Ekiyor Konrad Welson, director of Rawls Centre for Development, Philosophy and Human Rights, had described Nigeria as consistently on a deplorable state, where tomorrow is worse than yesterday.
Welson, who spoke with BDSUNDAY in Yenagoa said: “I will describe Nigeria at 56 the way a professor described it one day at Murtala Muhammed International Airport when I was going to Ghana. Nigeria is a country where yesterday is better than today and today better than tomorrow.”
Welson, who is also a journalist and lecturer at the Niger Delta University (NDU), Amassoma in Bayelsa State, said the description calls for deep reflection especially when the past is always better than the future.
He compared Nigeria to Ghana due to their similar phases of political evolution which included military coups and large ethnic groups but wondered where the former got it wrong as the latter is relatively stable.
He said: “The journey has not been good when you reflect on the entity called Nigeria. You’ll have a lot to regret. In 1957, Ghana gained independence, three years later, Nigeria gained independence. Our experiences are very similar; they too went through a long period of military rule and military coups and all that. But by the time they entered their democracy, they stabilised.
“You begin to wonder what happened in Ghana that has not happened in Nigeria. Today, when you go to Ghana, you see a society that is relatively stable. They too have a lot of ethnic groups, so it’s not that they are homogenous.”
Looking back through the years, Welson said that “everything that was working in the 70s from railways, power, security and others have collapsed and there is no public outcry as it was then when, for instance, there was power outage.”
According to him, “the situation can be blamed on leadership or the lack of structure. It was the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo who blamed the situation on structure and the late writer, Chinua Achebe, who saw leadership as the problem facing the nation.”
He situated the problem on both structure and leadership, saying Nigeria has not had the kind of political and social structure that will engender growth and development while not also attracting the best leadership minds.
Samuel Ese
