FEATURE ARTICLE

Friday, January 3, 2020
[email protected]
Arizona, USA
THE FUTURE OF AFRICA AND THE BOTCHED "NIGERIA VISION 2020"

�By 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena.� - Nigeria Vision 2020

"Corruption and the 16years legacy waste of PDP government contributed to the botched of Nigeria Vision 2020" - Yahaya Balogun

ny voracious African reader will not be unaware, or oblivious of the prolific English author, Martin Meredith. Martin Meredith is a quintessential journalist, biographer, and author, who had covered the nooks and crannies of Africa extensively, and has written profusely on African recent history. "The Fate of Africa" was one of his books I have consumed like a bibliophile. The book contains about 700 pages that holds-no-barred! It's a compendium book that illustrated the problems of Africa and the self-burdened of her citizens. A section of the book is the dissection of the Biafra civil war from 6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970.

"The Fate of Africa" is a must-read book for this Gen Z (born between 1996 and 2010) of Nigeria nay, Africa. Africa is at prelude and interlude of her history. But, my contemporary Nigerians or Africans are squandering the opportunities that the interregnum of social media (that is, the advent of the age of ignorance or misuse of information on social media) is festering or bringing unto us.

In retrospect, in the year 2000, Nigerian leaders came up with the "Nigeria Vision 2020." The target was to economically transform Nigeria and Africa for good. The concept was: �By 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena.�

"Nigeria Vision 2020" was a jamboree imagination with much fanfare! In the pseudo "Nigeria vision 2020," a careful peruse of its manuscript revealed a comprehensive vision to unleash the potential of Nigeria's resources within 20 years. A beautiful blueprint with imagination for possibilities was botched by the same technocrats and leaders who initiated the vision. The 20 years legacy of waste of the giant of Africa (Nigeria) has retrogressed the progress of Africa.

In a nutshell, until we begin to encourage the present African millennials (young people of the 21st century---born between 1996 to 2010) to read books about the history of Africa, the future of Africa remains bleak! Social media is becoming a global and socio-cultural misnomer. The social media interregnum in the lives of the millennials has disrupted the learning curve, or if you would like, the learning process of getting acquainted with the past in order to shape the future! No one wants to read anymore! Without books consumption, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. How do you explain to the millennia what the future holds for him or her if he or she doesn't know the past? Every concerned globalist must be very troubled by the advent of what I call 'deliberate ignorance and usurpation of knowledge' (social media).

Sadly, for generations, African wealth or riches have been coveted by her plunderers (the west and their African leadership collaborators) for their illegal riches. Colonialism did incalculable damage to the cognition of Africans. The present Afrikaans are paying sorely through warped cognition: the mistakes of their forefathers who with stark ignorance sold their future at immemorial or from the beginning of time. In continuum, this stark ignorance has morphed to deliberate and glorified ignorance. African youth groups are getting naked with obtuse minds and shallow ideas. Every youth group in Africa is relishing and dancing on social media to the celebration of its defeat. It high time African youths woke up to global reality. Special recognition and encouragement must go to President Muhammadu Buhari for the anti-corruption stance of his administration. All efforts must be made to avoid Nigeria to go back to the past!

In recent studies, Africa has been earmarked as the hub and destination for future and global prosperity by the West and Asian continent. Nigeria's government must be cautiously optimistic to fraternize with the West and its interests. The imminent presence of the West and Asian explorers will begin to feature prominently in the next decades in Africa, ostensibly for their own benefits. But will Africa realize her potential to be the real owners of her future, instead of anchoring their impending glory and prosperity in the hands of their neocolonizers?

Time is bunk! It will definitely tell!

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