As long as we are content with being eternal consumers our socio-economic woes will continue to multiply

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) July 30 has always been a historic day in the history of humanity. In Nigeria too it is important for us an on this day in 1966, Lt Col Yakubu Cinwen Gowon became head of state after the country was without a helmsman for 24 hours

(2) On this day in 1975, some nine years later, Brigadier Murtala Ramat Mohammed also seized power, taking over from General Yakubu Gowon as head of state

(3) While Nigeria was in crisis on July 30 1966, England were beating Germany 4-2 at Wembley to win their first ever World Cup

(4) Talking about World Cups, it was also on this day in 1930, that the first ever final took place with Uruguay beating Argentina to lift the maiden trophy

(5) If we regard July 30 as a benchmark, our reference point, however, should be the fact that on this day in 1909, French chemist Eugène Schueller founded L’Oréal with his new range of hair dyes. Maybe we should name July 30 as Nigerian Innovation Day

(6) Nigeria is the biggest market in the world for Brazilian hair and skin lightening creams but alas, it has never occurred to us to produce our own L’Oreal. Is there something wrong with us?

(7) How can a nation of 200m be content to be eternal consumers. We are the world’s biggest buyer of medium sized generators, the second biggest purchaser of large generators, the second fastest growing market for private jets and the world’s biggest buyer or Norwegian stock fish. Yet we do not manufacture any of this????????

(8) I am not convinced this has anything to do with the government because the government did not need to tell us how to become consumers. Likewise, Nollywood, evangelical churches and Owambes thrive despite zero government input

(9) On this same day in 1928, George Eastman showed the first amateur colour motion pictures to guests at his New York house including Thomas Edison. The American government had nothing to do with it, so we need to stop making the poor leadership excuse

(10) Nigeria will turn around for the better the day we make a collective decision to go from consumers to producers. Where is our pride as a people? We shamelessly seek medical attention abroad with no plans whatsoever to develop our own healthcare system. For now, we are content to live parasitic lifestyles and as long as that goes on our woes will continue