Former Minister of Power, Prof Chinedu Nebo, in this interview with ABIODUN NEJO takes a look at Nigeria’s ethnicity issue, the politics of power supply and the need to focus on areas of comparative advantage, among others. Excerpts:
Some people have identified diversity as one of the country’s major problems, what is your take?
I do think that diversity is crucial to survival and striving. If you become monotonous in anything, it is so easy to burn out and run out of line, but if there is diversity: intellectual diversity, cultural diversity, bio diversity, orientational diversity as the case may be, and even religious diversity, you will see that people are stronger and better formed out. I think one of the best things that have happened to this country is in those days when people could be transferred to any part of the country. There weren’t such barriers in those days as they are now. State of origin didn’t come into it. I do hope that one day, people would be allowed to be the real indigenes of where they were born, not necessarily of where their father or mother or grandfather was born. So, I see the diversity that we have in Nigeria as a very strong point.