In the Grandiose Parlor…

I can’t readily think of instances of collaborative actions between the Nigerian government and the citizens and organizations in the private and nonprofit sectors working together as partners to accelerate innovative, results-oriented, and sustainable solutions to our nation’s social problems. One thing that is not very common—and really needed—in Nigeria is this public-private collaboration. Continue reading…

I once read somewhere that “development is the gradual emergence of a problem-solving system”.

Nigeria is fraught with problems, the tooth-achy type that seem to last for ever. Power failure, crumbling infrastructure, failing institutions, etc.

Half a century down the road, can one say Nigeria has developed over the year?

Has any problem-solving system emerged since 1960 when the Brits passed on the baton? Food for thought!

Governance is a service oriented venture; it’s all about service delivery; the more efficient the delivery models are the better for the people and the government.

However, as far as I know, there haven’t been any conscionable efforts to assess service delivery models for efficiency. Yet, Nigerian state administrators dream of private partnership projects (PPP), foreign investors coming in with wads of cash, and ‘leap-frogging’ their respective domains into modern enclaves of commerce and technology of global standard.

How naïve! Continue reading…

While hundreds of lesser known names have suffered similar and even worse outcomes in Nigeria, Alhaji Abubarkar Rimi’s manner of death is embarrassing and should be a wake up call to the nation administrators. Rimi was one of their kind; he was affluent and well-connected; he was a former governor and a former federal minister; and member of the ruling party.

A society that can not guarantee basic security of life and property is in serious trouble. This is the reality of Nigeria today. Continue reading…

The Nigerian president may be brain-dead, or severely physically and mentally incapacitated to ever function in the executive capacity he was elected some three years ago. There are some damning reports from NEXT and Punch dailies.

The story in Next is particularly jaw-dropping! Several spasms of shiver ran down my spine reading how a handful of people have been able to mount the greatest charade in the nation’s history.

The story better not be true!

I don’t know if Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua still consider himself the president of Nigeria or not. Certainly he does, I think, considering his refusal to hand over — even if temporally to his deputy, while on sick leave in Saudi Arabia, or wherever he’s holed up at the moment.

If Mr. President is still in control of his mental faculty, and his sights have not failed him as some of his other body parts and organs have, he needs to read Princeton Lyman’s piece on Nigeria: “If Nigeria fails?”, published in BusinessDay on Jan. 7. (In fact, all federal ministers, legislators and state governors should read the article.) Mr. Lyman was a former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, so his analysis can not be discounted. Continue reading…

Nigeria is a sick nation needing disruptive turnaround!

There are three clear-cut prognoses to any medical malady: It can either resolve; turn chronic, lingers and cripple the victim, figuratively; or the victim may just caput, and succumb to the illness.

That Nigeria is sick is stating the obvious, but as apparent as this may be, Nigerians keep getting smacked in the face, incessantly, by actions and developments that continue to buttress this fact. Here are some reference points in 2009: Continue reading…