Nigeria At 53 - Senators Decry Slow Pace of Devt

As Nigeria clocks 53 years of independence on Tuesday, senators, yesterday, lamented that the country had not met the expectations of its founding fathers.

The senators, who spoke during debate on the motion, titled "Congratulations to Nigerians on her 53rd Independence Anniversary" sponsored by Senators Victor Ndoma-Egba,PDP,Cross River Central and Ita Enang, PDP, Akwa Ibom North East,and ten others, regretted that Nigeria was still far below expectation, especially when compared with its contemporaries like Malaysia and Brazil.

They insisted that Nigeria was in a pitiable state when compared to some other countries in the world that became independent nations about the same time as Nigeria.


Contributing to the debate, Senator Smart Adeyemi,PDP, Kogi West, said though at independence Nigeria was considered to be one of the emerging great nations of the world, it was more or less a dashed hope, even in its present state at 53.

He identified parochialism as one of the major problems of modern day Nigerians, particularly in the realm of leadership.

He said: "At 53, were Nigeria nation being governed the way it is supposed to have been governed over the years, we shouldn't be talking about federal character."

"Unlike patriotic leaders like the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the late Nnamdi Azikwe, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, etc, who started the Nigerian project on a very solid note, anchored on maximizing the greatest goods for the greatest number of people, most of the modern day leaders after the independence era, have been running aground the Nigerian nation, being parochial leaders."

Adeyemi said the problem of parochial leadership rocking the country at the moment had turned most of the state governors to be governors of the ethnic group they belong to in the states, as well as other highly placed public officers, thus adversely affecting the country's development.

"For Nigeria to be great as hoped from the beginning there is need for possible change of mindset of all Nigerians, both followers and leaders, to the Nigeria project.

"We need to start seeing ourselves first as Nigerians before remembering any other primordial identities, the needed national orientation used by countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore etc, all that were at the same level with Nigeria in the 60's but far more developed than it today," he said.

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