TheCable

Franklyne Ogbunwezeh, a Germany-based Nigerian scholar, says the federal government should increase funding for education to develop the country.

Ogbunwezeh spoke during an interview with Rudolf Okonkwo on 90MinutesAfrica.

He said the money paid in maintaining members of the senate and house of representatives and funds given to governors as security votes should be channelled into providing free and quality education at all levels, as is obtainable in countries like Germany.

Ogbunwezeh also lamented that foreigners are trooping into Nigeria daily to exploit the country’s rich resources while citizens are trying to migrate.

“Every time I am travelling from Frankfurt International Airport to Lagos or Abuja, the plane is always full of white people with only a few sprinkles of Africans,” he said.

“One plane leaves Frankfurt for Nigeria every day, and it’s always filled up with white people.  And I will ask myself, what are these people going to Nigeria to do?

“Nigerians are running away from the country, and these people are going in.

“We don’t have a tourism industry, so what is so attractive about Nigeria that they are rushing to find? And this is only one European capital.

“Fly British Airways from London to Nigeria, and you will see it is the same thing. So the interesting thing is that they are going to Nigeria to find, they are finding it because if they are not, they won’t be going there every other day.”

The former director of genocide prevention in Africa at the Christian Solidarity International (CSI), Switzerland, said while Nigerians are busy allowing themselves to be divided by petty tribalism, foreigners are coming in to exploit the nation’s resources.

He decried the absence of a common national interest in Nigeria as a result of squabbles among the ethnic groups in the country.

Ogbunwezeh warned that unless Nigerians sit down to discuss how to structure the country, the nation will continue to struggle.