• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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At 60, my life’s journey and impatience for a transformed Nigeria

Olu Fasan

Fellow Nigerians and dear readers, I am 60 this month; precisely last Friday, on 24 July. I am utterly grateful to the Almighty God, my creator, to whom be all the glory, honour and adoration. Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. Huge thanks, in particular, to Vanguard for celebrating my diamond jubilee with a pre-birthday tribute last Thursday and a two-page feature on my birthday. It was really thoughtful of the newspaper!

Being 60 this month, of course, means I was born in July 1960, a few months before Nigeria’s independence. That, effectively, makes independent Nigeria my agemate! And that fact, of being born in the same year as independent Nigeria, of being, as it were, its agemate, creates an emotional bond, a strong affinity, between me and this country.

Truth is, I am desperate and impatient for Nigeria to succeed. I want this country to achieve its full potential and become a truly great country that is strong at home and respected abroad. There is absolutely no reason why, 60 years after independence, Nigeria should be a problematic or fragile state or one verging on state failure.

It’s precisely the desperation to see Nigeria succeed that led me to put my head above the parapet and join, as a columnist, the public discourse on the future of Nigeria.

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I will come back to all that. But, first, a few words about myself, my life’s journey! Well, I was born in Ondo Town – now called Ondo City! – to a father who played a role in building the first Niger Bridge as a foreman and later became a farmer, and a mother who was a trader. Not a typical middle-class background, and certainly not a privileged one. But with determination and God’s grace I charted a path forward through education.

At 60, I remain impatient for a restructured and transformed Nigeria, and won’t give up on the idea. The change will come!

Along the way, some people played important roles in my life’s journey. I would mention two. Yemi Akeju, former president of the Institute of Directors Nigeria, who was very supportive during my long period of study in the UK; and Muyiwa Akintunde, a respected journalist, who encouraged me to take up column-writing in Nigeria.

I left Nigeria in 1989 after obtaining an HND in Business Administration from Yaba College of Technology and following a Youth Service in Rivers State, where I taught economics and commerce in a secondary school. My main motivation for going overseas can be captured in a simple mantra: education, education, education!

Arriving in the UK in 1989, I studied journalism at the London School of Journalism. Being an active student journalist in Nigeria, the initial urge to study journalism was irresistible. After graduating, I freelanced for some newspapers and then established a magazine called Marketfinder International. I am grateful to the then General Managers of Nigerian banks in the UK, such as Mr F Abiola-Cudjo and Mr Jacob Ajekigbe (First Bank), Mr T.O Akinola (Union Bank) and Mr Harvey Warmann (UBA), who supported the magazine by placing adverts in it.

But, despite advertisements from the Nigerian banks, the magazine needed an injection of huge capital to be sustainable. An encounter with Cheif MKO Abiola in early 1992 would probably have been a game-changer. He offered a chance of a meeting, but I didn’t pursue it.

In truth, I didn’t pursue the seeming funding opportunity from Chief Abiola and others that came up later because my heart was somewhere else. I wanted to go for further studies; after all, that was why I left Nigeria. And focusing on the magazine business, especially with other people’s money in it, would have frustrated the plans. So, after about six years, I gave up publishing and returned to school.

But once I returned to school, I never looked back. From LLB to LLM to BL (Barrister-at-Law, of the Inner temple) to MSc (Econ) in Political Economy and, finally, PhD in Law – the last two from the London School of Economics.

After the studies, opportunities beckoned. I worked at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, lectured at the LSE, and consulted for the Commonwealth Secretariat before I was appointed as a policy and regulatory reform adviser with the UK Cabinet Office. I subsequently represented the UK at the EU Trade Policy Committee in Brussels. The LSE appointed me as a Visiting Fellow, enabling me to engage in cutting-edge research, and to teach, write and consult.

With all sense of humility, I have been at the heart of policy-making in a major Western country, advising ministers on complex policy and regulatory issues; have been involved in serious diplomatic discussions and negotiations in international organisations and have taught and undertaken high-quality policy research and analysis at a world-class university.

What these experiences have exposed, however, is, in stark contrast, the utter shallowness and crudity of governance in Nigeria and the miniscule traction this country has abroad. In my 30 years abroad, government effectiveness and state capacity have rapidly declined in Nigeria; its government is so mediocre it can hardly get anything done. What’s more, Nigeria’s reputation is at rock bottom worldwide; nowhere is Nigeria viewed or treated with respect or deference. However famous you are, the Nigerian passport can cause you huge embarrassment at most foreign airports!

In virtually every international forum, whenever discussions turn to Nigeria the air of despondency is always so tick one could cut it with a knife. The questions everyone asks are: why can’t Nigeria generate prosperity, engender stability and guarantee the safety and wellbeing of its people? Why can’t Nigeria stand tall in the comity of nations? Baroness Chalker, then Britain’s Overseas Development Minister, once told me when I interviewed her that Nigeria should be part of the world’s solutions, not part of its problems.

For me, this is hurtful. Why is Nigeria a laughingstock in the world? Why has it put itself in a position where it’s not seen as a solution but a problem? Why is it that individual Nigerians have done great things, but collectively Nigerians can’t run their own country well? Why is Nigeria synonymous with government failure, corruption, insecurity, abject poverty, social tension?

I asked these questions, but also wanted to make a contribution. Yet what, how? But Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, articulated the answer well. He said there are two obvious ways to make a difference: you either have power or vast amounts of resources. But then, he added: if you have neither, “you can establish influence by the force of your ideas.”

Well, that’s precisely what I was seeking to do as a public intellectual through weekly interventions in newspaper columns. And the encouragement has been inspiring!

About six years ago, on November 8, 2014, I began writing for this newspaper, BusinessDay. Within a year of starting the column, the then editor, Philip Isakpa, sent me an email. “People are following you and your articles are deep”, he said, adding: “and you are contributing your quota to Nigeria’s development through your thoughts and insights.”

Four years later, in October 2018, I started the “State of the Nation” column in Vanguard and have received similar positive comments.

Last week, I spoke with the legendary Uncle Sam Amuka, the iconic publisher of the Vanguard newspapers. He wanted to wish me a happy birthday. He was full of effusive praise. “You don’t know how much we appreciate you. We admire you; we appreciate you. Happy birthday!”, he said. I was deeply honoured!

So, Tony Blair was probably right. You can establish influence by the force of your ideas. Yet, ideas are not enough; they need receptive ears. Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders are not receptive to ideas; they are impervious to reason.

But, at 60, I remain impatient for a restructured and transformed Nigeria, and won’t give up on the idea. The change will come!