Nigeria should be far more advanced after more than six decades of independence, former Minister of Finance, Dr Kalu Idika-Kalu, has said.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Thursday, Idika-Kalu said the country had failed to fully utilise its natural and human resources despite having the capacity to achieve much higher levels of growth.
He said Nigeria had been endowed with resources that should have supported stronger industrial and economic development.
“We are not just looking at this last administration. We are looking at the entirety of our 60 years plus of independence.
“By now, we should be far more down the road. You also indicated the refinery study. That also typifies the sort of thing we go halfway, we don’t quite take the whole hog.”
The former minister said Nigeria had access to several energy resources but had failed to translate those resources into sufficient power generation to drive industrial development.
“Yes, we are beneficiaries of large reserves of gas. Because of that, we should have power. We should have had power.
“Our generation all over the country. We also have oil. We also had biomass. Of course, before then, we had coal and hydro.
“So we only have ourselves to blame. Why we are so far back in the development of our power supply.”
Idika-Kalu said the failure to adequately use the country’s power resources had affected industrial growth and the wider economy.
“That is one of the key things that will drive industry. So if you look at one of the reasons why we are still sprouting in industry, and for that matter, in the rest of the economy, is the relative failure of using our power resources.”
He also pointed to Nigeria’s declining production of key agricultural commodities, saying the country should have moved further in processing and utilising its raw materials.
“We were great producers of staples, cotton, palm oil, palm kernels, timber, so on and so forth.
“But if you look back now, and as I said, we are not just homing in on the current administration. We are homing in on the entire 60 years of our independence.
“We should now be much larger producers, given our resource base. We should be far into the second and third stages of utilising all these strategic raw materials.”
The former finance minister added that Nigeria continued to discover strategic raw materials that could be used by industries, including solid minerals.
“I think everybody is very happy, not only do we still have what we came into independence with. We are continuing to discover all kinds of strategic raw materials that are used in industry.”
According to him, Nigeria’s development should be measured by its ability to build the human and physical infrastructure needed to convert those resources into economic value.
“So our success should be gauged, not by all these high-sounding corners or whatever.
“To the extent to which we are developing the manpower resources, the skills, the power, the communications, the transportation.”
Idika-Kalu, who also served as Minister of Transport, said Nigeria should have achieved significantly more in its rail transportation network.
“I was also Minister of Transport. By now, we’re supposed to have fast trains traversing the whole country.
“We didn’t quite get there.”
He said the country needed to acknowledge that it had not made full use of the resources available to it, rather than focusing on individual administrations.
“As I said, it’s no use really pointing fingers at any specific administration. But I think at this juncture, after 60 years of independence, we should sit back and tell ourselves the home truth, that we have not fully utilised our resources.”
Idika-Kalu also said Nigerians had the human capacity required to support stronger economic growth.
“And not to talk of, as you say, I mean, Nigerians have behaved as performing both at home and abroad. So even in terms of human resources, we had the full complement of what it would take to set Nigeria to a much higher level of growth.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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