How did we get here? BY JOHN NNIA NWODO

According to the UN World Population Prospects (WPP) 2025 report, Nigeria has the lowest life expectancy in the world. With an average life expectancy of 54.8years (54.5 for males and 55.1 for female) Nigeria ranks below countries like Chad, South Soudan and Central African Republic in life expectancy(1)

Writing on Nigeria Population in his, “My thoughts on Nigeria” President Jonathan wrote “with such a large and teeming population, a number of challenges abound, particularly keeping as low as possible infant mortality and overall human morbidity through well-coordinated health and sanitation facilities” (2)

In April 28, 2025 writing on, “Nigeria’s bad roads are taking a toll on our economy” Babatunde Yusuf of Business Day wrote:-
“Drive anywhere in Nigeria and it won’t take you long to find evidence of a broken system! Cracked Right ways, cratered city streets, and rural roads that are somehow impassable. For decades, the conversation around bad roads has centred on inconvenience and traffic. But there’s a cheaper and less talked about consequence, and this is the toll these bad roads are taking on our economy and security”.

Road transportation remains the backbone of commerce in Nigeria and 90 percent of goods and passengers are moved by roads, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Yet many of these roads are in poor condition, making delivery times slow, increasing fuel costs, and the lifespan of vehicles drop dramatically. So who pays for this inefficiency? The consumers, business owners, and the government; all lose in different ways, albeit.

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A 2022 report by the World Bank estimated that Nigeria loses about $1 billion annually due to poor road infrastructure. This includes losses from increased travel times, higher vehicle operating costs, and goods damaged in transit. Can a developing economy afford such a loss year after year? Especially when capital budgets are shrinking and inflation is rising? The answer is clearly No.

As at December 2024 Nigeria’s public debt stood at $94 billion (N144.7 trillion). Since President Tinubu assumed office in 2023, public debt has jumped by 65.6%. A fresh $24 billion borrowing which is on offer may balloon Nigeria’s debt to N183 trillion.

Let’s even consider the agricultural sector. Farmers in Benue or Taraba, when Boko Haram bandits allow them, often struggle to get their produce to markets in Lagos and Port Harcourt due to inaccessible rural roads. And the result is definitely food waste. The Nigerian Stored Products Institute even estimates that up to 40 percent of food produced in the country never reaches the final consumer largely due to transportation and logistics challenges. Isn’t this concerning for a country not free from food shortages? In urban areas, the economic cost translates to lost productivity. Workers spend hours in traffic jams caused by bad roads. This isn’t just about time; it’s about GDP. How many work hours are daily lost due to roads that were either poorly constructed or left unrepaired for decades?

How much value is drained from the economy by this everyday inefficiency? Logistics companies are among the hardest hit. Businesses like GIG Logistics or Jumia spend heavily on vehicle maintenance and fuel because of rough terrains. These extra costs are passed on to consumers. Is it any wonder that intra-country shipping in Nigeria costs more than in many other West African Countries with better road network? Foreign investment also suffers from our bad roads. Investors visiting Nigeria will definitely judge the state of the country by its infrastructure. When road travel between major cities becomes a gamble, the overall investment climate is certainly unfavourable. In 2023 Nigeria attracted just $3.7 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a significant drop from previous years. The effects ripple into insecurity. Bad roads slow down emergency responses; ambulances, police patrols and even the military find it difficult to access volatile areas. In regions plagued by banditry or communal clashes, poor road networks complicate enforcement and evacuation!

An economy whose growth is challenged seriously by road infrastructure and poor agricultural development, public policy must develop a new way to tackle them.

I am of the considered view that the use of foreign contractors to do our roads is exploitative, expensive and must be abandoned. We have very qualified Nigerian engineers and youths who can be transformed into a road army. This road army should be equipped by joint funding of local government, states and federal government. There is an army of unemployed Nigerian Youths who can play this role patriotically and efficiently saving our state and federal government’s loads of scarce resources. The raw material for road development except machineries is local. Most state governments will facilitate their cheap acquisition in exchange for community projects of hospitals, roads and schools. Many Nigerian road and civil engineers are either under employed, under remunerated or just applicants. A vast number of unskilled young school graduates can be easily mobilized as tipper drivers, masons and iron benders.

A national policy for road development can be formulated using various engineering and accounting faculties in our universities as the technical support groups. This will provide competition, training, employment and rapid development. The country will be divided into twelve zones with annual target for road development and maintenance. A competition will develop, skills, will be learnt practically. Joint state and federal finance will be worked out to keep the various road authorities busy all year round. When road tarring cannot be done because of weather, culverts and gutter formations can be fabricated.

A lot of young men occupied by these skills will be loss prone to crime and development of roads in all states of the federation involving our youth will lesson crime, stimulate rural economy, reduce completion time and grow our economy exponentially.

This same system can also be adopted for agriculture – Explain. When I look at the present state of our education sector, I honestly wonder what the future of this country will look like. Right now we have a dangerously deepening class divide where the children of the rich go to expensive schools while the children of the poor go to cheap schools. The consequence is a monstrous class divide which in future can breed a violent revolution. This is not us!! This is not the history my generation grew up in.

If I may illustrate my point by a brief narration of my own experience this picture will become clearer. I was born in 1952 to a father who was a politician, member of Eastern House of Assembly and Regional Minister. When I started primary school in 1957, my classmate was the junior brother of my father’s driver. Other mates of mine were children of farmers, coal miners, traders, dispensers and teachers. My first primary school, St Patrick’s Iva Valley was in rural Enugu, My senior brother, Okwesilieze and my late sister, Cecilia were in the same school. House boys and house girls in our family home attended the same school as we did. There was no school for children of the rich or privileged and another school for children of the less privileged. The fees were affordable. Cars hardly brought us to school in spite of the fact that the school was two miles and half way from home. When Daddy’s driver ever came for us because he was travelling to his constituency on a weekend and needed to take us along, the driver would park outside the school gate and we will try to quickly run to the car after dismissal to escape abuses from our classmates!! We must also pick up our drivers brother and all whose homes were on our way in order to reduce the number of classmates protesting against a one day luxury we enjoyed in a month!

At secondary school, my first deployment for morning functions landed me in the public urinary. The white Reverend Brothers in charge of my school, College of Immaculate Conception Enugu didn’t care who your father was, in fact I believe I was deployed to the public urinary to ensure that I didn’t regard myself as special. The urinary was filled with spyrogyra and smelly. I had to buy an iron brush to cope with the cleaning and some Dettol to disinfect the place as well as protect myself from infection. After one month of keeping a clean urinary, I was commended in a morning assembly and deployed to look after a flower bed. The lesson was obvious. – There is no big man’s son here. Because I showed no dissatisfaction, I was able to pass this test. Because of my primary school experiences and holiday experiences with my grandmothers which informed my wilful obedience, I was rewarded with appointment as a class prefect.

Today, notwithstanding the level of intelligence of a rich man’s child, his child must go to a very good or very expensive school. Sometimes the admission is bought!!

In my university experience at University of Ibadan in 1972/3 – 1976 I was elected a Students Union President in favour of a Yoruba opponent by a majority Yoruba student electorate. Nobody cared where you came from. I had never visited Ibadan in my life until then. I sat for the entrance exams in Aba even though we lived in Enugu. There was no centre in Enugu. Sleeping in Aba is another story!!

Our generation was challenged to be hardworking and to dare your over preparedness. The nation was training its successors. Like my secondary school where I had expatriate teachers from India and the United Kingdom, University of Ibadan had teachers from all continents of the world. One of my teachers pitied me so much because, I missed quite a few lectures attending to Students Union duties that he arranged private classes for me. (He taught me financial accounting. His name is Prof. Inyang). This built my sense of sacrifice, my patriotism and my eventual desire to go into public service.

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We must all resolve to banish this monetized economy and way of life. Merit in our country has disappeared in appointments, in elections and lately in award of university degrees. Sometimes you meet a professor who can hardly speak good English and you begin to wonder how he wrote his thesis. He or she probably monetized the process. The worst situation is to find a Minister who has never been the equivalent of a director in a ministry or whose educational qualification or exposure is obtained in compromising circumstances. You see why we got here.
These days a Minister is taken for senate hearing and he is asked to take a bow!! In Shagari’s ministerial list HE Emeka Anyoku and I were nominated from old Ananbra State, under Senate President Joe Wayas. We were not patronized by any take a bow. We were thoroughly grilled by a Senate subcommittee. Inquiries of you were made in your previous educational institutions and work places. Your policy conception and execution capacity were extrayed by hypothetical questions mirroring anticipated challenges you may face in your ministry. Today it is take a bow.

Sometimes I wonder whether the Senators are too busy to do more intensive interrogations. The effect is that we leave behind for our children no tradition of how we recruit our public officers. So when they get up and portray their unpreparedness for such exulted offices nobody is surprised. The civil servants find no motivation from a leader without a goal, an experience or a drive for excellence. It is all patronage they say. No wonder a minister turns a ministry’s account into a private account and after all the noise of her arrest nobody hears of how much is recovered or prosecution. Going forward, I advise that we should have more scrutiny at INEC and National Assembly’s levels of qualifications of those who aspire to public offices in our country.

In the last two years the standard of living of the average Nigerian has dangerously plummeted. The President meant well when he decided to remove the oil subsidy. The intention was to free resources in order to stimulate production and so grow wealth across the board. Unfortunately the administrative organization of the country and the recruitment process of political heads at the State and Local Governments did not help his vision. In many developed countries of the world local governments are rich and carry on enormous responsibilities like education, water supply, agricultural investments, road development, security and industrial promotion.

In this country state governments basically chose local government Chairmen. The elections, that are held, are a formality to window dress a carefully rehearsed arrangement.

The process has continued with impunity. In fact it has even extended to the Houses of Assembly. Recently in Lagos State the State Assembly was ordered to reverse its decisions on its leadership selection, what is normally an internal affairs of the legislature!!

The failure of the subsidy injection into vital productive areas of the economy has led to limited growth and an unprecedented high cost of living. Most low wage earners can hardly afford a basic standard of living. School fees, transport costs, house rents for homes have experienced, in some cases, one hundred percent increase wiping away the relief, expected from the percentage increase in salary emoluments.

In the education sector a clear divide of schools for the wealthy families and schools for the poor families has come to stay. This tendency breeds a deep and growing sense of deprivation and bitterness that is likely to affect the relationship among this generation of our children. Crime has risen to a dangerous scale and the law enforcement agents are overstretched.

The major constitutional reforms of this country has been influenced more by the military. That led us to a command and control structure rather than a political structure. In most developed countries of the world with our kind of political structure, a state government cannot interfere with the day to day administration of a local government area. This denial of effective control of local government resources and accompanying financial regulations to ensure accountability has led to the misuse of local government funds and the absence of concrete achievements at that level.

Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world, coming after the United States of America. Its cross sectional area is about half the size of Niger State. It is the world’s largest exporter of potatoes. Its revenue from vegetables and dairy contribute more than $100billion annually to its economy. The secret is education, better mechanized farming, growth of green farm technology, drone monitoring systems and land reclamation by building of damns. Why can’t we do better with our vast land resources?

Mr. Chairman, there was a time when the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy was agriculture. The North had groundnut pyramids, cotton and livestock; the West had cocoa; the Midwest had rubber and palm oil and the East had palm produce, cashew nuts and cassava. At the same time that these agricultural yields were booming we had an exponential growth of import substitution industries. Textile mills were established in the North and in the East, Cement factories, breweries, iron and steel complexes, power stations flourished, new universities were built and maintained to meet international standards. Our secondary schools attracted students from other African countries. Our reputation in the West African Examination Council results were the highest. Our finished products were demanded in renowned world universities

There was only one reason why things worked so well then. We had a regional system of government that allowed Regions to enjoy sovereignty over their national resources whilst paying royalties and taxes to the Federal government. Our domestic security was independent and uncontrolled by the Federal government. Suddenly the army came to power and abrogated our constitution, turned us into a unitary state and imposed a unitary constitution on us. Our constitution was promulgated by a group of military men who were unelected. There was no equality of representation of the various regions. They carved us into states and local governments without any known parameter or plebiscite. They seized our natural resources and donated them to the Federal government to share without adequate respect for derivation.

Our constitution is not autochthonous. It claims to have been made by “we the people of Nigeria” but this was falsehood. We didn’t have a referendum or a plebiscite for it nor did an elected Assembly debate and ratify it. It was simply imposed on us. With it has come the worst form of participatory democracy that our country has ever had.

Today there is the dictatorship of the Political parties. Candidates are imposed on the people without transparent primaries. In some cases no primary takes place at all. Governors have become appointing authorities for candidates for elective offices in their states. You cannot become a candidate without the Governor’s approval.

The nomination congresses are just a matter of formality. Where the Governors are resisted in this form of nomination, the richest candidate buys the position. Of course where the politician disgorges with the electorate, the tendency to recoup from the state is almost inevitable. The smart ones escape but a few are jailed. They come out of jail with their ill-gotten wealth and are still relevant.

The Electoral Commission, the Security services and the Courts are constantly manipulated by the rich politicians. Our electoral system has become corrupted and unattractive to honest and brilliant citizens. The mess continues.

What must we do to avert the coming catastrophe?
Nigeria must restructure and give its component units sovereignty over its natural resources provided they pay royalty or some form of taxation to the Federal government to maintain federal responsibilities like External Defence, Foreign Missions, Customs and Immigration. In this way true democracy will evolve and the speed of development increased.
Emphasis must return to agriculture and education. Education must emphasize on renascent digital orientation.

Domestic security must remain in the hands of the federating units. The secularity of the Nigerian State must be respected. These irreducible minimum conditions are not negotiable. If it does not happen, we will have no alternative but to go our separate ways. Processes to begin our restructuring as a nation must be concluded before the 2027 elections so as to avert a situation where sections of the country may boycott the elections and present the country with a constitutional force majeure.

I like to end this speech by quoting William Shakespeare, in Julius Ceaser, where he said “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

Thank you for your kind attention.

JOHN NNIA NWODO

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. HI CIRData. 3 June

2. P.37 My Thoughts on Nigeria – Goodluck Ebere Jonathan 2011

3. Babatunde Yusuf, Nigeria’s Bad Roads Are Taking a toll on our economy, Business Day, April 28, 2025