Nigeria must build its economic power to play leadership role

Nigeria recognised early in its national history that geography, population and natural resources had thrust upon it a regional leadership role. Yet its preparedness for that responsibility has not kept pace with the growing demands now placed on the country. How can this widening gap be closed quickly and effectively so Nigeria can rise to the mounting challenges destabilising West Africa and the Sahel?

Today, as insecurity spreads across West Africa and the Sahel and economic pressures mount across the region, Nigeria’s limited capacity is increasingly exposed. The challenge before the country is not whether it should lead, but whether it can build the economic and institutional strength required to lead effectively, and in time. A regional power must first put its home front to be able to play that role.

When Nigeria flexed its muscles on African and international issues, it was able to do so because the home base was stable, intact and buoyant. That explains why Nigeria, Africa’s giant in many respects, dictated the pace on many issues. Nigeria played a key role in the liberation of Southern Africa, including Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, among others. It hosted and trained many of the freedom fighters who fought for the liberation of these countries and others.

Located in West Africa, Nigeria was a member of the Frontline States, a coalition of Southern African nations that banded together to ensure the region’s liberation, including South Africa itself, the last bastion of apartheid. Nigeria poured millions of dollars into the struggle to ensure no African country remained under colonial rule.

In August 1989, President Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria’s military leader at the time, attended a Frontline States meeting in Congo-Brazzaville. At the end of that meeting, he flew to Harare, Zimbabwe, on his way home and met with Nigerians there. Also present was President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who later held a press conference on the outcomes of the meeting as part of the final push for the freedom of Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s independence. This writer, then in Harare on a programme, covered both events. Mandela was released two years later in 1991 as apartheid crumbled.

On 21 March 1990, when Sam Nujoma, the first black president of Namibia, was inaugurated, Nigeria sent a military aircraft to Windhoek, carrying a presidential car used by Babangida at the event. That was a show of power by Africa’s leading country, made possible by an articulate foreign policy and a strong economic base.

Namibia had been under colonial rule before independence, with South Africa administering the territory from 1915 to 1990. Its name, given by the German colonial administration in 1884, was South West Africa. After World War I, South Africa took control under a League of Nations mandate, later a United Nations trust territory, until 1990. The South African government enforced apartheid policies, restricting the rights and freedoms of Namibia’s indigenous population.

Today, the country that Nigeria helped Nujoma and others to fight for its independence is doing quite well. Its economy has been growing steadily at about 3.7 per cent, driven by the naturalresources sector, including oil and mining. Classified as an uppermiddleincome economy, it has a percapita GDP of roughly $4,472 compared to Nigeria’s of about $835, which is considered one of the lowest among African peers.

Thirty five years later, Nigeria is again being called upon to play a “Big Brother” role in African affairs, starting with its immediate neighbourhood, West Africa. The demand is urgent. The forces at play now are probably more insidious than those the continent or region contended with then. A ferocious blizzard is sweeping down from the Sahel, targeting both economics and politics. Unfortunately, the giant that rose in defence of threatened African nations seems to have lost its former vigour. Somewhere along the line, “Nigeria” has happened to Nigeria, a euphemism for the weakness, decline or outright failure of Nigeria’s institutional capacity that now makes possible things previously unthinkable in the country.

In the buildup to playing its role as the giant of Africa or keeper of its brothers, Nigeria appears to have missed the most critical part: building institutional capacity. Such capacity is politically neutral and would be relevant whether Party A or Party B is in power. Today, Nigeria must prove to the continent that it is indeed prepared to play the role of redeemer of Africa, or part of it.

While we seem ever ready to assume this mantle, many watching from the sidelines would ask us, as physicians, to first heal ourselves before attempting to heal others. With Nigeria under the stranglehold of terrorists and bandits, the garb we donned decades ago seems to have lost its aura.

We lost it at home; we must regain it at home. Only by rebuilding our institutions, securing our communities, and reigniting inclusive economic growth can Nigeria reclaim the vigour that once made it the beacon of hope for the continent. The time to act is now, before the storm of instability sweeps us further away from the leadership role we are destined to play.

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