Nigeria Lacks Proof to Be Called ‘Giant of Africa’ – Goodluck Jonathan

According to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria isn’t strong enough to be called the “Giant of Africa.”

Nigeria has been dubbed the “Giant of Africa” despite projections that it will rank third in the globe by 2050 mainly because of its vast population.

Speaking to an audience on Tuesday in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, at the book launch for “Development as Attitude,” authored by Osita Ogbu, the former minister of national planning, Jonathan stressed the need for leaders to change their perspectives in order to better serve the interests of the nation.

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“I actually believe that for us as a nation to develop, it’s not just about being elected president. Even if you bring angels from heaven as the president and the attitude of Nigerians doesn’t change, we may not move very fast,” Jonathan said.

“Every leader must be guided by a personal philosophy. I agree that holding a political office does not automatically make somebody a leader.

“I had the privilege of holding a political office but leadership requires some attributes and those attributes mean that you must have a clear vision and you must have something that guides you.”

The former president noted that the overemphasis on internal politics in Nigeria has impeded overall national growth when considering his time and the measures he spearheaded to support the country’s scientific programmes.

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“I remember when I was in office, we had a nuclear and satellite programme but somehow the rate we are moving is too slow and even when I was an acting president, I was invited by the president of the US when they had the first nuclear summit and why I was invited was because Nigeria has a nuclear programme,” he said.

“In society now, in any country, you are respected because of what you can offer to the world, especially in terms of development. In Nigeria, we have the best brains but until we encourage these best brains, our satellite programmes will become vegetative and our nuclear programmes will just be rotating without any movement.

“We came up with a programme that we called the presidential special scholarship for innovation and development, it was my own idea. I called the NUC chairman then, Professor Julius Okojie, the minister of education, and other key stakeholders.”

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However, Jonathan asserted that the House of Representatives criticized the program, citing the omission of “certain states.”

“We must see how we must tap our best brains in the STEM areas and see how we can send them to the best universities in the world,” he continued.

“If we run this programme for another 10 years, believe me, Nigerians will also be thinking about going to space.

“We cannot continue to say we’re giants of Africa and we crawl like garden snails. People say we’re giants but giants are crawling. Our respect is almost going down because technologically we’re not going anywhere.”

Jonathan gave Ogbu acclaim for writing the book and expressed his belief that it will offer insightful analysis for tackling the problems facing the country.

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In response, Ogbu emphasised that a lot of bad choices made by people are caused by the widening gap between the rich and the poor. He urged interested parties to come up with innovative ways to fight poverty.

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