The oil boom of 1980s and its immediate massive cash rain
blinded Nigeria’s successive governments from seeing the devastation oil
exploration would bring to the host communities in long term. Looking at the
fattening naira in the nation’s account caused them conjunctivitis and they
whined on the sharing formula like infested teenager and dinned like there was
no tomorrow.
In the euphoria of gyration, they forgot to be proactive
enough to lay foundation that would tackle the future problems when they
finally begin to come. Problems like oil spill on water and land, gas
explosions and instability in oil price on the international market. The
glitches came and took a deep painful bite off their host communities
livelihood. The love for agriculture which up to that point provided the nation
with food and stamped her on the world’s map as one of the greatest exporters
of cocoa and oil palm waned. So did diligence and joy of eating the fruit of
toil; boys must hama youths termed it.
When the oil price finally plummeted and maintained a steady
plunge, a new mantra arose, ‘Diversification of Economy’ with a special
emphasis on revamping the agricultural sector. Before the oil plunge, there has
been a constant media jingle on fighting poverty by developing the agricultural
sector (and this big words simply implied more farm inputs in the form of
subsidised fertilisers and seedlings).
I doubt if a youth with hard-core I-Must-Hama mentality
would fall for such. My views; they would simply get those subsidised goods and
sell them at higher prices. Yes, that is how I-Must-Hama should reason. If the
long theories put down on paper on reinvigorating the agricultural sector are
to become anything of a reality, government has to invest massively on
construction of food processing industries.
First off, these industries would soak up suitably qualified
graduates (whatever that means) from biological sciences and chemistry and
other related courses. In no distant time, there would be localisation of other
smaller engineering firms to service those machines when need be. With more
food processing industries, there would be a corresponding increase in the
demand for basic raw materials.
Ceteris paribus, demand would push the prices of those raw
materials up and industries would prefer to deal directly with the farmers (and
end the era of middlemen eating the farmer’s sweat) rather than the middle men
to cut cost. Naturally, the industries would be willing to scale-up the farmer’s
pay and make the farmers richer. When farmers begin to display some affluence,
no one would need to subsidize anything or beg anyone to go to the farm.
With more people heading back to the farm, there would be
production in excess of the nation’s need hence someone would think of
exportation. Exportation would improve the economy of the nation and stand it
out among other nations of the world as truly the Giant of Africa, not in
theory but in practical. Alas, this is how we can make poverty a topic for history
lessons in Nigeria and create an eco-friendly environment free from oil rot.
This entry is part of Fair Observer’s YouLead 2015
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