By Mbasekei Martin Obono
In the 70s, a strong wind of Pan-Africanism blew across the African continent, borderlines drawn by colonialism began to fade and the continent shrank even further. Proponents of Pan-Africanism held strong belief that the economic, social and political progress of a ‘one Africa’ would unify and uplift people of African descent.
As a result of the proposed economic and infrastructural integration, there was an agreement to construct railways that would traverse North, East, West and Southern Africa.
President Shehu Shagari, who was then president of Nigeria saw the opportunities in a united Africa and decided to build Ajaokuta steel company. As the giant of Africa, Nigeria was poised to use Ajaokuta steel company to supply the required steel, needed for the construction of the railway.
The railway was already a huge market for the company. Also, Ajaokuta was projected to have employed 500,000 people, with annual revenue running into hundreds of billions of dollars. It was envisioned that the project would provide materials for infrastructural development, technology acquisition, human capacity building, income distribution, regional development among many others. Ajaokuta was more than sixty percent completed by Shagari’s administration.
Despite the promise of a glorious future; a booming economy and a promising democracy, General Muhammadu Buhari and his military bandits plotted a coup and overthrew Shagari’s led government. After ousting Shagari, Ajaokuta was abandoned with no further investment made. Even if the sin of overthrowing a democratically elected President is forgivable, how do we forgive the sin of deliberate impoverishment of our people?
Let’s fast forward to his second coming in 2015. The National Bureau of Statistics in August 2016 revealed that 4.58million Nigerians lost their jobs under Buhari’s one year in office. The unemployment rate has not dropped, rather it has increased. Many companies have wound up. Fortune 500 and other multinationals have been quite concerned about the state of affairs in Nigeria. Portfolio investors including Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Ashmore Group Plc, which together oversee about $450 billion of assets, have retreated from Nigerian markets. Nigeria became even less attractive as the country fell from first to fourth, behind Ivory Coast, Kenya and Tanzania in ranking of business prospects by the research unit of Nielsen Holdings Plc.
To make matters worse, the government recently revoked the contract of INTELS Services. INTELS Services moved to Onne in 1982, Onne was almost an empty field, partially built. But INTELS refurbished Onne Port and transformed it to the largest oil and gas free zone in the world. The government has been struggling hard to convince keen observers that the revocation was not done based on INTELS affiliation with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Atiku has been critical of both the economy and structure of Nigeria and in the same vein, shown that he is interested in running for President in 2019.
For the avoidance of doubts, more than 15,000 families depend on INTELS Services for their daily food, clothing and shelter. The question is what would happen to these 15,000 people? Should they all suffer because of the ambition of one man?
For a government that detests voice of dissent and would stop at nothing to clampdown on anyone, Atiku’s INTELS was an easy target. Before Atiku, the government tried to muzzle opposition by introducing a social media regulation bill. After the bill failed, it introduced the NGO regulation bill to clampdown on organizations who may oppose government policies. This bill will also fail.
A government should be creating jobs instead of destroying them. INTELS also has a multibillion dollar investment at the Badagry deep seaport in Lagos, the investment in Lagos would create thousands of direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians. If INTELS pulls out of Nigeria, how many jobs can Buhari’s administration create for the teeming population? Everything should not be about politics.
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