Nigeria is going nowhere until we eschew our owambe culture in favour of the European style practice of investing disposable income in cooperative societies

Ayo Akinfe 

[1] I get terribly exasperated when I hear Nigerians constantly go on about bad government, with no mention of the masses. It is the people that make a nation and governments are only a reflection of the citizenry 

[2] Our intellectual laziness also prevents us from analysing what is wrong with our economy, hence why we are currently hearing all this illiterate talk about balkanisation. Surely our secessionist friends have learnt from the Taliban that it is one thing to have good slogans but another to have coherent policies. The Taliban does not have one socio-economic policy with which it plans to govern Afghanistan. Our Nigerian secessionists are no different. If they succeeded in balkanising Nigeria tomorrow, it would be a case of: “What next?”

[3] Any discerning mind will tell you that Nigeria’s fundamental problem is that we are not productive enough. Because 200m people are chasing too few resources, these tensions manifest themselves in ethnic and religious squabbles. Sort out Nigeria’s economic problems and watch all these divisive woes go away. If we had 20% annual GDP growth over the 30 years, there would not be one nomadic herdsman in Nigeria

[4] Contented people at ease with themselves do not engage in ethnic and religious spats. They are always accommodating of each other as we saw at the recent wedding of President Buhari’s son and the funeral of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s dad. I did not see any ethnic or religious arguments when it came to finding parking space for their private jets at Kano airport 

[5] To get Nigeria off her knees, we need to invest all the disposable income in our economy in production. Your average Nigerian spends their disposable income giving zakat in the mosque and tithes in the church and then spraying at parties on Saturday. That is not sustainable and needs to change if we are serious about progress 

[6] Across Europe, ordinary working people put such disposable incomes into cooperative societies. They later used such capital to open retail outlets like the Co-op. Many banks and building societies were also founded that way 

[7] On the industrial front, craftsmen like plumbers, electricians, mechanics, etc put money into guilds, which was later invested in factories to manufacture new inventions like pumps, machines, etc. In the run-up to World War Two, Germany exploited this to the maximum. During the war, the US then took this to new heights with the practice of mass production 

[8] Ask yourself if the Lagos State Tailors Guild has ever asked its members to contribute money so they can invest in an ankara or aso oke production plant. My people prefer to spray at parties on Saturday, give the pastor tithes on Sunday and then go and import products from China on Monday. We are not serious about development yet 

[9] Is there any reason why a farmers association in one of our states has not come up with a factory that manufactures irrigation machines? Is there any reason why our Niger Delta community associations have not floated a company that manufactures oil rigs and well machinery?

[10] We can be our own worst enemies at times and then we turn round and start screaming wolf when we start feeling the effects of our actions. Vanity and ostentation are two cancers we need to excise from our society. They are as bad as corruption and election rigging. I am glad that the CBN is taking the lead by banning the spraying of the naira