June 1, 2026
By Dele Sobowale
The great Indian leader and liberator made that remark before he was assassinated in 1948 at a time when his country, now divided into at least three nations, suffered from food scarcity worse than Nigeria is experiencing now.
Certainly, it can also be said that there are millions of people in Nigeria today, so hungry that God cannot appear to them except either as a loaf of bread or a bowl of cooked rice. I was only four years old in 1948. So, I had to interview those far older than me to know what the food situation was like at the time – in addition to historical research. Surprisingly, Nigeria was then a net exporter of food at a time when almost 99 per cent of Nigerians were illiterates; when the University of Ibadan was just opening its doors to students. All the Nigerian university graduates could not have been more than 1000. Today, UI alone graduates over 5,000 annually. All Nigerian universities throw more than 120,000 into the job market. What is the use of our famed “educated manpower” if we cannot feed ourselves now?
India, in the same period under review, has also sent tens of millions of graduates out of its universities; a lot more than we did. But, something interesting occurred. India, a formally food-deficit nation in 1948 has been transformed into a food exporter; while Nigeria, a former food-exporter, is now a food-deficit nation, depending on others for our survival. We already know one reason why. Nigeria discovered oil; India did not. But, we continue to avoid mentioning a more fundamental reason. Educated Indians and their leaders are intelligent and Nigerians are not. Let me quickly explain.
