Building a New Nigeria Where Things Work: Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty Principles as Mode of Analysis and Prescription (MoAP)

Abstract

As social engineers engaged in the study of social and management problems and proffering solution where necessary, this paper is an attempt to diagnose/analyse Nigerian socio-economic predicaments and to suggest ways of Building a New Nigeria Where Things Work within the prescriptive space of managerial principles of meritocracy, pragmatism and honesty, and justice. Nigerian has a population strength that is above 200 million, constitute home to one of every five Africans, blessed with abundant natural, minerals and human resources. Regrettably, since attaining independence in 1960, except for some few pockets of years (where things seem to work), the country has steadily plummeted from grace to grass with majority of its people unemployed, poor, dissatisfied with the performance of the country’s political and socio-economic institutions.  The country is blessed with abundant crude oil but has no functional refinery to refine its crude oil into petrol, diesel, kerosine and other related products for public consumption. These products are imported under a subsidy regime that is arguably questionable, suspicious and corrupt. The public universities are underfunded and welfare of academic and non-academic staff are among the poorest in the world. Insecurity, cases of kidnapping for ransom, banditry, terrorism, boko haram, unknown gunmen, money rituals, collapse of security institutions, cybercrimes, money laundering, etc. are on the increase and seem unabated. The country’s public debt stands at 41.60 trillion Naira in the first quarter of 2022. How do we reverse this plummeting trend and build a new Nigeria where things work? This is where the crux of this paper lies. Thus, the paper argues that building a new Nigeria Where Things Work should be grounded on the managerial principles of meritocracy, pragmatism, honesty and justice. These principles should be internalized and institutionalized at the micro and macro life of the country.