Vision 20:2020 Our “Pipe dream”?

8. Vision 20:2020 Our “Pipe dream”?

A quick look into Nigeria's history will show clearly that in the area of development planning for instance, Nigeria is ahead of many developed and developing nations. Nigeria began planning for development 14 years before its independence. It had two plans before 1962 as it never lacked development initiatives in harnessing its resources. Right from 1962, there was the first National Development Plan of a six year period of 1962-1968. Its implementation was marred by the political crises of the 1960’s, and the Nigerian civil war. Three more national development plans covering five periods were crafted in the 1970’s.

The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) took the nation’s planning process with its package of reforms in the 1980’s. By the 1990’s the era of National Rolling Plan began and by 1999, there were 10 National Rolling plans crafted, but mostly unimplemented. This is besides the famous General Sani Abacha Vision 2010, which drew prominent Nigerians into a full year thematic exercise, leading one of the best documents produced in an effort for the nation to attain greatness. The poor implementations of the plans were mostly attributed to corruption. But policy inconsistencies and implementation inconsistencies, policy reversals, policy terminations, lack of implementing capacities by political actors and lack of political will from many stakeholders were some of the reasons for the failures in many sectors. With the advent of democracy in 1999, the hope for attaining growth and development was rekindled with the introduction of a document entitled: Obasanjo Economic Policy 1999-2003.

The policy document was abandoned and replaced with the National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) in 2004.But before then the idea of Vision 2020 has been creeping in the speech of former President Obasanjo, one year before he left office. It was actually envisioned by Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo,the former Central Bank Governor . In that one year the former President mentioned Vision 2020 eighteen times in his public statements. By the time, he was out of office; there was nothing in place in terms of either a document, working paper or monograph about what it is or what it would envision for the country.

Yar'Adua came to power with his 7-point Agenda which is an elucidation of Nigerians problem. Pundits warned, that the 7-point Agenda is a mere statement of the problems of this country -even a one year old can sing about-and is never a way out of it. Even the puritan Central bank of Nigeria Governor,Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,who made mockery and nonsense of the This Day Banker of the Year 2009 Awards nominees,at his Senate confirmation advised Yar'Adua to trim down his 7-point Agenda which is an elucidation of Nigeria problems which is clear to anyone to at least 2 or 3 such that when we have accomplished those we can move to the others while building on achievement for the future. He was speaking the mind of Nigerians.

Then just like his predecessors,he set up committee of 1000 experts made up of Nigerian experts and foreign consultants who revised the ideas of Obasanjo's Vision 2020. The Vision 20:2020 blueprint which was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council(FEC) is receiving widespread public apathy. Nigerians are suffering from overdose of a plethora of visions and have not lacked visionary leaders in the past 40 years. I wonder if Yar'Adua and his team are of this generation or a futuristic one. Nigeria who are naturally good followers yearn for a President who will translate at least one of these noble goals of a nation into reality as is obtainable in small Ghana. I believe strong that our vision of becoming one of the G20 by year 2020 is a pipe dream. It can only be a reality if we pay attention to critical aspect of developments that can catapult a nation to greatness. Our only remedy towards getting close to this dream is a change of leadership because the present leadership do not understand the prerequisite for ascendancy into the group of big 20's. Joining the G20 should not even be our goal. This whole jamboree should have been shelved and our efforts aimed at strengthen our democracy through electoral reforms and conducting the best election in 2011 while we concentrate on critical sectors of power generation and education. I will vote for massive reconstruction of our existing over 30,000 kilometres of roads against building more and heavy investment in modern rail transportation system.

To be patriotic, I have carefully studied the Report of the Vision 2020 National Working Committee Group on on all sectors but I gave special attention to Education Sector. They have all done an excellent job. They have identified all the problems bedevilling the education sector and observed thus “for the nation to succeed in the Vision 20:2020,we must accept that education is the key to national development and unlocking the natural resources. It opens the minds of the citizens for participation in the national activities”.This is the sector that drives the whole economy. We have a President who doesn't understand that. We have been planning for 49 years without any achievement. Is not time we change tactics? Let us concentrate on each sector of the economy one after order than lumping everything together in the name of plans. Before nations embark on plans,there need to be certain driving factors which will drive the achievement of plans. I stand with Sanusi on the trimming of the 7 point agenda say down to education,power and agriculture and I say no to Vision 20:2020. We should stop paying lip service to corruption. If there is no corruption in Nigeria,even without a plan we would have power,quality education and good roads to drive an economy that will be the biggest in Africa before we aim for the sky.

In 2008, the United Nation University World Institute for Economic Research UNU-WIDER published a research paper on Globalization, Literacy Levels and Economic Development. It was discovered that countries such as India and China have been able to produce good requiring advanced technology because they invested heavily in the education of their citizens. Meanwhile,we have a situation where our government cannot even fund education properly and is even threaten to completely abandon the funding of the Universities in the name of autonomy. The teachers and lecturers are not remunerated well. The government considers grants for research & development as a burden. We cannot account for $40bn/annum we have been earning since 2005 year. If only government will spend only 20 percent of its total expenditure on giving sound education to Nigerian youths, industrious citizens of this nation will drive an economic revolution never know in human history..

I think by 2020 we would have discovered enough oil and have the equivalent demand to attain the Vision 2020 just like some Arab States who have more money and foreign workers compared to the population of their citizens. Then like Qatar the nation will give us free housing,free healthcare and free education. Wishful thinking caused by weak,sick and thoughtless leadership.