Victor EzejaAs part of measures for tackling Nigeria’s economic challenges, former minister of power, Prof. Bart Nnaji has advocated a regional-based development intervention that would see a bloc of states having common development ties.
Such approach the industrial engineering expert said, would help to create centres of industrial excellence in different geo-political zones in the country.
Prof. Nnaji, an industrial engineering expert who is a governorship aspirant in Enugu State under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said leaders of different sections of the country should hold meaningful conferences on how to industrialize their areas, so that thousands of Nigerians especially youths who graduate yearly from different tertiary institutions in the country and abroad in disciplines like computer engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, industrial physics, industrial microbiology, industrial engineering and others could find where to practice their professions in the country.
According to a statement signed by the director general, Prof. Bart Nnaji Campaign Team, Barr. Ricky Agu, the former minister also called on governors and other leaders of states in the defunct Eastern Nigerian Region to work more closely for the rapid development of the area.
“No state can develop as rapidly as it would have wished if it does not plan development policies and implement them in concert with neighboring states in the region, especially since they share a lot of cultural and historical affinities”, Nnaji stated.
He recalled that in the past there were industrial establishments in the old Eastern Region which made it one of the quickest growing economies in the world.
“Eastern Nigeria was able to have one of the world’s quickest growing economies in the 1960s because there were a lot of industries in places like Nkalagu, Port Harcourt, Aba, Emene, Calabar and Obudu which hired many of our people and the pay was competitive even by international standards,” Nnaji noted.
According to him, the Eastern Nigerian Region, which now comprises Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers states, need common services like railway which will drive mass transit.
“It is not buses which drive mass transit in the modern world, contrary to the popular notion in Nigeria”, the former minister told the campaign team.
“It is time to start thinking and dreaming big rather than continuing with the traditional way of doing small things and expecting big results.”
Noting with concern the collapse of these enterprises, Nnaji who is also the CEO of Geometric Power, said that “Nigerians, both young and old, are compelled to move in large numbers to Lagos and Abuja daily in search of jobs and business opportunities which are shrinking by the day while the population increases.”
Some Nigerians, he continued, seek the greener pasture by going abroad through all manner of means.
“Many reach Libya via Chad in the hopes of boarding rickety and dangerous canoes to southern Italy, and frequently end up tragically.
He argued that Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia did not become development miracles and attaining living standards of the Western world within two or three decades by continuing with the traditional systems which were not efficient or effective or competitive.
In this era of globalization, Professor Nnaji explained, “it will not be right for the Eastern states or even other parts of the Nigerian Federation to continue to attempt to develop like silos, each in its own cocoon or small world.
“No state government can stem phenomena like this, hence the need for different sections of Nigeria to work together on key development issues.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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