The Committee was comprised of a number of subcommittees which addressed different aspects of Nigeria’s future: politics; economics; the environment; population; education equal rights, urbanisation, and employment; the infrastructure and corruption. These were all encompassed in the final report. It was a thorough and balanced report which reflected the hard work and intellectual application of many of Nigeria’s best minds; its best educated men and women.

There is no need to spell out the conclusions drawn by the Committee, nor to reflect on the blueprint developed. With the death of Abacha in 1998 the Vision effectively died. Although Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar officially supported the work of Vision 2010 (indeed he was part of the Committee), virtually none of the programs were embarked upon. By the time of Obasanjo, the participants in the 2010 Committee were told to never mention the word 2010 or to face severe consequences.

In 2005 two Nigerian academics (Ajayi, Dickson and Ikporukpo, Chris) published “An Analysis of Nigeria's Environmental Vision 2010” which concentrated on the environmental aspects of the 2010 report. [i] Their report concluded “ Despite this policy thrust, an in-depth assessment based on facts and figures shows that environmental protection/conservation is very low on the nation's agenda. Indeed, the depletion of the forest has continued unabated, such that there is a high rate of deforestation and forest resource loss without a corresponding afforestation programme. The problem of erosion has received little or no attention, given inadequate funding and poor management practices. Very little effort is being made to combat the twin problems of desertification and drought. Pollution from mining and industrial activities is on the increase. Pollution from petroleum (oil spills), particularly from sabotage and blockage, is also on the increase. However, the incidence of gas flaring may be eliminated by the year 2005, given the current trend. Apart from these, Nigeria has developed only about 40 per cent of its water resources. Municipal solid waste is a common feature in most urban centres without corresponding management practices, while environmental planning, and especially Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), have received little or no attention. Thus, most of the policy objectives are unlikely to be achieved within the stipulated time given the current trends.”

Academic reports, most published outside Nigeria, on the other aspects of Vision 2010 were even more damning. NITE and NEPA are frequently mentioned. Recently I had a chance to sit down with several of those who participated in the Vision 2010 to try and discover why it was that the brightest minds of Nigeria (since the original 1946 planning efforts) and in the Vision 2010 were able to come up with all the necessary data and blueprints for realising Nigeria’s vast potential and why these have been ignored. The conclusion that was reached was very interesting.

The reason why Nigeria’s political leadership has never been able to understand or implement the policies developed by the intellectual leaders of the country is because Nigeria has been ruled for so long by military personnel. In its simplest form Nigeria’s military leaders are high school dropouts; the ones who were left behind when overseas scholarships became available to the ‘been-tos’ in the immediate post-colonial period. They were too busy fighting for rank and privilege in the hierarchy of the military structure to attend institutions of higher education. The advancement of a career in the military did not demand a developed intellectual input or the acquisition of professional skills or credentials other than in killing or coercing their fellow citizens and preventing others in the military from harassing them.

With the rise of successive military presidents, military governors and military civil servants the intellectual level of governance sank to its current low, largely because the military leaders were not educationally or professionally equipped to deal with the sophisticated challenges which running a nation as large a Nigeria requires. The notion of justice, too, became military justice. There used to be a saying in the US that “Military justice is to justice as military music is to music”. Nigeria needs Mozart and Bach, not the marching bands of John Phillip Souza.

The conclusions reached by our conversation ended when we saw immensity of trying to see how an enlightened policy, based on the 2010 Vision, could be achieved in Nigeria. The hurdles of IBB, David Mark, Aliyu Gusau, Obasanjo and the others of the military-economic elite (who have benefitted from their ties to the oil industry and the revenues it produces for them) seem too high to challenge. It is for the younger men to step back and make a plan to make sure that the militarisation of Nigerian politics is diminished. The words of the old men should be heeded by the young.