Success in modern irrigation involves creating water-ways around different paths for seeds to grow. When all the paths are watered, they are able to produce their specific plants and foods for bounteous harvest. However, if some parts are neglected during the irrigation, their produce become stunted or weak. Rewarding productive and creative efforts and results drives people to invest more energy in creativity for social needs. But ignoring efforts, potentials and results of creativity discourages people and denies the society of possible solutions.
Despite the numerous needs in Nigeria, many people are unemployed and idle. There are many bad-roads, poor electricity, undeveloped villages, blocked drainages, falling roofs, houses, sick, hungry and uneducated people needing their service. To organize themselves for responding to these needs, the unemployed people need education and materials (tools). Even when they get education and tools for providing these needs, they require payment to sustain themselves and improve their capacity. When unemployed people who show problem-solving talents are unrewarded, these talents die or they are lured away by foreign industrialised societies.
Humans form societies to use their different human and natural resources to provide their needs and actualize their potentials. Abraham Maslow classifies human needs into five categories
Reward comes from providing goods and services for a productive population
People are born with different potentials to be developed to satisfy various human needs. They create physical goods by applying intelligence on natural resources, and provide services according to their tools and training. By steadily satisfying people’s needs, humans earn their reward as payment from other people’s provisions. Hence, occupation implies providing goods or services in exchange for other people’s variety of goods, services or financial equivalence. Other people are able to reward (pay) you when they also have your desired products or financial equivalence. So, money becomes a measuring ticket for exchanging goods and services.
Factors of production
The major elements for providing people’s needs in the society are called factors of production. They include land (farming, building etc.), mineral resources (mining), machines (manufacturing, industry), labour (human resource) and money (for exchange). Land and its resources are the primary factors, while machine, labour and money are secondary factors. This is because the secondary factors can only work when they have access to the primary factors of production.
Who should pay reward for people’s needs: government or individuals?
To ensure steady satisfaction of their needs, different people adopt different government styles for owning and managing their factors of production. In SOCIALIST states, government owns the primary factors of production, while the people provide skilled/unskilled labour to earn money. To justify ownership of these factors of production, government provides education and social services for the people. In CAPITALIST states, individuals own the primary factors of production to satisfy people’s needs for reward, and later pay taxes to government. Though capitalist governments can subsidize general social services and employment, the people pay for basic needs in a productive society. And although none of the systems is absolute, many high-earning countries lean towards capitalism since individual owners compete for excellence.
The dilemma of Nigeria’s economy
Nigeria is a colonially-imposed confusion between socialism and capitalism, which is casually called mixed economy on various unconsented peoples. It leans towards socialism when seizing people’s lands[1] and mineral resources[2][3][4] for colonialists’ and allies. And it turns to capitalism when it comes to responsibility for the people whose mineral resources are seized and sold. Despite seizing the people’s resources, Nigerian government mocks Nigerians as unemployable and unable to create employment for themselves.[5] And despite the resource-confiscation and poverty, Nigerians are expected to provide social services for themselves: electricity, education, housing, water, roads, etc.
Who provides reward for satisfying Nigerian’s needs, and to what extent?
To appear democratic, Nigeria’s colonially-imposed government creates states and local-governments to share few imported products as infrastructure, salaries and charity. Despite these, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state reports that over 50 million Northerners are living in abject poverty.[6] National Bureau of Statistics reports that more than 112 million out of the approximate 160 million Nigerians live in abject poverty.[7] UNICEF notes that more than 10 million Nigerian children are either out-of-school or have never been to school.[8] Yet, politicians, public officials and their allies collect huge pays through salaries,[9] welfare and contracts. Presently, government office has become the highest-paying industry in Nigeria despite its inability to produce a single industrial item.
Which and whose needs are considered important in Nigeria?
Scale of preference is an economic tool for judging and satisfying needs according to their degree of importance. So, the needs that are considered more important by those in power get more attention and allocation of resources. According to Sanusi Lamido[10], ex-Central Bank governor, annual budgets and social observation, it seems that the important needs in Nigeria is importing foreign products. And those whose needs are considered important are public officials and those who assist in containing or distracting the people from retrieving their resources for industry. Those for containment include all Nigeria’s armed forces, while those for distraction include academic, religious, entertainment or charity providers.
Who receives reward for the products in Nigeria?
Many Nigerians have several neglected needs for education, health, feeding, housing, electricity, pride in creativity, recreation, employment and many others. But Nigeria’s militarized government seizes and sells the mineral resources that could have been used for producing items and service-tools. So, Nigeria government depends on and rewards foreigners (Asia and the West) to provide their needs at exploitative prices. Few middle-class civil-servants, marketers and entertainers manage to obtain the foreign products, while majority of unemployed Nigerians stay in lack.
What happens to the creative minds in most Nigerians?
Despite the restriction of access to resources for production, gifted Nigerians manage to show their creativity from scrap materials. However, most of them lack financial capacity to get patents for their creation or maximise them for social reward. Unfortunately, bigger companies and idea-hunters who disguise as idea-sponsors steal and use these ideas without acknowledging their owners. While those whose creativity are not transferrable (steal-able) for profits are neglected like people in sports, arts and social service.
Moving forward towards linking Nigerians’ needs to the system of reward
By confiscating the factors of production, Nigerian government took away the people’s capacity to provide reward for their needs. Unfortunately, they refuse to reward the various Nigerians’ creativity and efforts in providing satisfaction for Nigerians’ needs. Instead, they channel the inflated reward system to foreign expenses and public offices of about ten percent of Nigeria’s population. Obviously, Nigerian government has proven that it is incapable of managing the people’s resources for productivity and reward. Hence, it is either the people retrieve power to provide reward for their needs or government officials continue mismanaging it. A sincere government will rise to:
- Organize intercommunal conferences within the colonially-merged sections towards a national conference for the different peoples to agree on their nationhood. So, constitutional decisions or laws will reflect the people’s beliefs and agreement for a better partnership and technologically productive collaboration.[11]
- Invite local (and maybe foreign) industrialists to train Nigerians to process their local resources for further industrial production. So, each section of the society will work to specialise in producing more of whatever natural resources they have.[12]
- Release the people’s onshore resources for industrial productivity and eventual tax-payment to the central government. This will motivate the government to encourage and protect people’s productivity for better tax-returns.[13] A productive people with active industries can obtain enough products and finance to reward other people’s efforts in satisfying their needs.
- Create schemes for people with viable ideas to freely patent their ideas and obtain soft loans for Nigerian labour and raw-materials.
Humans are like lands with seeds. They grow the seeds, you pluck and eat the fruits, and you water and manure the lands to produce more. Without watering the land, it becomes unproductive. There is a seed of creativity in all of us: social, scientific, material, sports, virtual, spiritual, cultural, etc. that satisfies a need in the society. All we need is the opportunity to develop, manifest and be rewarded for our individual and collective acts of creativity. Not more charity handouts from government like Npower and other foreign aid organizations.
[1] Land Use Act, 29th March 1978. P7
[2] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 2 “… all lands in which minerals have been found in Nigeria and any area covered by its territorial waters or constituency and the Exclusive Economic Zone shall, from the commencement of this Act be acquired by the Government of the Federation…” “No person shall search for or exploit mineral resources in Nigeria or divert or impound any water for the purpose of mining except as provided in this Act.” “The property in mineral resources shall pass from the Government to the person by whom the mineral resources are lawfully won, upon their recovery in accordance with this Act.”
[3] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 2, paragraph 1
[4] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 3
[5] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/quit-whining-no-body-owes-you-anything-fayemi-tells-nigerian-youths/
[6] Kashim Shettima, “Over 50m Northerners living in poverty” in Vanguard by Joseph Erunke on 11-10-2017 https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/10/50m-northerners-living-poverty-gov-shettima/
[7] Victor Ahiuma, “Poverty, 112m Nigerians live below poverty line” in Vanguard 18th October, 2016. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/poverty-112m-nigerians-live-poverty-line/
[8] www.unicef.org/nigeria/education.html
[9] Olusegun Osoba, “Osoba condemns outrageous pension packages for former governors” In PremiumTimes, Oladeinde Olawoyin, 12th February, 2018. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/258342-osoba-condemns-outrageous-pension-packages-former-governors.html/
[10] Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, referenced by Adetutu Folasade et al, “Nigeria: Sanusi insists national assembly takes 25 percent of govt overheads” in AllAfrica 1st December, 2010. https://allafrica.com/stories/201012020945.html
[11] Chukwunwike Enekwechi, “The social research for a new Nigeria” in Restartnaija June 5, 2018. https://restartnaija.com/2018/06/05/social-research-new-consented-nigeria/ retrieved 22nd July, 2018
[12] Chukwunwike Enekwechi, ibid
[13] Cajetan Okeke, “Adjusting waste management for development and safety in Nigeria” in Restartnaija, July 31, 2018. Retrieved August 25, 2018