Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore's Journey to Self Discovery - Any Lesson for Nigeria?

LEE KUAN YEW AND THE NANNY STATE MODEL:
Upon independence from Britain in 1965, no one gave Singapore the slightest chance of surviving. What with their domineering neighbor, Malaysia and the ethnic divisions within this thing Island State. However, the story of the transformation of Singapore - a tiny island with no natural resources into a thriving economic success - still confounds a lot of people including my humble self. As I re-read the book - "From Third World to First" - written by the protagonist himself, I am pondering on the amount of rigor and commitment Lee Kuan Yew applied on this interesting journey to self discovery.

NIGERIA - SEARCHING FOR FIFTY LOST YEARS...
Reading Lee Kuan Yew's book again, I can't help but search for parallels between Singapore in 1965 and the Nigeria of today. It suddenly dawned on me that Nigeria has lost fifty good years.
WHERE IS THE GRAND VISION? ARE WE NARROWING IT DOWN TO FIGHTING CORRUPTION AND RUNNING A WELFARE STATE AT A TIME OF DWINDLING RESOURCES?
All we are doing now is basically trying to lay bare plans on the table and if all I am hearing about spending to overcome the slow growth cycle and allocating 1.3 Trillion to a programme targeted at giving 5 thousand naira monthly stipend to 25 million people at the bottom of the pyramid, while keeping our bloated public service, is anything to go by, then I am not sure we are set to embark on a journey to recover our fifty lost years yet.

PROPOSING AN 8 TRILLION NAIRA BUDGET AND ALLOCATING LESS THAN 40% TO CAPEX WILL NOT GET US ANYWHERE;
Doubling the budget estimates at a time the revenue source of government, Oil, is fast losing value, only to spend a huge chunk of it on recurrent expenditure, is something I cannot comprehend. Where are we going to fund the budget from? I hear that President Buhari intends to borrow 2.10 Trillion naira; and I am really worried that we are not doing the hard rigor in finding solutions to Nigeria's economic imbalance. I think we are taking the easy route.

WE NEED TO AVOID THE GREEK SCENARIO.
Given the false protection which being in the Euro-Zone provided, for a long time,the government of Greece was using borrowed money to fund it's budget. The government of Greece prioritized welfare spending instead of focusing on building the Country's economic base through policies which encourage production. The government of Greece relied on one main source for revenue - tourism. As the global recession kicked-in in 2008, funds from tourism started to dry up and Greece's Creditors began to demand their money. The recession made it hard for Greece to pay back, because tax revenues were little, so keeping Greece's bloated public spending and pension programmes became a huge burden. And with a none existent production base and with tax evasion being commonplace and pension rights being unusually generous – there was no internal support base for Greece to fall back on. I hope Nigeria does not travel down that route. Rather than play Greece therefore, can we play Singapore - by investing in audacious infrastructure programmes and supporting production?

ENOUGH SAID - I AM ENJOYING LEE KUAN YEW'S BOOK.
I am praying for some kind of role-play and hoping that President Muhammadu Buhari could wear Lee Kuan Yew's character. I hope that dream can come to reality, because Nigeria truly needs a Nanny at this point.