Like every new invention which comes with opportunities and challenges, the recent crossing from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by the Executive Governor of Delta state, His Excellency, Rt Hon. Sheriff Oborewvori with members of his Executive Council including members of the State House of Assembly and the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, to the All-Progressive Congress (APC) has expectedly elicited conflicting reactions.
While some described the move as a welcomed development and expressed optimism that the latest political marriage in the state will birth positive political tidings in the state, others were of the view that the most effective way of making the latest political development in the state rewarding is for the state government to adopt a programmatic approach towards industrializing Delta state.
For an instance, Comrade Mulade Sheriff, the Ibe-Serimowei of Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri South-west LGA, While stating that leaders all over the world now adopt strategies to harness the resources of their countries for more infrastructural development, job creation and economic growth, translating to wealth creation, stressed that Delta State cannot be an exception, especially as the State is richly endowed with human capital and natural resources which are the keys to unlocking the greatness of the State, adding that the industrialisation of the State through agriculture and aqua-culture would create opportunities for youths and women, and curtail the wastage of idle human resources and turn them into assets that can contribute their quota to the growth and development of the State.
According to Mulade, “agro-based industrialisation will help to reduce the insecurity challenges and criminal tendencies and immorality prevalent in the society. As the saying goes, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. When the youths and women are meaningfully engaged, this will improve peace and reduce anti-social behaviors like armed robbery, prostitution amongst others, and in the long run attract more investors into the State.”
“Delta State is greatly endowed with arable land and marine resources that can turn the State into a food basket for local consumption and create revenues via exports while also achieving the aim of diversifying from an oil-dependent economy in the long run. Adopting an agro-based industrialisation strategy would go a long way to creating wealth for the State’s teeming unemployed youths and women. “By engaging them, it will reduce the rate of unemployment and food scarcity, while boosting food sufficiency and its affordability, a key to reducing the poverty index of the State,” he asserted.
Indeed, the issue raised by Chief Mulade cannot be described as unfounded. In fact, the challenge of industrialization transcends Delta as a state and Nigeria as a nation.
There are reasons for Africans and true lovers of the continent to feel concerned about the happenings in the continent as per industrialization shortage. It more than anything else confirms as true the argument by some European scholars that even though Africans have recently witnessed remarkable improvement in their culture and civilization, it remains a dark continent lit only by the flashes of foreign penetration and has contributed nothing to world civilization.
Undoubtedly, Africans may have in my view, overtly shown remarkable improvement in their culture and civilization. That notwithstanding, for the fact that after well over 60 years of independence, African countries continually look up to other continents for aid, covertly tells a story of a continent lacking in capacity for taking responsibility for its actions and initiatives for values.
For a better understanding of this piece, the Chinese development aid to Africa, going by reports, totalled 47% of its total foreign assistance in 2009 alone, and from 2000 to 2012 it funded 1,666 official assistance projects in 51 African countries.
Also rings apprehension is the awareness that the second is most-populated in the world (1.2 billion people), yet, sadly represents only 1.4% of the world Manufacturing Value added in the first quarter of 2020. This is further exacerbated by the fact that out of over 51 countries in Africa as a continent, only South Africa qualified as a member of BRICS, an acronym coined for an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
In like manner, a book entitled; “Technology and Wealth of Nations’’ chronicled the slanted and unsustainable effort different African governments made in the past to bring their nations out of technological woods, as well as outlined the way forward.
Separate from thoughtfully and masterfully examining the inspirable relationship between technological development and economic progress of nations, the book, deftly argues with facts that the point of sail of all economies is the introduction of the manufacturing sector or the industrial economy. He establishes that Africa’s prolonged economic plight is cantered on the two fundamental challenges of a manufacturing economy.
It traces Africa’s economic backwardness to its roots – a key problem that has kept our policy makers handicapped and our economies crippled. With documented facts on the institutionalized crippling policies and organized sequences of stagnating events of the colonial masters, the author asks: Why is it that Europe, which hosted the industrial revolutions in the 17th and 18th centuries, did not permit technological education in Africa in about 50 years of colonization, and prefers to send aids afterwards?
Of course, the above question in my view may not be lacking in merit considering the fact that Africa presently is dotted with projects built with aids from Europe, United States of America (USA) and lately, China.
Whatever the true situation may be, I believed and still believe that there exists something troubling technologically that characterizes Africa more as a dark continent.
More so, looking at the current happenings and commentaries within the continent, it is obvious that fair-minded and well-foresighted Africans are in support of the position as conversed by the book. On the way out of the continent’s technological debacle and the current wealth disparity among nations (industrial economies), the book argued that the current wealth disparity among nations (industrial economies) represented by highly industrialized Europe, North America and Japan on one hand and most developing (non-industrial economies) countries, in particular, those in sub-Saharan Africa, on the order hand is primarily the difference in the technical capability and capacity to produce and manufacture modern technologies and to use the technologies to produce and manufacture globally competitive industrial goods and to sustain the commanding tasks of science and technology in the economy.
The disparity it added, has since considerably widened and will continue to widen as long as the developing countries depend almost totally on industrial nations for the technologies and industrial inputs they need to sustain their economies. Consequently, the only way to bridge the wealth gap is for the developing countries of the world to build their domestic endogenous capabilities and capacities to produce modern technologies and competitive industrial goods in their own economies” He concluded.
Catalysing the process will again necessitate African leaders borrowing body from Asian tigers in order to raise Africa’s industrial soul. They need to analyse and understand the essential ingredients of foresight in leadership and draw a lesson on how leadership decision making processes involve judgment about uncertain elements, and differs from the pure mathematical probability process. Find out why Asia, after grappling with the problems of unemployment in the region, their leaders came to the conclusion that the only way to survive was to industrialize.
For their part, Delta state like Chief Mulade rightly observed should recognize that “the many resources in the riverine areas of the State are greatly untapped especially in the aquacultural sector and the potentials of unemployed youths in the creeks can be tapped thereby turning the coastal areas into exporting zones of seafoods and revenue generation.”
‘“The failure of the State government to meaningfully engage the next generation would amount to societal devastation that would be difficult to recover from as the negative impact would be disastrous’’.
Therefore, the Oborevwori Administration must prioritize the industrialization of the State through agriculture and aquaculture, as Delta has a lot to benefit in the long run. “These poor areas should be strategically looked into, devoid of politics, for the interest of the future of our dear Delta State.”
