Nigeria is a 60-year-old toddler. It is also better described as a pediatric adult. To be described as such means that at 60, Nigeria is still crawling when its age-mates are already grandparents. The biggest weakness of Nigeria is poverty of thought. Nigeria, through its leaders, still reasons like a toddler. This is why myopia is its regular thinking mechanism. A toddler has peculiar needs: food, sleep, cuddling and playing. Anything beyond these is a burden. Kids hate burdens.

Nigeria got it wrong from 1914, during the amalgamation. The only reason Lord Lugard had for the amalgamation was for the economic wealth of the South to sustain the North. The succeeding British administrators sustained this imbalance and imposed a horrendous political system that has been hemorrhaging us. The quality of the leadership in this country is so hollow that the good people are considered stupid. So, most good people have learned to join the bad people, since they cannot beat them.

All aspirations of the people should be for a level-playing field. It is only a level-playing field that will enable good people to triumph over bad people during elections. But, first, a far-sighted leader must emerge. It is only a leader with a statesmanship quality that will think of making the country workable for generations yet unborn, including his grandchildren.

Vision is a sine qua non for Nigeria to understand the importance of the new normal. On Wednesday September 23, the Nigerian government approved a humongous contract of $1.9 billion to build a railway line in the desert and into Niger Republic. Now compare this to any contract that will uplift the economy of Nigeria: Enugu-Onitsha Express way? Enugu-Port Harcourt Express way, Lagos-Badagry Express way, East-West Road, Ibadan to Ilorin, Lokoja-Abuja Road, Owerri-Umuahia Road, Aba to Uyo, Calabar to Zaki Ibiam Road?

In the new normal, we are spending heavily on non-economic areas.

Nigeria in the next 10 to 30 years will be stumbling on the downward slope of big cliff. Why? Because we are executing a white elephant project known as AKK. Here, we are spending billions laying gas pipelines from the oil-producing areas to the far North and into the desert countries and, finally, to the Mediterranean countries. How do you fund the project? The security of the pipelines? The answer is that myopism of the leadership will definitely derail this country.

Uwazurike, a lawyer, is former President of Aka Ikenga.

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