NIGERIA AT 51: NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT & THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP

NIGERIA AT 51: NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT & THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP

A History of opportunities not activated:

In 1960, Nigeria joins several other African nations in breaking the yoke of colonial rule, to full fledge independence…others being, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mail, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Somalia and Togo. In a proper assessment of the development of these nations, and their counterparts in other regions of the world, shows a continual failure of successive leadership to use the political independence to create viable nations, for the benefits of their peoples. A chronological assessment of some of Nigeria’s historical development show a chequered history of opportunities and failures, which, in comparison to similar placed nations from Asia and other parts of the world would indicate, a failure in successive leadership, both politically and culturally.

Let’s look at some highlights of our national development over the past 51 years.

Highlights of Nigeria’s National History, 1960 – 2010:

1960 Nigeria gains independence
1963 First military coup by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu
1966 Counter coup by Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon
1967 Nigerian civil war starts
1967 Gowon divides four regions into 12 states
1970 Nigerian civil war ends
1972 Nigeria changes currency from Pound to Naira, introduces metric system
1973 Nigeria switches from left to right-hand driving
1973 Nigeria hosts all Africa Games
1973 Nigeria inaugurates National Youth Service Corps
1974 Gowon reneges on planned handover in 1976
1975 Birth of Economic Community of West African States
1975 Murtala Muhammed topples Gowon in military coup
1976 Murtala Muhammed increases states to 19
1976 Murtala Muhammed killed in a failed military coup, Olusegun Obasanjo takes over
1977 Nigeria hosts 2nd Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture
1979 Obasanjo Hands over power to Shehu Shagari, Second Republic begins
1980 Nigeria hosts and wins African Nations Cup, 1st time
1983 Gen. Muhammadu Buhari topples Shagari in a coup
1985 Gen. Ibrahim Babangida ousts Buhari in military putsch
1985 Nigerian wins 1st global soccer title (U-16 FIF/KODAK)
1987 Failed military coup led by Maj. Gen Mamman Vatsa
1987 Gen Ibrahim Babangida increases states to 21
1990 Failed military coup led by Maj. Gideon Orkar
1990 Nigeria spearheads formation of ECOMOG
1991 Ibrahim Babangida creates 9 more states, totalling 30
1993 Babangida reneges on hangover plan, cancels polls
1993 Ernest Shonekan assumes office as interim head of state
1993 Gen. Sani Abacha seizes power from Shonekan
1995 Commonwealth sanctions Nigeria
1995 Government announces aborted 'coup' against Abacha
1996 Abacha increases states to 36
1996 Nigeria wins 1st Olympic gold in long jump soccer
1998 Abacha dies, Abdusalami Abubakar assumes office as head of state
1999 Abdusalami cedes power to Olusegun Obasanjo: elected
1999 Nigeria hosts world youth soccer championship
2000 Nigeria co-hosts African Nations Cup with Ghana
2001 Olusegun Obasanjo and other African leaders form NEPAD
2003 President Obasanjo's PDP wins parliamentary majority
2003 Nigeria's 1st satellite, NigeriaSat-1, launched by Russian rocket
2006 President Obasanjo pays off Nigeria's foreign debts
2007 Umaru Yar'Adua of the ruling PDP is elected
2010 Umaru Yar'Adua dies. His Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan becomes President
2011 National and State Elections returns Goodluck Jonathan as President.
(Source: The New Nigeria, 1960-2010, Golden Jubilee Edition, Nigeria High Commission, Ottawa, Canada)

Great Potential, faulty Foundations

The parliamentary system of government inherited from the British was meant to reflect, not just British influence on Nigeria’s style of governance, but a reflection of the British geographic, cultural regionalism of England, Scotland and Wales…3 nations living in cordial harmony. The military incursion of 1966 never gave the opportunity for the development of this parliamentary system into maturity. Instead, without appropriate study or consent of the constituent parts of Nigeria, an American-style presidential system was imposed in 1979. Though the military administrations of Yakubu Gowon and Murtala Muhammad introduced nationalist policies and well conceived national developmental plans, the instability within the military establishment, leading to coups or fear of coups meant more emphasis was spent in building security apparatus, than economic potential. The National Youth Service Corp. (NYSC), the National Institute in Kuru, and other leadership and nation building institutions were born in the 1970s, after the Civil War, as well as the Unity schools and many of the Federal tertiary institutions, though started by the civilian leadership since 1960. These institutions though laudable, could not overcome the loss in social etiquette, moral development, inconsistent social re-engineering and lack of proper integration of the civilian class into governance that comes with military ruler-ship at a time the world’s paradigm shifts favoured democratic leadership.

The military, though, were singled out for their aggressive support for independence of several southern African nations, and contributions to peace keeping duties in Eastern Africa. Nigeria lead the 22-member Monrovia Group of African countries to merge with the Casablanca Group of five to form the OAU. In the 1975 Nigeria was pivotal in the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The military leadership is noted for bringing security to the West Africa sub-region by creating ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria’s role in initiating the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD), African Development Bank (ADB), and others, were also majorly made possible during the Military’s ruler-ship of Nigeria.

A Militarised National Conscience

However, according to the information listed above that the military, since their adventurous foray into governance since 1966, have had 30 years of direct colonisation of Nigeria, impressing upon our national psyche, an intolerance for democratic practices, a disdain for education and human freedoms, impositions of many undebated, and subsequently faulty policies and entrenchment of blatant corruption. It was indicative that the military was neither taught, nor prepared for governance of a civil populace. The continued ruler-ship of the military since the founding years of Nigeria affected the confidence and reduced the efficiency of the political class, and broke the back of the emerging democratic practices initially experimented upon by the regional parliamentarians of independent Nigeria.

The military, in attempting to impose democracy, under duress, would only create structures with faulty foundations, imposed upon the populace, and designed to be weak. By extension, the democratic systems that ensued produced a political class that was militaristic in their thinking, practices and procedures. Imposing candidates, demanding utter loyalty, rigging elections, denying the people from directly electing their choice candidates. It is not surprising therefore, that the political organisations created after the incursion of the military into governance were sponsored, ruled or controlled by the military class. The effect of all these is that governance wasn’t people oriented, and the Human Development Indices produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) attests to this.


A History of Majoring in Mediocrity

The UNDP has for decades, kept indices of human development, set standards for national development and created frameworks for the achievement of set goals agreed by members of the United Nations. These indices help us to see at a glance if there is true development in a nation of continental sub-region. It also helps leaders of nations in determining policies and leadership styles that will help bring forth stated developmental needs and goals. Let’s look at the indices of Nigeria’s development since 1960.

Yima Sen (Challenges and Prospects of Nigeria’s Development at 50), in a paper delivered last year in the United States paints the picture properly.
“Nigeria’s development has been negated by poor leadership, corruption and attendant poverty incidence ( that is number of those spending less than one United States dollar a day) which has risen from 27 percent in 1980 to 65 percent in 1996. This has become the subject of contention between international data sources (70 percent) and local Nigerian estimates (56 percent) more recently. Poverty incidence is also assessed on the basis of educational performance and literacy, general health indicators and services, food security and safety as well as safe drinking water, and life expectancy. Viewed as a whole, therefore on the basis of those indicators that determine whether states succeed or fail, Nigeria has fared badly (Northern Union, 2007).

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its Human Development Report for 2009, Human Development Index (HDI) scores have increased in all regions in the world progressively. HDI provides a more complete picture of a country’s development than other indicators like GDP, according to UNDP. HDI looks mainly at human development from life expectancy, adult literacy, purchasing power parity (PPP) and mainly human development indicators. And these have been Nigeria’s scores in recent years, according to the report: Life expectancy – 47.7 percent; adult literacy rate (percentage of age 15 and above) - 72 percent; and GDP per capital, that is PPP US$ 1, 969, all for the year 2007.

Additional worrisome data include the possible loss of about US$ 500 billion from Nigeria’s wealth due to corruption, from 1960 to date, based on analysis and estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Other data are that out of 100 universities in Africa, only seven Nigerian universities are included as among the best 100 in Africa, with the best, University of Ilorin, ranked at 55. The same seven universities make the global list at the ranking of University of Ilorin -5484; Obafemi Awolowo University – 5,756; University of Jos; 5,882; University of Lagos- 5,936; University of Benin- 6,324; University of Ibadan – 6,425; and University of Nigeria – 7,170 (Eze, 2010).

Also Nigeria’s HDI rating of 157 out of 177 countries for 2007/2008 and its position on the failed state index of 15 out of 177 states likely to fail by the Fund for Peace in 2009 are not encouraging of its progress towards a successful state that can guarantee the well being of its citizens. Then most recently, out of 100 “best” countries in the world, as determined by Newsweek magazine, in its August 23 and 30, 2010 edition and based on certain criteria, Nigeria is placed 99th just before Burkina Faso at 100. This is a poor showing for the “Giant of Africa”, which is beaten by the following African countries in a descending order: Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Botswana, South Africa, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Cameroon.”

An analysis of the HDI indices noted above, and comparisons of Nigeria’s rank with selected developing nations, gives cause for ponder. Many nations with better ranking than Nigeria are already regarded as “Failed States”.

Country HDI Rank - HDI Index
Mozambique 165 0.284
Guatemala 116 0.560
Tanzania 148 0.398
Yemen 133 0.439
Indonesia 108 0.600
Gambia 151 0.390
Sri Lanka 91 0.658
BurkinaFaso161 0.305
Ghana 130 0.467
Niger 167 0.261
Nepal 138 0.428
Kenya 128 0.470
Turkey 83 0.679
Mali 160 0.309
China 89 0.663
Bangladesh 129 0.469
Cambodia 124 0.494
Cameroon 131 0.460
India 119 0.519
Congo 126 0.489
Colombia 79 0.689
Togo 139 0.428
Nigeria 142 0.423
Pakistan 125 0.490
Senegal 144 0.411
Côte'dIvoire 149 0.397
Haiti 145 0.404
Guinea 156 0.340
Mauritania 136 0.433
Rwanda 152 0.385
Sierra Leone 158 0.317
Chad 163 0.295
Ethiopia 157 0.328
Angola 146 0.403
Zimbabwe 169 0.140
Liberia 162 0.300
C.A.R. 159 0.315
Burundi 166 0.282

The tragedy of the 142nd ranking of Nigeria, below Mauritania, Congo, Cameroon, Togo, Kenya, Ghana, and obviously, South Africa and all of the North African Countries…is that, we generate a far greater income than many of these countries combines, but all of $500billion plus in oil revenues, and a $2trillion economy was mostly mismanaged or stolen. And this falls squarely on the failure of leadership.

But this leadership failure is on four fronts:
-The Political Class
-The Civil Service
-The Religious & Cultural Leadership
-The Corporate Class

The Failure of Political Leadership
The political class, which is directly involved in formulating policies and managing the economy, and providing security and building and maintain infrastructure has consistently underperformed, though this is expedited by the weakness and collusion of the Civil Service. The political class has tended in Nigeria, to promote classism and elitism, and maintenance of feudal systems of societal engagement. The abundance of western education hasn’t fundamentally changed the attitude of the class of elites that recycle leadership of the nation’s central and communal governments. It’s been a system of class networking to maintain the status quo, in which the citizenry are permanently expected to receive the crumbs of the national “cake”. This class has never engaged the citizens in the governance of the nation, and has shown a lack of ideological tenacity in protecting the commonwealth of the nation. Instead, they seek position, whatever the platform, and therefore have little or no passion to defend or uphold any principles or economics or sustainable development for the common good. The uncertainty of the systems of governance and permanence of policies also mean those who gravitate towards power often feel insecure and tend to be corruptible, in an effort to exploit the system within the time frame available. They have shown lack of vision or foresight and a profound lack of commitment to take the nation to a better level than the met it. They are adept at playing the politics of leadership rather than actually leading for common good.

The Failure of The Civil Service
Let me quote Wikipedia extensively on the path through which the Nigerian Civil Service became a partner in following the political class in gradually eroding the development of Nigeria;

” The civil service in 1990 consisted of the federal civil service, the twenty-one autonomous state civil services, the unified local government service, and several federal and state government agencies, including parastatals and corporations. The federal and state civil services were organized around government departments, or ministries, and extra ministerial departments headed by ministers (federal) and commissioners (state), who were appointed by the president and governors, respectively. These political heads were responsible for policy matters. The administrative heads of the ministry were the directors general, formerly called permanent secretaries. The "chief" director general was the secretary to the government and until the Second Republic also doubled as head of the civil service. As chief adviser to the government, the secretary conducted liaison between the government and the civil service.

The major function of the director general, as of all senior civil servants, was to advise the minister or the commissioner directly. In doing so, the director general was expected to be neutral. In the initial periods of military rule, these administrative heads wielded enormous powers. For some time, the military rulers refused to appoint civilian political heads. Even after political heads were appointed, it was years before the era of "super permanent secretaries" to
end. That happened in 1975 when, after Gowon's fall, the civil service was purged to increase its efficiency. Many of the super permanent secretaries lost their jobs, and the subordinate status of permanent secretaries to their political bosses was reiterated. Another consequence of the purge, reinforced subsequently, was the destruction of the civil service tradition of security of tenure. The destruction was achieved by the retirement or dismissal of many who had not attained retirement age.

Until the 1988 reforms, the civil service was organized strictly according to British traditions: it was apolitical, civil servants were expected to serve every government in a nonpartisan way, and the norms of impersonality and hierarchical authority were well entrenched. As the needs of the society became more complex and the public sector expanded rapidly, there was a corresponding need to reform the civil service. The Adebo Commission (1970) and the Udoji Commission (1972) reviewed the structure and orientations of the civil service to make it more efficient. Although these commissions recommended ways of rationalizing the civil service, the greatest problems of the service remained inefficiency and red tape. Again in 1985, a study group headed by Dotun Phillips looked into the problems. It was believed that the 1988 reforms, the most current measures aimed at dealing with the problems of the service as of 1990, were based on this report.

Compared with the 1960s and 1970s, the civil service by 1990 had changed dramatically. It had been politicized to the extent that most top officials openly supported the government of the day. The introduction of the quota system of recruitment and promotion, adherence to the federal-character principle, and the constant interference of the government in the day-to-day operation of the civil service--especially through frequent changes in top officials and massive purges--meant that political factors rather than merit alone played a major role in the civil service.”

The last paragraph has aptly summarized my thinking in this regards.

Religious & Cultural Leadership Failures
As we can see from the terrorism, religious extremism, and the militancy in some regions of Nigeria, it is clear that the kind of leadership provided by these categories of leaders tend towards anarchy, rather than cohesion. They tend towards separatism rather than federalism. Community leaders are forever inspiring crisis rather than building bridges, and developing their communities. They are tend to self-centredness in their leadership style, and prefer to build or extend their empires rather than preserve the unity of the nation state Nigeria. Religious and sectional leaders show a picture to their followers of Nigeria being a mere geographic expression rather than a nation. Therefore, a large number of Nigerians have not been inclined to patriotic service, or lending their skills and potentials to resolve community or national issues. Instead, many of these become security costs to the government of Nigeria, and the subsequent loss of foreign investments and tourism potentials of the nation.

The Failure of Corporate Leadership
Looking at the balance sheets of some of Nigeria’s largest corporations, we will find some entities with asset base larger than many state governments…yet they operate within these states. There are profound opportunities for corporate social responsibility to transform Nigerian communities, yet these corporate leaders would rather exploit the weakness of the public service by providing at a premium, services and products at prohibitive prices. They then tend towards false accounting to reduce taxable income, pay themselves huge salaries, and give next to nothing back to the society. The scandals involving two once respected banking CEOs, and a multinational CEO, where the quest for personal gain was raised to prodigious proportions, are cases in point.

The American spirit of charity, seen in the Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Bill Gates, etc foundations, showed how it was indeed the private sector that built the United States. It was the private sector that sponsored aggressively economic policies which made America the largest economy in world history. It is the private sector that should be in the vanguard of innovation. It is the private sector that creates, helps, funds, the small businesses that employ the largest number of citizens. It is the private sector that compliments government in subsidizing education, healthcare and activities that help youth development. The failure of leadership of the organized private sector, other than spending money and time in exclusive, unprofitable ventures meant for the benefit of less than 1% of 1% of 150million citizens…that must be the greatest failure.


At 51 Some Pertinent Question For Nigerians

I asked these questions from Nigerians on May 29, and ask still today;

1: Who are we as a people? What common beliefs bind us together? How can we reset these values to create a spirit of patriotism that transcends partisanship, ethnic and religious differences? That is the challenge Nigeria faces at this critical moment in our history.
2: Where are the Nigerian transformational leader (s), who will reach out to the competitive faith based organisations and the diverse traditional institutions, to forge a unified spirit of nationalism, rather than the divisive values systems which characterise our commonwealth, and have created generations of unconnected citizenry, only bound together by common boundaries rather than common destiny?
3: How do we enforce upon our governments the need for greater transparency, holding our political leaders and the civil service accountable to the electorate, post elections? How do we inspire Nigerians to engage the leadership in a way that brings forth the best in the government, for the benefit of all Nigerians?
4: How can we expect honesty and patriotism in leadership if the average citizen, from the ranks of which the political class was once a part of, is averse to hard work, patriotism and personal integrity?
5: In all this, when will we realise that government can do better, but cannot solve all our problems – and parents to have less children, educate them better, discipline them appropriately, and establish their values systems, while teaching them to be patriotic?
6: What are the cardinal values that define our society? Faith in God, Love of Neighbour, Respect for elders, Care for the Community, Loyalty to Country, Integrity and uprightness, Perseverance and Fortitude, Pride in our Cultures, and Love for our Children, Hard work and honesty, Service to Motherland. Where did these disappear to this past few decades?
7: When will we determine, through a free and fair ballot, that the very best of us serve us at the very peak of their competencies? When will we chose leaders based on capability rather than network or net worth? When will cabinet positions be staffed by specialists rather than political loyalists and “quota” systems?
8: How will we be able to hold these leaders accountable for mismanaging our commonwealth, when we have no access to information on how they actually manage them? When will the citizenry demand access to governance and information and their elected representatives?
9: How will we ensure adequate checks and balances in the national and state leadership, when the political leadership is manned by one party system, and esprit-de-corp is the order of the day? When will the political class, under due pressure, see the need to save our resources, invest wisely, stop spending lavishly on themselves, and are driven by purpose and planning in governance?
10: When will our traditional institutions, rather than sit in quiet endorsement of bad leadership, rise to the duty of rebuilding cultural values in their estate, and ensuring the political class that emanates from their domain represents the best of their values? When will our religious leaders promote unity and patriotism to country as much as they promote self and denominationalism?
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” JFK
11: When will the average Nigerian go beyond the need to seek self gratification, and desire to serve, diligently, without expectation of reward, the country by which they have benefited one way or another? How many of us are actively involved in volunteering activities, outside our religious (with expectation of miracles) cul de sacs? Schools, to be re-modelled, children to be mentored, old people to care for, disaster assistance, combating poverty, building skills in the under-skilled, security in our communities? Of the millions that actively volunteer in religious organisations, how many are deployed to serve their immediate communities?
12: What specific education model are we pursuing? What are our education goals for the Nigerian state, and what measure of feedback do we give to the tax-payers that we are meeting them? What is the root cause of the fall in the standard of education? Language problems? Teaching in-competencies? Lack of concentration by pupils? What study has the Government done to determining the precise academic or sociological cause of the decay in the impartation of knowledge and the acquisition of skills by the taught?
13: Why can’t we have universal healthcare? Why is the ratio of hospitals to patients still well below the WHO recommended average? Where one or so lawmaker’s annual take away can fund an entire health centre in a small community, where is the lawmaker willing to sacrifice a huge chunk of his/her allowances for the healthcare of his constituency? Why is every tax paying citizen, with a valid tax card not entitled to free medical care in government health providers? Why are private corporations, including small businesses not providing health insurance for the staff, at least for medical emergencies, whilst employed?
14: What precisely do the Local Governments do? Their presence as the 3rd tier of government is so negligible they are like glorified community centres and contract sharing institutions. The environment, primary education and local health and road maintenance is part of their duties, but they spend all their time collecting all manner of illegal levies from traders and landlords, giving nothing in return. Where is the purposeful local government head, who pops into people’s homes as a community leaders, listening and proffering solutions to issues and problems in their wards and ensuring visible development in his/her area?
15: Why are our security institutions not bastions of safety, but rather, a group citizens avoid like a plague? The dressing, demeanour and attitude, carriage and proclivity of the average security official cause even more feelings of insecurity among the populace, making crime resolution impossible, and cooperation between the forces and the citizens for overall welfare of the nation nil.
16: Where is the well defined and promoted policy for poverty alleviation, entrepreneurship development and small business assistance in our 3 tiers of government? The true wealth of a nation is the sum total of the wealth of each citizen in the nation. Until we have millions of financially empowered citizens, creating jobs, paying taxes, supporting the GDP in ways that
make oil exports a small part rather than the mainstay of our national wealth. When will there be an aggressive programme to meet the minimum standards for the MDGs set by the UNIDO?
17: When will we reform the civil service thoroughly? We need a leaner, technologically driven, responsive and energetic civil service, able to deliver services that meet with the pace of developmental requirements in this internet age. We need an empowered, well remunerated, and success motivated civil service, where competence is rewarded adequately, and independence from undue pressure by the political class is enshrined in federal and state laws. Corruption is impossible without the active connivance of the civil service…reward the competent civil servant at par with industry, and see corruption take a nose dive.
18: What is the Nigerian foreign policy framework? The US’ main foreign policy is built around protecting democracy, to protect its strategic interests. The Chinese mainstay is protecting its system of governance and its thriving economy. The Russians are majorly interested in ensuring relevance in the shifting alignments of international power. Back in the 1970s, Nigeria was famous for promoting freedom for the Southern African countries, helping with their independence. Nowadays we have no real voice in anything, hemmed down by internal strife, lack of integrity in political leadership, corruption and unpatriotism.
19: What form of economic model are we running? Are we proactively developing all the subsectors of our economy, or is the government happy to fund its programmes based entirely on oil exports? Are there more profit centred government services, or are they all cost operations? Do we have the right number of government agencies and ministries, or we can save costs by merging or scrapping some. Are there government operations that can be privatised completely, while ensuring the job security of the staff? Can more programmes be outsourced, or is the government able to save on costs by in-house operations?
20: Can the armed forces respond to the new global threats of terrorism? Is there internal security, with all the sectional and religious agitations that seem to have gone out of control? Is government proactively working for the resolutions of these issues, or has it lost control of the initiative?


Laying Another Foundation.

I will borrow from my previous writing again, and state the following analogy, for how to rebuild our nation for a firmer foundation over the next 50 years.
With all respect to our members with Architectural or Building Engineering degrees, and seeking their input if my summation is in error in those lines, I will attempt to use the building of a house as an analogy of our nation in development.
A house is a structure that consists of 4 primary dimensions;

The Foundation
The Pillars
The Walls
The Roof.

Each is critical to the full development of the house and they are built in subsequence. That is, the foundation comes first, then the pillars, then the walls and finally the roof. Furthermore some necessary sub-structures come together for the aesthetics of the house to become manifest. Like;

Windows
Plumbing
Electricity
Furniture

In between all these is an instrument called the “Scaffolding”.

Now the following indicate the usefulness of these dimensions to our house of Nigeria.

Our Vision and Values are our Foundations
Our Laws are our Pillars
Our Citizenship is our Walls
Our Faith is our Roof

The windows, plumbing, electricity, furniture are all the social services and amenities (Programmes) that we require to enjoy the beauty of the building but they do not define the building. The scaffolding is a tool that helps whitewash (brand) the building, but its absence will not affect the integrity of the structure.
What has gone wrong in Nigeria is that the four foundational dimensions stated above were never developed in proper order. They were not developed by the competent and certainly were never developed with an eye for the destiny of this nation. We need to move towards finding a new ideology for Nigeria, which encompassed prepared leadership, a commons sense of vision and direction, and a common commitment to make a great nation out of our peoples. This may not happen left solely in the hands of the political class, or the civil service, or the religious or sectional leaders, or the business leaders…it’s a job that requires us all coming together, from Town Hall Meetings, to a National Conference. It’s the reasonable thing to begin to contemplate.

Let’s build a virile nation, Brick By Brick…

God Bless Nigeria.

©George H. Ashiru Convener, NIGERIA: Town Hall Meetings Project www.manofcontrasts.blogspot.com