Speeches
By Debrah M. Ogazuma
Many rivers to cross
But I can’t seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the white beaches of Dover”…………… Jimmy Cliff, 1969
WHILE on the surface, the opening phrase to Jimmy Cliff’s song “Many rivers to cross, echoes the mysticism inherent in the mysterious Journeys of the heroes or heroines of African Folktales in their pursuit or rather search for the elixir, there are also echoes of the psychologist, Maslow and the search or progression towards self actualization or self-transcendence. A somewhat metaphor for Nigeria’s journey or an interpretation of the theme of this conference “Nigeria: Tackling Insecurity, Power deficit and the Transitioning to Digital Economy”
Can we find our way, through Maslow’s Pyramid of Hierarchical Needs to self-actualization and as a nation and perhaps burst through in self transcendence, overcoming the limits that hold us captive in the face of Humankind’s soaring through Digital heights?
INSECURITY
According to Maslow’s Pyramid of Hierarchical Needs, safety or in our consideration, security, is on the second level from the base of the pyramid, presumably having surmounted the base level, the physiological needs for food, shelter, clothing and the like.
A cursory look at the patterns of development or growth in Nigeria throws up the picture of a people at different levels of this pyramid. However with the given number of 150 million as the population of those living in poverty, that puts a considerable number of people still grappling at the physiological level of the basic needs of humans.
Issues of insecurity and its attendant effect on the economy, which assumed astronomical levels nationwide in the past decade and more, continues to push a greater number of those considered middle class, down and back into contending with hunger and the inability to efficiently manage their lives and aspirations for a higher level of accomplishment or fulfillment.
In spite of reports of heightened military confrontation of terrorists, who are operating in widening expanse of both ungoverned and sometimes governed spaces of our land, kidnappings for ransom, killings and ransacking of whole communities presumably for the purpose of land grabbing and taking over mineral rich spaces, continue relentlessly.
These attacks are recorded nationwide, and especially in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, from the North West flank of Southern Kebbi, Niger, Southern Kaduna, the outskirts of the FCT, Kogi and the South West axis, Nasarawa, Plateau, Yobe, Benue and Taraba, not to mention the wanton destruction of farm lands on the plateau and in the river valleys of Benue; insecurities experienced by farmers contributing in no small measure to inflation and not forgetting the relentless evil exploits of terrorists in Zamfara and targeted communities of Katsina and Southern Borno; Kidnappings on the highways of the South West, South South, the South East; abduction of medical and judicial personnel and of students of Secondary and Tertiary Institutions, and their gender dimensions, including the abuse of religion in the abduction of underage Christian girls for forceful conversation and marriage.
While most of these violations have taken place in rural and semi-urban communities, with the palpable fear of kidnappings among urban residents, tackling these forms of insecurities must be rooted in the motives behind them.
As watchers of the society and communicators of these observations, the media, especially online publishers who possess a wider reach to the consuming public, must be involved in the quest for possible solutions garnered from further investigation:
The recent release of students and staff of the Federal University of Gusau, Zamfara and their condition in the extended period of captivity, for seven months in addition to the multi dimensional nature of those attacks beg for thorough and sensitive investigation;
- Why the attack on educational Institutions?
- Why are girls, females, targeted in the sense that even when others are “rescued” in quotes, the girls and women, students, nurses, doctors, magistrates are still kept in captivity?
- What effect is this having on the education of the girl child?
- When gradually these female captives, including the Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu are either ransomed, rescued or escape from their despicable captors, what long term psycho-social therapy have the government agencies or religious institution put in place for the physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and educational healings of these our children and brethren?
- Are they being released into an environment of suspicion and stigmatization?
- Stigma as I was told, graphically by Dr. Matemilola when I was putting together a documentary on the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS, “Stigma, he said. can kill even faster than the virus!” I heard a pathetic firsthand story, from a young girl infected by the virus, how she was treated so disdainfully by her family. That, also happens to rape victims
- Will the children of a recued, long lost beloved daughter be loved and able to, or be allowed to mingle with other children in the family, community or school?
- What psycho-social support are provided for parents who have waited perhaps in vain for the return of their sons and daughters, by government, family, community, religious bodies or medical institutions?
- What are the effects of the psychological trauma experienced by young men or boys who have watched their fathers, who hitherto have been highly revered as the authority in the home, now cowering either under bed or being forced to look on as their wives and daughters are raped in front of them?
Many are said to now see the terrorists as their new role models and have been recruited into the terrorist bands
Zamfara has been made almost ungovernable and unlivable for its citizens especially the indigenous people in its rural communities:
- Whose foot soldiers are the terrorists, termed bandits ?
- Who benefits from the illegal gold mining?
- Who are the illegal miners of the rare minerals in Nasarawa, Kogi and the South South?
- Who are those providing cover for those who are determined to decimate the indigenous population, destroy their land, take over and occupy these targeted territories thereby changing their demography?
- Why the insistence that these are bandits not terrorists?
- An specifically, why does the media continue to give the title bandit and unknown gunmen to the perpetrators of these vicious and bloody attacks on the people of Zamfara and the rest of the country, thereby romanticizing their nature as though they were the banditos of western cowboy movies or adventurous fictional sea pirates
If we call them who they are, terrorists, we would be on the way to truly tackling that aspect of insecurity.
POWER DEFICIT
Another area of the captivity or the holding down of Nigeria, even after 64 years of Independence, is the next consideration of the conference theme, Power Deficit .
There is no gain saying that Nigeria’s transition to Digital Economy will obviously be affected by the adequacy of power that is required to power the sector. Technology is powered by electrical power, to engender the release of its creative possibilities. The inimitable Fela Anikulapo Kuti, whose genius is remembered even in death, illustrates this point graphically in his Yoruba translation of the word Technology. “Te ki ino loji” (i.e press the switch so that the fire-power can wake it up)
The analogue use of technology limits and holds us down to a pedestrian style and speed of growth, the ground level of the growth pyramid, in our quest and struggle to be liberated from the bondage or limiting factors in our business, professions, and overall national development. The increase use of technology:
- Makes the acha farmer more able to maximize her planting, harvesting and processing of her produce.
- It makes the sugarcane farmer expand his scope into processing and bottling the juice for large scale business.
- It makes the young teenager go into robotics for the purpose of making life easier for his/her arthritis burdened grandparents or for use in the mass production of a factory line product.
- It creates a wider market and influence for the creative film and broadcast industry in providing access to rare production funds and global collaborations. Making the life of an average Nigerian easier and freer to be more creative in a chosen field of self actualization.
To achieve this we must surmount the infrastructural deficit to generate more power in the many creative ways made known to us in the UP NEPA documentary by Griot Studios. We need to monitor the progress of the New Electricity Act of 2023 and create awareness for its utilization.
Currently there is a lamentation by both domestic and foreign financed industries, concerning cost of powering both SME and large scale industries due to power outages leading to increasing use of private generation of power. The consequences have led to drastic reduction or nil profit margins. This has sometimes led to the closing down of some industries and the flight of bigger ones to neighbouring countries deemed to have more reliable power.
According to a recent World Bank report as quoted in the African Business Magazine, “Successful implementation of a digital transformation will require widespread access to affordable energy.” Which way Nigeria, for transformation to a growing digital economy, when faced with high power tariffs and its alternative, exacerbated by hikes in fuel price?
TRANSITIONING TO DIGITAL ECONOMY
The same World Bank report quoted above states boldly that “Digitalization could improve fiscal policy, the quality of public administration and the fortunes of the private sector in some of Africa’s poorest countries.”
- We see the growing use of digital elements by some broadcast industries to facilitate access to wider reports and information by their audience, thereby widening their reach to a variety of audiences. There is no stopping the creative industry in Nigeria. The global acclaim of Nollywood and Afrobeat ( apparently due to its digital streaming by Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music ) demonstrates that the world is our stage.
- Agencies of government such as the immigration and pensions are increasingly utilizing technology through the internet in their collection of data to facilitate the provision of efficient service to the public.
- According to the Hon. Minster of Communication and Digital Economy, Mr. Bosun Tijani, in a recent pronouncement, Digital economy recorded about $5.49 billion in revenue in 2019; It contributed about 16.6% of the GDP and is projected to generate up to $18.3 billion by 2026”
- Innovative Financial Companies like Future Africa which invests in other entrepreneurs with the aim of “building a business environment where we really can enable innovators who are taking our continent’s more difficult programmes to global businesses.”
STRATEGIES
Clearly, the future is brimming with innovations and pregnant with possibilities for an expanding digital economy. It is driven by a growing avant-garde of the new generation.
Is Nigeria going to allow the seemingly insurmountable soul-crushing insecurity and power deficit to constitute huge blots on the emerging landscape of its global horizon?
What strategies can be designed and quickened with the utmost urgency?
Beyond the ongoing military interventions, every sector of our polity must be marshalled to stem Insecurity.
We have seen how food-security is gravely affected by terrorist activities which is instigating nationwide inflation.
- A state of alert and not resignation must be put in place.
- Traditional methods, involving ward and district heads and traditional rulers, of reporting and fishing out possibly dangerous elements seeking to make incursions into the communities, must be re-activated.
- Effective and loud alarms of alerting a sleeping community must be instituted.
- The culture of silent onlookers to terrorist operations, which was introduced into the society, since the incursion of armed robberies in the 1970s must be rejected and replaced by strategic and community actions against the perpetrators of violent attacks.
- The emasculation of men and heads of families, cowering under beds or forced to watch passively as their wives and daughters are raped or abducted must be resisted.
According to studies, this has provoked young men, who have watched their fathers lose their traditional authorities to shift loyalties to these terrorists, replacing them as role models thereby submitting themselves to recruitment by terrorist gangs.
- In spite of the curious disarming of the civilian communities by the authorities, households must create ways of defending themselves and overpowering terrorists.
- Un-grid solutions like the one in place in the plateau community which provides power 24/7 as recommended in the UP NEPA documentary must be encouraged in Local Government Areas. This would lift people from the current captive and primordial state as the country transits into a digital economy.
- A state like Kogi, Nasarawa, Bauchi, Zamfara, Ogun, Enugu and others rich in Metal Ores such as gold iron and the like, which can contribute to what is now being titled the fastest growing segments of the Nigerian economy, must be captured in the official and legal investment map for the benefit of the region and nation, not for the pockets of those who are alleged to secretly mine these ores and export them.
Traditional rulers, administrative authorities and Nigerian entrepreneurs are also alleged to be heavily involved in this
- .The Media, especially members of GOCOP, must lead the way and continuously draw attention to these issues, as partners in development.
- Lastly, education should be paramount in the adoption of these strategies.
More input should be made to the national budget in the education sector to boost all areas of the economy. The curriculum of schools, at all levels, should include the acquisition of digital technology and economy as well as Artificial Intelligence, in addition to what NITDA and other Communications Agencies are doing.
There should be profound security provided for students in these institutions especially for females. It has become obvious, since the capture of the Chibok girls that the girl-child’s education and destiny is severely threatened
As a nation we must accept that the Nigerian Eagle cannot Soar without the attributes of 50% of its populace – WOMEN
***Being speech by Debrah M. Ogazuma Chief Creative Communicator, GIWAZOTORLAND INNOVATIONS at the 8th GOCOP conference.
A.I
Oct. 6, 2024
Tags: Debrah M. Ogazuma
