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The attainment of the long-awaited and highly anticipated Nigerian independence which was supposed to be a threshold to a robust economic development in Nigeria turned out to be mere fantasies as the independence was merely a flag independence which failed to encompass economic freedom.
Independence can be viewed as an autonomy granted to a colony to signify her freedom to control the affairs of her own.
Nigeria at 1960 was granted political independence with an exclusion of economic freedom as her economy has remained under the influence of some developed nations through Neo-colonialism.
Neo-colonialism came into existence shortly after the Decolonisation of the third-world countries. The term Neo-colonialism was coined by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. In his view, Neo-colonialism is the last stage of imperialism.
Neo-colonialism or Neo-imperialism connotes the indirect control of Economic and political policy of an underdeveloped country by the developed nations of the world.
This social disaster called Neo-colonialism that is deeply rooted in the Nigerian territory have manifested itself through capitalism, Globalisation and cultural imperialism.
The prevailing upsurge in the vileness of capitalism has been evinced through its exploitative nature. The main advocates of capitalism are the scholars of the modernization school, who in their hurriedly-put-together analysis proffered capitalism as the only panacea to the attainment of the said level of Development in the third-world countries.
However, capitalism in the third-world has since its introduction caused more harm than good as it has driven the Economic society into class struggle by dividing the society into the class of the haves and the have-nots. With the former as the factory owners and the latter as the exploited.
Futhermore, capitalism has formed a bases for Nigeria to be turned into a dumping ground. The Neo-colonial masters invest heavily by putting up companies in strategic areas of the Neo-colonial countries thereby extracting raw materials cheaply and exploiting the labour force of the host countries.
Neo-colonialism has also manifested itself through foreign aid and grants. Foreign aids as the name imply is an assistance rendered by a donor country to another country on the basis of need. Such aid could be financial or military wise.
The financial aid is carried out by international financial institutions such as world Bank and IMF which are saddled with the responsibility of alleviating poverty. This foreign aid,rather than contributing to the development of Nigeria has turned Nigeria into a debt-servicing nation,with an immense debt incurred,leaving the developed nations at the benefiting ends.
Futhermore, foreign aid comes with stipulated conditions that places the beneficiary of such aid under the whims and caprices of the donor country. This politics of foreign aid is aimed at ‘holding a debtor by the forelock’.
In conclusion, Nigerian political leaders, rather than hearkening to the spurious claims of the modernization scholars, should borrow the ideas of the Asian Tigers.
– Omeiza Naimah
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