The entire South-West Nigeria had only one TV and one radio station as at 1960. Today, we have over 200 private radio and TV stations.
Nigeria now has five satellites in space. In 60 years, we now do renal surgery, IVR and organ transplant in the country, while we have also recorded some good scientific breakthroughs. Could we have done better? Yes, of course; and we should do better. But the point of this article is that we often don’t even acknowledge what we have. To go higher, we must take inventory of who we are and where we are.
Today University of Lagos alone produces 250 doctors per annum. Nationwide, Nigeria produces 12,000 doctors annually. The Association of Nigerian Physicians in Northern America , New York branch has 5,000 Nigerian doctors and medical professionals. This is the second highest ethnic group of physicians in the United States and UK, after India.
Too many people glorify our past as if we were doing better than we are now. In reality it’s not anything close to the truth. All the so called cotton, groundnut pyramids, cocoa, timber etc., gave us only about $4 billion GDP as at 1960. Today it is over $500 billion. At the time of independence, more Nigerians were dying than those remaining alive. Poor hygiene has now reduced to the extent that polio and cholera have been largely eradicated in the country.
We fought the civil war and recovered, had 20 regime changes, survived about five military regimes, and now have over 20 years of uninterrupted democracy. If we compare our instability with that of some countries in Europe: Italy has had about 50 regime changes in the same period. Some other nations haven’t even had the privilege of regime change because of overbearing dictators who won’t leave office until death enables their exit.
Today, we don’t often hear of cases of human sacrifice by the authorities of the land. Yes we, unfortunately, still suffer in the hands of kidnappers and money ritualists. However in 1960, the Oba, Igwe or Emir of your village was a god! He even had power of life and death then. Today, you can take him to court if he infringes on your rights. This is far from where we used to be.
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