Build People, Build Bridges -By Tife Owolabi

In development, the building of infrastructures are indicators also use to measure how a given state or society is progressing but development doesn’t depend solely on physical capital project. You can have a state as a construction site yet the state is not in a well-being state. Development means that good change and the economy of the wellbeing of a multidimensional process that generates technological, social and institutional change to create wealth and comprehensive wellbeing of the people in society.

So, you can have a good infrastructure plan and execution but yet the fundamental elements of development in the society such as improvements of health, wealth and the creation of new technologies and knowledge may be wanting.

When talking about development we should ask some critical questions like what have we done to unemployment, education and innovation? How well are the citizens educated? There is a saying in the Yoruba language that if you build houses and refuse to train and educate your child, the same child will grow up and sell /destroy the houses or property you build. An uneducated and untrained mind is a dangerous person and unemployable. Unemployment fuels violence. High unemployment, loss of hope and lack of opportunities make people desperate and a desperate man is a dangerous man and that dangerous man is the man going around causing havoc and insecurity. Unemployment increases chaos and anarchy and what we are witnessing in Nigeria and some states are the fallout of failure on the part of the political system.

Building infrastructure is good and it may accelerate economic growth but that in itself is insufficient. High investment of physical capital nation like ours has not generated historical paths of economic development owing to the absence of other socio-economic factors such as high education systems and good economic governance.

The twin maladies of economic and insecurity we are experiencing in Nigeria today didn’t just start with the present administration of President Mohammed Buhari but they have only increased due to the posture of the current leadership and glaring lack of political will to upturn the tide of the current. The issue stems from the decline of access to necessities of life which the government have to address, the allocation of political power and nepotism. These and others are the contradictions causing the antagonism coupling with the issue of unemployment at 33.4 per cent and inflation above 20 per cent all these portend grave danger to any political system.

The conflict in itself is not bad but the ability to solve is the problem. Every conflict or problem is waiting for an emerging Albert Einstein to show forth him. Lee Kuan Yew saw the opportunity to transform his country, Singapore from third to the first world. He didn’t fall from the sky. In his works, he alluded to the great of his people to change the narrative “Our greatest asset was the trust and confidence of the people. “ The government must build trust and investment greatly on the people’s well-being to occasion the eldorado
we envisioned and envisaged. No Western or developed world will help build our country. They can only offer loans and advice or technical support which also leads to dependency and underdevelopment.

Development is encompassing, and Nigeria should focus on patterns of sustainable development, rather than economic growth while neglecting the root causes of insecurity and conflicts resulting from economic stagnation.

Tife Owolabi is an MSc candidate at the Department of Political Science in the University Port-Harcourt, Rivers state