Nigeria independence was aggressively pursued and achieved by our first set of political leaders with regional governments formed and with great appetite to competitively outshine one another in development of their respective regions, people and ultimately Nigeria as as a nation which heralded the rapid development witnessed in that era earning is the “Giant Of Africa” title.
Unfortunately some misguided youths in Military abandoned the core duty of defending the territorial integrity of the nation and dabbled into the misadventure of the politics of the period and destroyed the political and economic structure of our dear country through the military coup of 1966 and since this youthful exuberant men in uniform disrupted our journey we had been trying to get to the right track with pain and difficulties.
No thanks to same military regimes with little or no knowledge of how good government works after having perpetuated themselves in power to the detriment of our the country’s socioeconomic advancement and development gave us a system of governance they felt was best for us by importing and foisting american styled democracy on us which is definitely expensive and sophisticated with it’s challenging complexities for our level of human development in the first place which we have adopted as our democracy system but was not domesticated properly.
Now after years of our so called democracy which Americans believe is the best for the world, we now enjoy freedoms promised by the system but it is a freedom without equity and justice, the equity and justice here being equal level playing ground for all citizens to have access to basic things of life, eradication of poverty and entrenchment of good governance with sincere leadership by those in government.
We will address a small but important area that can help the new administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government to take off with great speed and leap forward in economic development, it is about Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria with Port reform declared as a state of emergency.
The frustrations that the business community go through in the hands of our port officials is terrible and condemnable which can be classified as economic sabotage by the individuals charged and trusted to man those departments and entry point into our economy. Yes, it’s true that government policies empower this corruption to flourish because these sleazy officials take advantage of the system, loop holes in such policies and it is the reason why it is time to move away from analog system and unnecessary bureaucratic bottleneck at our ports to a more modern automated, efficient and profitable system.
From investigations, there are more than twenty documents required to complete clearing of goods in our ports with each sections for unnecessary approvals that requires and continue to perpetuate the peculiar problems of extortion and delays at these ports with it’s attendant negative consequences on the economy with it’s adverse effects on trade and commerce.
Why can’t Nigeria borrow a leaf from a country close to us, Ghana which has streamlined it’s process with experience of clearing goods with just two documents ( Proforma invoice and Bill of Landing), the unnecessary hardships and hurdles posed to business at ports should be addressed urgently and immediately for recalibration of the economy.
Digitalisation of the ports for clearing and shipment of goods will ease doing business, improve trade and commerce, increase productivity and boost revenue for Nigeria while eradicating the few unscrupulous individuals that are benefitting from the poor management of our ports as to the detriment of the economic development of Nigeria.
Nigerians in the diaspora with experience in advanced economies across the world are ready and willing to contribute our quota, through technical expertise and advice for the success of this administration.
– Engr. Bola Babarinde is an APC Chieftain based in South Africa
