Investing In The People.

While speaking to Nigeria's leadership on Thursday, 22 March, 2018, the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, mentioned repeatedly, that investing in people is the key that will unlock Nigeria's awesome potential. This is so because people make nations great and not natural resources. 

Among several points made by Bill Gates, I find these words very instructive:

"The most important choice you can make is to maximize your greatest resource, the Nigerian people. Nigeria will thrive when every Nigerian is able to thrive.

If you invest in their health, education, and opportunities—the "human capital" we are talking about today—then they will lay the foundation for sustained prosperity. If you don't, however, then it is very important to recognize that there will be a sharp limit on how much the country can grow." - Bill Gates.

This tallies with what The Madiba, Nelson Mandela, said about the power of education:

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela.

You see, without a highly educated and healthy people to relevantly exploit and develop resources and direct them to profitability, resources, no matter how great, will remain a potential. And nobody feeds on or takes potential to the market!

Great nations invest in people and the people, in turn, drive the nations to prosperity and greatness. That is a universal fact and Nigeria cannot be an exception.

What we need are more highly and relevantly educated and healthy people, and not more oil wells. We have overrated oil and given it such an exalted position over everything else that it has become an Albatross on the neck of Nigeria. It has blindsided us to what real development entails and given us a false sense of security and prosperity and, at the end of the day, leaving us with a highly vulnerable economy and the poorest polity in the World.

What our leaders need to do urgently and with the greatest commitment is to fiix our schools and hospitals. Build standard schools and medical facilities in our rural and semi-urban communities. Invest heavily in teacher training and procurement of relevant teaching and learning aids. Do the same with medical workers and medical consumables. Insentivise the posting of teachers and medical workers to rural communities so they will be willing to stay and work there. What we need is more brain exploration and not more oil exploration. 

Or can't we see that the world economy is knowledge-driven? Can't we see that ideas and knowledge has far more value and greater positive impact than oil or any other natural resource? Without building a knowledge-driven economy, we will remain a perpetual consumer nation. We will continue to produce raw materials, ship them out very cheap and then buy them back expensively as finished and packaged goods. 

No consumer nation ever becomes a high-income and high-net-worth nation. Given our large population, we cannot afford to remain a mere consumer nation anymore. If we continue as a consumer nation, we will eventually sink. To prevent this, we must invest in the people's education and health. You see, the true wealth of Nigeria is more in the health and brainpower of its citizens, than in any solid, liquid or gaseous mineral or resource.

This is the main task before the federal, state and local governments: educating all our citizens so as to secure genuine and sustainable development for Nigeria, giving its citizens a living standard comparable to that in Scandinavian countries. Good health and qualitative education will bring out the best in the citizenry and, thus, bestow the best on the country.

Let me leave you with these powerful quotations on education and health:

1. "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” - Malcolm X - American Muslim Minister and Civil Rights Activist.

2. "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." - Mahatma Gandhi - Indian lawyer and nationalist.

It is Agoso Bamaiyi, your friend for a greater Nigeria and the best things of life.

Find Bill Gates' full speech here:

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/263194-for-the-records-bill-gates-speech-that-rattled-nigerian-govt-full-text.html#.Xnuo8D8ftvk.link