Farm House Dialogue - Africa Leadership Forum

majority, their cost -effectiveness in the output oriented and economically competitivetechnological era of the 21st century should be examined critically.Most of today's republics around the world had had lofty traditional rulers ranging fromemperors to kings, czars, dukes, earls, counts, moguls, nizams, caliphs, barons, nawabs,etc. Who had ruled over vast, medium-sized or small territories. Most modem republicshad dispensed with such contraptions as incompatible with the republics status of citizens,as not cost-effective, and as a drag on economic and social developmentWe need to restructure the minds of all who are involved in this dilemma, so that we donot make a caricature of tile human dignity or rights of any citizen of Nigeria. We need toprotect our future from stagnation.Authentic traditional rulers could remain useful as custodians of our cultural heritage,sustaining, developing, modernizing and enriching it. These traditional rulers should beable to hold themselves above the debasing influence of any political leaders who arecorrupt. We should have one common standard as befits a modem republic. A high bridgeof citizenship/subjectship is an anachronism. It is absurd.Stemming The Tide Of The New Trans-Atlantic "Slave Trade".The tide began in the 1980s as a trickle, the “Andrew phenomenon”, checking out, thecountry noticed the “brain drain” of top-flight Nigerian professionals who had beensuddenly pushed all the way below the poverty line by the vanishing purchasing power ofthe Naira. First there was a nonchalant shrug. Then a government investigation and areport which felt, “well, there was some gain in the “brain drain” It earned some foreignexchange”.Like all habits, the “brain drain” persisted, the volume increased in all directions, butmainly to the United States. Other categories of professionals followed. Then nonprofessionals,then students, more students, and still more students at all levels- graduate,undergraduate, high school, even grade school. Work or education abroad and neitherbeen strange nor undesirable, but when there is little or no sign that even one in twenty ofthose who go out will return, the matter becomes stranger than fiction.The first wave of trans- Atlantic “immigrants” of the 17th to 19th centuries were paid forby the Americans. The current wave of immigrants are paying their way, and payingdearly. Will they end up where the first wave ended up? Are they indeed happy wherethey are? Are we forcing them in any way to stick it there, however they feel?Good governance which uses the resources of this country to develop it to the point ofattracting some of this current wave of immigrants back to Nigeria will be truly hailed by