Nigeria is a crawling adult, staggering from the many years of bad leadership and policies. As the year winds down, the hardship experienced is not lessening, rather it’s becoming pervasive with the continued increase in prices of goods and services which worsens with the plan to keep the prices up in the coming year.

Nigerians are known to rely on God and to submit to God in their resigning statement of, “God dey” which means, “God is alive and God will provide.” It is a statement that calms and reinforces a will to continue to work hard in hope that it will definitely be well. It is a statement that elicits hope that God will solve most problems. But the hope is faltering as well when people are left with helplessness.

The helplessness they feel is not far from the kind of leadership managing the affairs of the country and also not being able to do anything to get the country to move in the direction they would prefer.

Coming from the statement made by Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed at the maiden Maitama Sule Lecture Series, in defense of the north to retain power in the next election, he said, “We will lead Nigeria the way we have led Nigeria before whether we are President or Vice President, we will lead Nigeria.”

From this statement, the state of Nigeria is not far from the design of the north who have been in power far too long into the years of Nigeria’s existence. And for pulling the strings from the behind of any leadership of the country, the woes of Nigeria should be placed in part on the feet of the North.

Holding political powers for holding sakes and without much attempt to use the power to transform the livelihood of the people is itself; political treachery.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) celebrated their 50 years’ golden jubilee on December 2nd. It is a country which was created from the desert and in fifty years, it became one of the world’s destinations for business and tourism. It is a wonder how such a country which is also a home to some world’s tall architecturally beautiful buildings and aesthetics developed at that fast rate.

According to Emirates Airline President Sir Tim Clark as reported by Euronews, Clark said that, “From about the mid-eighties, that’s when the UAE really started to accelerate the creation of its national identity,” “There was a harmonisation of thinking across the various emirates at a high political level and a determination to put itself out there as a country – leading in technology, leading in life science, leading in media – and trying to position itself as an epicentre for that. But to do that, they had to create the infrastructure.”

To create the infrastructure has been a great achievement to the realization of the UAE’s ambitious goals with its four-pillar approach of trade, transport, tourism, and technology and from the foundation of “harmonization of thinking” towards the overall development of the country which today is to the benefit of the people and even the world.

Why is Nigeria in its 61 years, still crawling with no ambition to be a leading country even among the developing countries? Nigeria has the money to match the UAE in infrastructure, yet, she is very far from achieving that.

The problem is centered around the statement of Dr. Hakeem who said further, “The North has pride;…we are not going to pay a second fiddle to anybody. We may not have the most robust economy, there are people who are trying to strangulate us even more than we are being strangled.”

Is it not a contradictory statement that having gloated to pull the strings of Nigeria’s leadership then claim being strangled?

The UAE has become an abode for Nigerian politician’s loots with properties worth about $400 million. Dubai has become a city to showcase class as politicians hold political meetings in Dubai.

If the leaders of UAE were to think like the statement made by Hakeem which is not far from the sentiments held by the socio-political and religious elites from the north, the UAE would not celebrate their 50 years with such fanfare and so much infrastructure to showcase. Nigeria is rather building infrastructure to other countries leaving the infrastructure within the country untouched and undeveloped and mostly left in shambles.

Nigeria will begin to develop when the quest for ethno-religious supremacy is dropped so that a harmonization of thinking towards the development of the country starting from laying the foundation of national identity and infrastructure through provision of electricity, roads, good water and most basic infrastructure, Nigeria may begin to compete favourably at least within Africa as one of the leading countries in human, infrastructure and economic development.

There is truly much to learn from the UAE starting from laying a good foundation and having passion for development and excellence.