November 25, 2020
Several parameters have been identified as requirement for the delivery of sustainable national infrastructures. These include a need definition which is focused, time calibrated, and based on priority. Objectives must be well defined and a funding system which considers the strategic development of indigenous resources is also critical. All the above must be complemented by a political arrangement that makes the political players and political processes take the right decisions based on all the earlier mentioned parameters.
That captures the meat of a lecture on “The Nigerian Infrastructures Conundrum – The Missing links” delivered by Engr Edet James Amana, a past President of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering and Chairman, Amana Consortium at the Investiture of Engr Alex Ogedegbe as 11th President of the Academy in Lagos.
“As a result of her failed infrastructures, the economic development of our country has suffered major setbacks and what is potentially a rich and great country has failed to develop her enormous potential over the years. Nigeria was appropriately described as the Giant of Africa in the early 1960sfollowing her political independence from British colonial rule. In 2017, Borgen Magazine from Seattle Washington described Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world. The World Economic Forum’s 2016-17 Global Competitiveness Index ranked Nigeria’s Infrastructure at the bottom – 132 out of 138 countries – and according to that organization’s 2016 Executive Opinion Survey, the poor infrastructure is the largest constraint on doing business in the country.”
The lecturer argues that Nigeria scores unimaginably too low in all the identified parameters as if it is to say only evil has sustained. And the lecturer shares the late Emperor Haile Selassie’s opinion that “Throughout history, it is the inaction of those who should have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered the most, that made it possible for evil to triumph.” And he concludes “There is nothing that an organised, passionate, dedicated, selfless, committed intelligentsia cannot do”.
The full length lecture is posted hereunder.
The Nigerian Infrastructures Conundrum – The Missing Links 1
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The Nigerian Infrastructures Conundrum – The Missing Links 2
