Chief Evarist Nwosu is a former
Comptroller of Customs who retired
voluntarily from public Service in 1993.
As a strong believer in the unity of
Nigeria Chief Nwosu maintains in this
interview that Nigeria has the capability
to compete favourably with developed
countries of the world if only she
expands her resource base.
He also, speaks about his new book,
"Leadership & Developmental Issues in
Nigeria: A Search for Development
Strategies". Excerpts
Why delve into development
issues?
I have considered the way Nigeria is
going and I thought she needs to grow
and develop. But while I was in the
public service, I couldn't make
comments on issues concerning
leadership in the country but I secretly
wrote articles which were published in
The Guardian, for instance, "Why the
Military Intrude in African Politics",
published in 1978.
I retired voluntarily from the Customs
and began thinking of how to write a
book that will encapsulate all my ideas
about leadership, growth and
development. By that, I tried in my
book,"Leadership & Developmental
Issues in Nigeria: A Search for
Development Strategies", to make a
distinction between growth and
development. Growth is simply
economic expansion where you produce
and people consume and it does not
translate to development. But
development is when Political
Leadership begin thinking in terms of
how to bridge the gap, that is
technological gap between us and
developed countries of the world.
This is done by building infrastructures,
mass transit fares to move people,
building aeroplanes, why can't we build
our own automobiles and automobile
parts and couple them in this country
and then sell to other countries? We
need industrialisation, technological
acquisition, development and adapting,
etc , these are ingredients for
development.
It is surprising that people say no we
can't develop that way but if you look at
developed countries of the world, they
are the most advanced in terms of
technology, they are the richest, and so,
Nigeria cannot continue to depend on
only one natural resource; selling of oil
and all that, otherwise, why are we
always broke? The answer is simply
because the profit or whatever money
we make from oil sales is not enough to
run the affairs of this country.
That is why we run borrowing from time
to time. We need to expand our
resource base, by industrialisation,
manufacturing and exporting,
producing food in abundance for
everybody then put prices down,
develop housing for people and when
you give them transportation in
addition to low cost housing, you don't
need to pay big money as salary
because they have transport and other
amenities.
Nigeria's level of development?
I will limit myself to this present
administration. It appears that because
President Jonathan is educated and
also, a science person, it seems to me
that for the first in the history of
Nigeria, we have someone who is
thinking about development. Jonathan
is such a leader, apart from Late
Yar'Adua who would have been such a
person but death stopped him too early.
But Jonathan stepped into his shoes
and seems to have gone further than
expectation as far as I am concerned. I
am speaking for myself. Jonathan is
talking about development, launching
of satellite, building our own
automobiles and all that because he is
the kind of president that has
development agenda for the nation.
Objective of the book?
My book is to create awareness and
arouse in the minds of political leaders
the need to bridge development,
technological and industrial gap
between us and advanced countries of
the world. Other countries will not take
us serious if we don't begin to put
necessary infrastructure in place, for
the nation's development.
Once again, Nigeria needs to grow and
develop and that is why I have in my
book, documented all the indices of
development which have been lacking
in the governance of Nigeria
How can Nigeria win the war
against corruption?
First and foremost, the presidential
system of Governance should be
dropped because it is not conducive for
Nigerian polity. Parliamentary system
which will keep leaders on their toes is
best because there will be no room for
corruption. What we have at the
moment is a situation whereby the
executive, judiciary and legislature are
busy chasing their personal agenda
because the presidential system does
not check them properly. All these are
documented in my book for reference
purpose.
SOURCE: Vanguard Nigeria
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