Nigeria – How Do We Get To Where We Want To Go?

Though there were intersections in desired results, the 8 MDGs were a simpler program with a major focus theme of ‘to spare no efforts to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty’ which was then sub divided into 8 goals, with targets and indicators meant to provide direction on plans and actions to be taken to achieve desired outcomes.

The NEEDS program on the other hand tried to take on four Main themes and did not even involve other stakeholders at the sub national levels in its development as is evident in the Kuru Declaration which gave the impression that the NEEDS was an FGN initiative only and the SEEDS and the

LEEDS were just hand downs and as such did not get the required buy-in from the stakeholders at those critical levels.

A detailed review of both the MDG documents and the NEEDS documents will reveal that though the MDGs were simpler to implement and to sell to the sub nationals the NEEDS document was very verbose and nebulous making its implementation difficult.

Whereas the MDGs document is straightforward in desired actions to be taken and results the NEEDS is not and it is unclear whether this opacity, is not as a result of the multidirectional themes. Additionally, the MDGs documents were easier to develop into a plan as it specifies a 15-year timeframe whereas the NEEDS was open ended.

But suffice it to say that neither of the desired results of both the 8 MDGs or NEEDS plans were achieved and because of the measurement plan in the MDGs framework it was easy to measure the results against time in 2015 and a dispassionate review of the MDGs end term report reveals that Nigeria scored less than 150 points out of a possible 800 points.

By September 2015 the world moved onto the 17 Sustainable development goals which were geared towards keeping focus and improving on the results of the MDGs. In our own case, we as usual jumped onto the SDG bandwagon even as our MDGs results were nothing to write home about.
We often blame our ‘imperfect’ constitution as the root cause of all our human, social economic development challenges, never paying attention to the fact that it is our inadequate understanding and implementation of it, that situates us where we are; the authors of the 8 MDGs could never have spoken more eloquently and directly to section 14, sub 2B of our constitution which states that ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government’.

Our poor end of term MDGs report and score understates our inadequate appreciation of the security and welfare of the people and their interrelatedness. Leadership at every level of governance have neglected and in my opinion by omission, to see that the welfare of the people directly impacts our internal security.

Lastly, the MDGs are the foundation for the SDGs and we should as an imperative go back to the 8 MDGs and start again for all you know with our ingenuity and creativity as a people we could achieve it in even 7 years or less. There is nothing to be gained by being in primary six and SS3 at the same time. It will be all motions, and resources down the drains. The framework of the participation of the people in the implementation of the MDGs is important to the implementation of the SDGs, so with an inadequate understanding, evidenced by our less than 150 points out of 800, shows that the implementation framework remains underdeveloped, so how can we expect to make any meaningful showing in an examination of 17 subjects when we failed in that, of 8 subjects?

We should as a matter of urgency go back to the 8 MDGs as the vehicle to take our nation further up the road to our destiny, and Moreso they are the foundation on which the SDGs are built and there should be no shame to repeat a class.
If we all commit to the 8 MDGs and pursue them relentlessly with our new sense of vision, mission and core values we can achieve the now 21 targets and 60 targets in half the time and more importantly achieve the security and welfare of the people substantially.
We can surprise ourselves with our new disposition. Memo No: 004 loading…

There is HOPE INDEED!

#IamaHumaNIGERIAN

Harry Thomas-ODEY
2022