By Philip Yatai

Dr Sam Amadi of Faculty of Law, Baze University, Abuja, on Tuesday called for reconceptualisation of the Nigerian nation-state as fundamental paradigm to addressing identity, productivity and value crises.

Amadi made the call in a paper entitle, “Three Fundamental Crises of the Nigerian State” a Lead Paper he presented at a two-day international conference in Kaduna.

The conference with the theme, “Contemporary Issues in Social Science Research” was organised by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Kaduna State University (KASU).

Amadi argued that identity, productivity and value crises constitute the fundamental crises of the Nigerian political economy that had continue to hold the nation back.

He said that 59 years after independence, Nigerian was still struggling to structure its various religious and ethnic identities into a definitive identity with little or no success.

He also said that the Nigerian state was still overwhelmed by privilege and rent seeking rather than productivity, creating what he described as ‘the crises of productivity’.

According to him, the organising principal of the Nigerian political economy was not wealth creation, but wealth sharing or rent seeking.

“Another fundamental crisis of the Nigerian state is the value crisis, which contributes to the nationality and productivity crises.

“What should the Nigerian state be? What core values should define it? These are some of the key questions that Nigeria has failed to address.”

“We have to scrap the fundamental belief that Nigeria is a composition of diverse ethnicities and religious communities each competing for privileges and exemption from the requirements of merit and equal dignity.

“This old idea has to give way to a new idea of Nigeria as a modern democratic state that dispenses justice and prosperity to all its citizens irrespective of ethnic or religious identities.”

He commended KASU for organising the conference for academics to brainstorm on issues around solving the country’s problems.

According to him, there is always a link between ideas and leadership in solving social and political problems.

“This is because, intellectuals and academics whether good or bad, produce the ideas that notable leaders have implemented to the richness or ruin of their countries.

“This conference, therefore, will establish a nexus between academic research and the trajectory of social practice and the mechanics for solving social problems.”