Former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa believes that at 56, Nigeria has failed to meet the expectations of her people. He said the reason why Nigeria has nothing to celebrate at 56 is because the country is bogged down by two evils that hindered her progress.
He stated this in an interview he granted to Daily Sun News
Excerpt:
What is your take on Nigeria at 56?
During these 56 years, other countries in the world have achieved greater developments than we in terms of national unity, freedom and all round development of their countries. In the past 56 years, China has become the second world power in the world. We could have achieved the third but we have not. The reason why we have not is that we are bogged down by two evils. One, the system controlling all development – the socio-political and economic system controlling all developments in this country.
The second is the leadership, the political leadership produced by the system, both of which are built toward self-interest first, public interest second or secondary instead of public interest first and little self-interest second. It is the system and the leadership which is directly responsible for the negative state of the nation particularly, this disabling level of corruption, and the only way we can achieve anything comparable with our advantages is to change the leadership and the system.
The only way we can be our self and for us to become one of the ten most developed countries in the world is to change the system and the leadership and what we say will require structural reconstruction of Nigeria starting with the leading role of the states in the economy to ensure peace, equality, justice, dignity of the human person, and progressive even development of the country. There is no way we can make any progress at all, there is no way we can have peace with this neocolonial system controlling all developments in the country. There is no way; we can only continue to go backward.
On whether or not there's anything reason to celebrate, he replied:
On whether or not there's anything reason to celebrate, he replied:
There is no reason to celebrate but we thank God; we have survived, we have remained one country in spite of odds, this is the grace of God. We should go to our mosques and churches and anywhere we use in thanking God, we should go there and thank God for enabling us to maintain unity, stay as one country with all the problems because that is the grace of God; it means something. It means we can always start all over again.
Culled from Daily Sun News
