The 2003 All Nigerian Editors’ Conference (ANEC) has ended in Asaba, the Delta State Capital. The Conference which had as its theme “Nigeria Beyond Oil: Role of the Editor”, was relevant and apt for the times and also fell in line with the universal role of the media to set the national agenda of its country. Indeed, the Conference underscored the all-important role of journalists to serve as the mirror and gatekeeper of society to point out danger signals in the horizon to avert a woeful end. From the tone of the welcome address entitled, “Diversify or Die”; the President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Mr. Femi Adesina left no one in doubt of the grave consequences awaiting the country in the face of dwindling oil revenue.

At the end of the Conference, enlightenment on the subject was virtually overwhelming as ample light was shed on the state of our economy and the evils of over-reliance on a single product. The Conference opined that Nigeria needs to wean itself from dependence on oil and gas as a major revenue earner by embarking on deliberate and sustained diversification of its economy. To drive home the point, the Conference suggested that agriculture, tourism and other non-oil sources should be intensively explored, in order to avert the catastrophic consequences of a future without oil.

The host State-Delta gained immensely.  As an oil state, it used the Conference to illuminate and widen its own preoccupation with the subject into a national one.  Of course, the opportunity to show-case the state was not lost.  From the projects we saw during a tour of the city, the situation in which previous administrations did not quite treat Asaba as the real capital city has changed.

One of our colleagues wondered aloud why Governor Uduaghan was not following the trend of his neighbours whose expenditures on propaganda often outweighed the cost of the projects being publicized. As an aside, the few senior journalists invited by the governor to a private dinner on the eve of the Conference saw a governor’s wife that played the role of a humble cook and steward. Does the lady not know the Nigerian meaning of first lady?

On the main subject of Nigeria beyond oil, I doubt if I was not left confused by the deliberations. The 2 main speakers from the top most hierarchy of the federal government spoke well. Labaran Maku, the Minister of Information was expectedly in his elements. Himself a seasoned journalist, Maku masterfully reeled out the quantum of government efforts so far in handling the economy.

He didn’t forget to ask Nigerians to give the Jonathan administration more time to finish a good job. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Pius Anyim was probably more concise when he stated that “whether we like it or not, we are transiting from an oil Nigeria to non oil Nigeria and if we fail in this duty, the society will pay for it.

Unlike most speakers who dwelt on the exhaustible nature of oil, Anyim revealed that even if oil does not finish, we are about to lose our major buyer- the United States. From the articulate contributions of these 2 high ranking government officials I became a bit unsure of who actually needed to be sensitized.

It was not surprising that the presentations were near perfect because Nigerian plans, speeches and even budgets are always well organized. They are however also always poorly implemented. Therefore, the impression that our problem is due to our reliance on oil may not after all be our real problem. This is because if we diversify our economy and earn higher and more sustainable revenues, our stunted growth will not vanish if we mismanage the proceeds as has been done to oil.

For instance, if we garner great resources from diversified sources and a huge chunk of it is misapplied, we shall still have problems like ASUU’s incessant strikes and the closure of schools. If our political leaders continue to go abroad for medical treatment thereby ignoring the development of a good health care delivery system, our hospitals will remain comatose whether or not our economy is diversified.

The key note address presented by Dangote- a manager of non-oil products was no doubt instructive. But the address would be of no use if in our handling of public policies, we do not borrow a leaf from Dangote. For example, the latter does operate with an unwieldy workforce like our governments such as that of Bauchi State with hundreds of idle hands as special advisers and assistants. It is therefore not enough to seek to diversify our economy which ordinarily is the right thing to do, when we know that sustainable revenue that will accrue from the effort will be wasted on issues like having 3 ministers in one ministry as is the case today in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The media did well to seek to determine the national agenda by focusing on what can sustain the nation. But unfortunately, in spite of the power of the media, the subject did not become the topical issue in the land. Instead, we were inundated by stories of a supposedly hale and hearty Governor Danbaba Suntai who could not on his own, disembark from an aircraft. How the electoral commission warned in vain that it would not relate with unknown faction of a party for the coming Anambra election and how the party concerned carried on as usual with impunity, suggesting that we may not get men of vision out of the elections were the issues of the moment.

Other issues that took prominence in national discourse included the failure of the aviation sector which often purports to be security conscious to stop a stowaway young chap who took advantage of the lack of perimeter fencing at the Benin airport to gain entry into the tyre of an aircraft and fly in it to Lagos. These topical issues which have nothing to do with oil suggest that, oil or no oil, Nigeria needs to first solve its basic problem of national indiscipline.

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Read this article in the Vanguard Newspapers