Going down memory lane, I began my civil service career on July 26, 1977 after the completion of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Makurdi, Benue State. The day after, I resumed work at the Bauchi State Ministry of Finance where a letter had been waiting for me for six months. Immediately I reported for duty, an official car was attached to me as well as an official residence. Three months after, I had my own personal car. The question we must ask is: what has happened to the country?"

The above quotation is from former SGF, Alhaji Ahmed Yayale, he made this 'confession' at a send forth organized for him...I decided to titled this essay, what happened to Nigeria, but the honest truth is that I cannot claim to have answers, but some of the things I know happened is what we will briefly discuss.

Since 1977, it has got progressively worse, now you have to even bribe to get a service station, and then you could even get killed and a governor will justify it as Allah's wish. In the years gone by, the question, what happened to Nigeria, is even more instructive, when we look at where we are today.

We have become a nation that exists just for reasons of foreign direct and indirect investment. We have become a nation that imports toothpick. We have a government, which has the FDI program as a key agenda. But the truth is that with our recent rating as the 101st best county to do business in the world.

This being a significant drop from the 87th position it occupied last year 2010. One wonders really not only what happened to Nigeria, but also what is happening to Nigeria?

During his recent visit to Kigali of all places I shuddered when my president had this to say, on FDI, "Asked if Nigeria was safe for foreign investors, Jonathan replied in the affirmative, referring to the recent visit to the country by Bill Gates, one of the richest persons in the world". What line of thought, what manner of response, what happened to us?

I asked what happened to Nigeria as my president announced that Nigeria and Rwanda were working on sharing experiences in public health, space technology and entering into a Bilateral Air Services Agreement to ease procurement of visas by potential investors.

I am not an economic expert but I know that all is not well with the white man's economy as they prepare for their economic winter. However I am beginning to lose count of the number of Ministers, and government officials junketing Europe and the US for FDI, last week three Ministers, Prof. Barth Nnaji (Power), Dr. Olusegun Aganga (Trade and Investment) and Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina (Agriculture and Rural Development) were in US 'to intensify' Federal Government's foreign investment drive.

The three ministers spoke at the 2011 US-Africa Business Summit, which had about 1,500 participants drawn from private and public sectors of virtually every country in Africa and throughout US. They did not tell the participants about the Nigeria of yester-years, rather they formed part of an Africa that today is begging for everything, really what happened to Nigeria?

Nigerian Ambassador to US, Prof. Adebowale Adefuye, had been quoted in local media "The fact that President Goodluck Jonathan released three ministers to travel to US at the same time is a clear testimony of the kind of seriousness this administration attaches to foreign investment drive.” How did we get to this point, where ministers have become so jobless?

Just back from US, Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha was preaching his commitment to attract investment and create job opportunities for Imo people. Speaking from the United States of America (U.S.A) where he participated in a conference on the development of business in Nigeria as organized by Woodrow Wilson Int’l Centre for Scholars Washington DC, Governor Okorocha asked international investors to take advantage of the enormous natural and human resources in Imo State to set up companies that will provide jobs and further boost the economic transformation of the State.