prosperous nations in the world today are not those that happen to be sitting on a lake of oil. From Francis Bacon to Karl Popper, it is an established fact that progress in human civilisation is determined largely by science, technology and innovation – by the Empire of the Mind. Much of the wealth that we accumulated from petrol was largely illusory. The real source of wealth in the twenty-first century will derive from the Empire of the Mind.

Fifth, we must retool the armed forces not only for their constitutional mandate of national defence but also as a vehicle for national development. From Thucydides to Giap and Mao, it is a universal dictum of military science that those who cherish peace must always resolutely prepare for war. In the billiards-ball model of international politics, nations inhabit a universe of indeterminacy. The only ultimate guarantees lie not in morality or goodwill of others, but in self-help and the ultimate deployment of national power. Keeping a well trained armed forces, equipping them and being able to mobilise them at short notice is the only sure way of securing a country’s survival and independence.

Today, the Nigerian military lacks many of the critical essentials to engage in a major campaign to defend the national territory. The navy is gravely ill-equipped to defend our 1,000 km territorial waters. We do not have a functional warship, not talk of a submarine or carrier. Gone are the days when our fighter pilots were among the best in the world. Our air force is in a pitiable state. We need to integrate the work of our scientists with that of the armed forces to create a veritable military-industrial complex that could tackle headlong some of our most critical technological-industrial challenges. We should make our military a growth pole of excellence, learning from the examples of the United States, Israel and Egypt.

Sixth, we need to invest massively in human capital. A country that aspires to a world-strategic role has to invest massively in its own people – in basic education, literacy, skills and training. We need a mass literacy campaign to wipe out illiteracy which still afflicts more than 50 percent of our population. We also need to invest in talent while building world-class universities. Ours must become a society that puts a premium on knowledge and merit and gives pride of place to talent and merit.

What sets America apart from the world is the greatness of its universities and research institutions. According to the World Ranking of Universities, of the first 20 best universities in the world, 17 are American. Only Cambridge, Oxford and Todai (University of Tokyo) make it among the first league. Even within Africa, Nigerian universities fair badly indeed. We are way behind such South African institutions as Cape Town, Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Rhodes, Kwa Zulu Natal and Stellenbosch. Even poor African countries such as Senegal, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique have national universities that outperform our best in the world league tables.

And seventh, we need to forge partnerships that contribute to our growth and development. I lived in the Arab world and I know what they are and in what contempt they hold the African people. We have nothing to learn from those backward societies. We need to build alliances with China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Britain, Europe and the United States. We need nations that will help us develop our infrastructures, enhance our technological capabilities and foster our trade linkages. There is nothing whatsoever to learn from the Arabs. We must also explore various alliance models.

The New Nigeria that we dream of must be a democratic, egalitarian and a fair society; a society based on solidarity, justice and the rule of law. It must also be a knowledge-based society in which a pre-eminent role is reserved for science, technology and the men and women of intellect and merit. The history of world development makes it abundantly clear that it is only those countries that invest heavily in science and innovation that can hope to make it into the front ranks of prosperous technological-industrial democracies.

These reforms will not be easy. No seer or prophet has ever promised us that the road to the New Jerusalem will be paved in gold. The wisdom of nineteenth century French aristocrat and political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville, written in a different era and in a different context, captures the challenges of the present hour. “Nothing is more fertile in marvels than the art of being free, but nothing is harder than freedom’s apprenticeship…liberty is generally born in stormy weather, growing with difficulty and civil discords, and only when it is already old does one see the blessings it has brought”.

Obadiah Mailafiya