The Director, Abuja School of Political and Social Thoughts,
Dr. Sam Amadi, has said while Nigeria looks forward to charting a new direction
from its past, her future may not lie with politicians.
According to him, the present crop of leaders do not give
much confidence about the future of Nigeria.
Amadi, who is also a former Chairman, Nigeria Electricity
Regulatory Commission, however, said the country was blessed with several
people who could turn the tide if properly harnessed.
In a chat with our correspondent during the early hours of
Saturday where he shared his thoughts on state of the nation as the country
marks its 62ND Independence Anniversary, Amadi said Nigeria needs civic
reawakening.
He added that to solve challenges bedevilling the country,
Nigeria needs proper diagnosis.
According to him, the most fundamental thing to do is to
seek proper diagnosis of our problem. In strategy you cannot solve a problem
without an accurate and appropriate diagnosis.
“After that (diagnosis) we develop a coherent set of actions
to solve the problem. We have to go beneath the surface of our problems and see
the underlying cause. The most important thing to is seek radical knowledge of
our problems and be willing to address the roots.
“The most important thing is to lay a new constitutional foundations
of Nigeria to turn it from a neo-feudal and neo-patrimonial state into a truly
secular, modern democratic state focused on protecting the economic and
political components of democratic citizenship.”
Continuing, Amadi said, “Nigeria was a bright hope, a city
on the hills by 1960 at independence. Today, Nigeria is a nation in distress.
As a graduate student of Harvard in 2001, I described Nigeria to leading global
thinkers as a country with an epileptic supply of social services like
electricity.
“But today, with seven total blackouts in nine months,
Nigeria has gone beyond epileptic supply of electricity. Nigeria is now more
than a distressed country. Many will say Nigeria is a collapsed or failed
country. Those who are charitable will say the country is collapsing of
failing. But what is not disputable is that Nigeria had betrayed the trust,
dashed the hope and broken the heart of its citizens and well-wishers across
the world who looked forward with confidence to the birth of a new country that
will prove that what one race can do another can do better.
“There has been several predictions of rising for Nigeria.
Yet Nigeria is yet to rise. Nigeria has come of age, as it’s first Prime
Minister declared. But it has not proved its skeptics wrong. Nigeria is a
resilient country. But it is yet to become a prosperous and stable country.
Probably Nigeria was misbegotten. But it is still our responsibility to correct
the foundational errors and fulfill the hopes of the world leaders of a great
Black Country in the African continent.”
On how to get out the woods, he said, “The present crop of
leaders do not give much confidence about the future of Nigeria. But there many
great people in the country.
“Nigeria’s future may not lie with the politicians. It may
be more important at this point to raise great men and women who will be able
to orchestrate new learning and social practices to recreate Nigeria. The
political class is very important but they are not sufficient. We need civic
reawakening. We need explosion of knowledge and expertise.”
On whether the frontline presidential candidates for next
year’s election can be bring about the desired change for the country, Amadi
explained that the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola
Tinubu, was not the right person to lead the country from 2023.
Amadi said Tinubu and his party were deficient in
“ideological orientation” of its governing elites, hence his opposition to
(Tinubu’s) candidacy.
He explained that with the need for civic reawakening, the
presidential candidates of Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party, Atiku
Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively stands a better chance of leading the
country to the desired destination.
“I think Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar are the best
positioned to help Nigeria enter a new direction. The APC and Tinubu carry a
deficit in terms of the temper and ideological orientation of its governing
elite to make the desired change,” he told our correspondent.
On the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities
strike, the legal scholar faulted the Federal Government’s position, adding
that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure schools are open for
learning.
He also asked the university union to seek alternative way
to making their grievance known rather than “primitive long strikes”.
“I think the FG’s position is faulty. The government has
responsibility to ensure that schools are open and learning is going on as
required. I think ASUU needs to change direction and end this primitive
practice of long strikes. They should find a new way to pressure government to
meet up with its obligations. Strike actions are very dangerous to a country
and should be rarely used,” Amadi said.
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