Spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Ango Abdullahi has said Nigeria is a failure, 57 years after it gained independence.
In an interview with The Sun, Abdullahi said Nigeria has failed, if compared to other countries who gained independence at the same period.
Abdullahi said;
“If I was a teacher marking Nigeria from 1960, or a teacher marking Nigeria’s script as one of my students of over these 57 years, I will grade her a failure,”
“As you said, we will be 57 years and the question is, have all those aspirations been achieved? The honest answer is no.
“When you look at it from the point of view of the opportunities available, the resources available, the chances available, both internal and external and you sum all these up, including the human capital, I will say that Nigeria failed to achieved the goals and aspirations it set for itself and for its people.
“There are benchmarks with which one can base this conclusion. There are quite a number of countries we virtually achieved independence either together or almost at the same time.
“Some of the references used in gauging our development indices are India, in 1948 and Malaysia. Malaysia has really moved faster in their development endeavours. Unfortunately, despite all the endowments, Nigeria has failed to achieve the goals expected of it since independence.
He added that the failure of the country started when former military president Murtala Muhammed;
“messed up the civil service”.
“From 1960 until 1974, Nigeria was doing well in the area of development. I happened to have served as Commissioner of Economic Planning under the military government from 1973 to 1975. As from that period, things began getting worse, particularly, during Gen. Murtala Mohammed.
“Although Murtala appeared to be a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, regrettably, he messed up the civil service, which has always been the stabilising factor in any country’s development programme.
“Politicians come and go, but civil servants remain until retirement. Murtala abused civil service rules. Now a civil servant has to be a liar, or sycophant to keep his job. This is where Nigeria began to run into serious difficulties in governance.”
The post “If Nigeria Was My Student And I Was Marking Her Script At 57, I Will Fail Her” – Prof Ango Abdullahi appeared first on Naijaloaded | Nigeria No. 1 Online Portal.
