What Happened To Nigeria’s Vision 2020?

The year 2020 was ushered in with much excitement and funfair. Being the beginning of a new decade, there was so much fuss about the year which had been anticipated ever since the turn of the new millennium. For Nigeria as a country, it was pegged to be a year that was going to give birth to a vision that would finally do justice to the nation’s abundant natural and human resources, the year of vision 2020.

During the maiden days of Nigeria’s third Republic, the term “vision 2020” became a popular mantra which served as a focal point not just for the government of the day, but a rallying point for the generality of Nigerians, who at this time came to grips with the reality that the country was not living up to its potential.

It was against this background that the Olusegun Obasanjo government articulated that “by 2020, Nigeria will have a large, strong, diversified, sustainable and competitive economy that effectively harnesses the talents and energies of its people and responsibly exploits its natural endowments to guarantee a high standard of living and quality of life to its citizens”.

It has been a little under two decades ever since vision 2020 goal was set, with the baton passing on to four different administrations, while it is true that the year 2020 was not meant to magically hoist the nation into economic prosperity; rather, it was projected to be a culmination of concerted efforts leading up to the expected timeline that the country would launch itself into global reckoning as ranking among the top 20 economies in the world.

The year 2020 is finally here with us, and amid its being smeared by the outbreak of a lethal disease, Nigeria continues to walk the razor’s edge of economic recession, with a great number of Nigerians living below the breadline and issues of pervasive corruption continue to pervade the airwaves. It becomes quite pertinent at this juncture to ask the question- what happened to vision 2020?