USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ironies of Nigeria’s human resources and stagnation

Ironies of Nigeria's human resources and stagnation

KAYODE KETEFE

The gift of intelligence is the distinctive quality that sets apart human beings from the lower animals or any other beings that make pretence to sentient capacity in our universe.

Accordingly, all achievements humanity has posted from dawn of civilisation to the present era are attributable to this unique ability of Homo sapiens to analyse, infer, imagine and project et al.

The economists have also told us that of all the factors of production, comprising land labour, capital, and entrepreneurship, the latter, which represents human mental inputs in the mix, is the most potent and influential. But this fact with all its implications seems to have consistently eluded most of Nigerian leaders, at least, as far as their practical policy thrusts and guiding visions over the years have shown. It is really sad that in this country, government after government has settled into unfathomable fixation of construing human resources as a burden rather than a blessing.

We are too many, and we should not expect the government to cater to everybody's needs. Government cannot provide everything.  This is the kind of strange statements we often hear from official quarters to justify anti-people policies. Normally, a huge population should be an index of potential growth and scope of attainable development, provided of course, it is well harnessed and driven to generate beneficial ends.

But when the political class is wantonly clueless on efficient human resources management, it often sees huge population as a drawback to its developmental blueprints. We have millions of able-bodied men and women who roam the street in despair of what to do, hundreds of thousands of youths have taken to crimes, no credible attempts is being made to harness their energies and co-opt their contributions into national productivity pool.

Government's allocation to education sector and youth development, with the sole exception of the evanescent Chief Obafemi Awolowos free education project in the old Western Region, has always been dismal. Rather, billions of naira are routinely frittered away on non-productive ventures.

The strike embarked upon by the Association of the Academic Staff of Universities has entered eight week now and this is not seen as a national calamity. It is just one of those things that would sort itself out. Yet the strike, which started on the first of July, 2013, was spawned by refusal of the government to implement some of the resolutions of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.

Human resources capacity building has never been a primary focus of our leaders because their short-sightedness precluded them from seeing the overwhelming advantages of such a strategic investment decision; they cannot see or do not care about abundant wealth procurable through people-empowerment enterprises. It is this kind of people-may-go-to-hell mentality that explains why the governments at all tiers agonised and whined without limits on the profligacy of paying N18, 000 minimum wages to the workforce but had no compunction paying whopping security votes to the paramount executives and maintaining the highest-paid legislators in the world whom they sponsor every now and then to profligate jamborees abroad.  

One wonders what can ever be provided for the benefit of the masses, no infrastructure, subsidised health care delivery for Nigerians is too expensive, quality education is unavailable for lack of fund, good roads, potable pipe-borne water and regular supply of electricity are unaffordable luxury; in short, social provisioning has been nonexistent.

Nobody is answering the question of why the billions of petro-dollars earned over the past five decades have not been routed into providing the said infrastructure. Nigeria, now, is scheming to be among the top 20 developed economies in the world by the year 2020! Will the expected growth occur in a vacuum?

Only God knows why our leaders always fail to appreciate the basic fact that real development cannot occur beyond the human capacity in their enclave and that human capacity is stifled when people are not empowered. If you like, you can build hundred millions skyscrapers and architectural masterpieces all over the landscape, if you don't build human capacity; you have only succeeded in erecting potential liabilities. For instance, Abuja is reputed to be the best purpose-built city in Africa, but it would have paid us more to have the best mentally developed people in Africa.

Material infrastructure is nothing but temporal edifice that would become shameful ruins with time in the absence of proper maintenance administered by, sentient, competent, human agents.

We are, perhaps, the only nation that would set such gargantuan targets without any credible blueprints on human resource development and capacity building that would serve as the springboard for the explosive growth. Well, maybe we are hoping to achieve the greatness through prayer warfare and night vigils, or some other ritual observances, Goodluck! Every Kobo spent to improve the lot of any Nigerian is a potential million naira as the country will reap in concrete term in future. Every naira expended to rehabilitate the Area Boys, the Almajiris, the illiterate sellers of fake merchandise and the youthful kidnappers will go a long way in building human capacity for a renascent Nigeria.