The National Coordinator, Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum and immediate past President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, has said that a restructured Nigeria could be the easiest way to return the country to the basics of value that is needed to make the country great again.
Chief Nwodo’s view was contained in a paper he titled ‘Re-Evaluation Of African Values and Culture in the Face of the Crises of the 21st Century,’ delivered at the 4th Chinua Achebe International Conference at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka on Tuesday.
Chief Nwodo noted that the changes in our cultural values have traumatized the Nigerian society and led it to yahoo yahoo, cybercrime, illiteracy, insecurity, electoral dishonesty, lack of accountability, retardation in educational standards and insecurity, which can be remedied by going back to basics through restructuring the country.
The former two-time Minister said that the only way we can see a better Nigeria in our life time is to ‘Allow states to determine their educational, social welfare policies and security exclusively as well as ownership of their natural resources whilst paying royalties to the Federal Government for common services”
Chief Nwodo who took a historical look at the destruction of the nation’s socio-political and cultural values noted that the best way out is in the restoration of merits and abandonment of quota system.
“All the major industrialized countries of the world thrive on merit. Merit promotes competition, rewards hard work and drives development. The idea that you can get admission to a Federal Secondary School, a Polytechnic, a University or the Civil Service without excelling in a competitive examination destroys incentive for hard work and discovery of talents.”
Chief Nwodo also took a critical look at the nation’s political problems that results in the devaluing and abandoning the basics of operation. “This is the only country in the world where videos of electoral pooling booths are showed by television stations yet courts hold that the test of proving without reasonable doubt has not been met.
“This is the only country in the world where the defeated will find it difficult to concede because there is usually no compelling reason to do so.
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“This is the only country in the world where it can take up to six months or more to conclude an election petition through the judicial process.”
The National Coordinator of South and Middle Belt Forum bemoaned the wrong and inadequate deployment of our youths and women in the political activities.
“As long as our young people take the back seat in politics and prefer to receive handouts from politicians and do their bidding, so long shall our politics be bereft of renascent ideas of the youth. Our youth are supposed to be the uncontaminated segment of our society, our tabula rasa. It is from them that we can distill new and uncontaminated ideas of where society should be headed.”
He noted that “it was the young men of 30s that fought for the independence of Nigeria. When Achebe wrote ‘Things Fall Apart,’ he propelled a revolution using his courage, his pen and his youthful zeal for change. So did Cyprian Ekwensi when he authored, ‘No Longer At Ease.’ Politics without ideas is like a car without a break.”
Nwodo also took a swipe at discrimination against Women particularly in the North noting that by so doing “Nigeria is denying herself of a very productive gender in our generation.”
Nwodo urged the country to accelerate the diversification of skill development amongst our women and their exposure to managerial responsibilities.
“As at 29th November, 2019, 75 countries have appointed or elected women as Head of State and Head of Government since 1950. These countries include Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Ceylon, Argentina, Srilanka, Iceland, Peru, South Korea, and India,” he said
The former Ohanaeze PG also examined our slow march to agricultural revolution and said that “There is no justification whatsoever to allow cattle grazing that entails herdsmen trekking with numerous cows by foot from Northern Nigeria to very distant parts of the South in search of grasses to feed their cows. Netherlands has taught us that we can grow grasses anywhere digitally. The present system is archaic, dangerous to the cows and the herdsmen and inimical to the maintenance of public security. No reasonable government will allow it to continue.”
