Once open a time,
Nigeria’s economy was sustained by Agriculture, long before the discovery of
crude oil. The period between 1960 and 1969, the agricultural products
generated an average of about 57.0% of GDP and 64.5% of export earnings. I call
it THE GREEN PERIOD, the time when amongst the family of ten (10), all other
children will sacrifice their privilege in order to send one person, a son to
be specific to school, and few others went on scholarship, and upon graduation,
companies will come calling for a job offer. A time of low income, when there
was little or no competition, people ate natural foods and the environment and
society was very fair and of course few businesses or companies were formed.
When blood pressure was at the minimum because there were little or no expectations
around family and friends, a time of fresh breath and longevity #AgroEra.
Generally, every family
wants to have a graduate for they believe that it contributes to the growth of
an economy, more so, of the family through acquisition of training and skills.
Thus education became a price every family wants to pay at all cost. It
(education) led the economy to embrace implementation of educational policies
affecting primary school, secondary school and tertiary institutions in pursuit
of growth and development
By and large, there were
only two Universities; University of Ibadan and University of Nigeria Nsukka
early 1960 admitting about 1400 candidates for studies across the sub-region.
Crude oil discovery in
1970s brought about the inclusion of seven (7) more tertiary institutions,
established between 1970 and 1975 cutting across the sub-region. They
(Government) believed education is the key and so they threw away other
sectors, agriculture in particular, at this point in time the number of
educated elites began to grow rapidly, young adult pulling out of agriculture
to pursue the so called education.
In pursuit of education,
they failed to realize that education is an aspect of development and not
development in entirety, and so we were “educated” but not “developed” and the
aim of the intended growth was defeated.
In about forty years down
the line, the number of accredited universities increased to about 76
universities. Today the number of universities in Nigeria is about 93,
excluding polytechnics and college of education. The government keeps
accrediting tertiary institutions without creating a corresponding platform to
maintain the trained ones (Graduates) because they failed to evaluate the
intended impact of education. Finally it got to a point where education lost it
values; when supply is greater than demand, the producer’s pocket shrink into a
very bad shape, such is a perfect scenario of our education, a case study of
the Nigerian economy.
Every year, thousands of
Nigerian youth pass out of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and after two to
three months or there about of all day
sleep at home, they wake up into the real examination of life that
school/education did not prepare them for; a friend of mind calls it “REALITY
101”, the beginning of life.
The government shocked me
at the NYSC camp when through SAED (Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship
Development) program; they brought in Artisans (Skilled non-graduates) to teach
the graduates skills. And I said oh! They just woke up, they finally realize
that while the people where being taught, the graduates lack actual development
Gradually export earning
began to decline and between 1970 and late 2000s, the agricultural sector
contributed very low to the GDP because Nigeria shifted attention from
agriculture and other natural resources to petroleum, exploiting natural
resources to it fullness is not a problem, but it becomes an issue when a
nation does that at the expense of other resources, other natural resources
became orphaned because of crude oil.
The proceeds from crude
oil investment should have been used to strengthen other sectors to create more
jobs, upgrade the production and processing segments of the agricultural value
chain in order to reduce unhealthy competitions from among Nigerians and to
boost the GDP and Export earnings but on the contrary, it is evident that the
proceeds are not well accounted for simply because, when the purpose of
Education is not clearly understood, abuse they say is inevitable. The role of
Agriculture in economic growth and development cannot be over emphasized, thus,
we lost our green period, the AGRO ERA.
About
the Author
Anthony Donatus Ogar is a
social media specialist. He is keen on ideal social media activities and
optimization. He is the Digital Media Engagement Strategist for Nirmala
Chellarams Centre for Entrepreneurship Skills. He enjoys creating meaningful
content
