Nigeria: In Need of Shock Therapy

8 September 2017
column

It is safe to assume that all enlightened Nigerians are agreed on the proposition that Nigeria is in dire need of a drastic reset and redirection towards a development oriented society. Rather than revolution, I call the need a shock therapy-'sudden and drastic measures taken to solve an intractable problem'. This perspective is derived from the identification of the underdevelopment malaise of Nigeria as the syndrome of a consumption driven (as opposed to development driven) economy. The interminable socio political crisis Nigeria has endured mostly stem from contestations over access and expropriation of the national largesse. Needless to suggest that if our primary concern and motivation is the development of Nigeria, we would complement rather than antagonise one another. There would be no need to obsess for power in Abuja and the lesser tiers of government if the motive for political participation is to add value; to ask- as in the idealistic exhortation of John F Kennedy, 'not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country'.

Karl Marx and Max Webber of the differing socialist and capitalist schools of thought similarly (theoretically) attested the primacy of the work and productivity ethic to national aspirations for development. 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his need' is the utopian evangelical mission statement of Marxism. In his attribution of capitalist development as a derivative of the Protestant ethic-of being motivated to produce wealth as a calling (beyond the desire and gratification of personal consumption) Webber was making the same call.

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