WHY IS NIGERIA STILL POOR DESPITE ITS ABUNDANCE IN HUMAN AND NATURAL RESOURCES?
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria, officially the federal republic of Nigeria is a federal constitutional republic comprised of 36 states and its federal capital territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east and Niger in the north. Its coast in south lies on the gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria, commonly referred to as the giant of Africa has a land mass of about 923,768 square kilometres and its one of the largest countries in Africa and the most 7th most populous country in the world. There are over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria of which the three largest are Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Nigeria, boast of a population of over 150 million people. The average population density is about 180 people per square kilometre of land but places like Lagos and Kano have population densities as high as 442 people per square kilometre. Almost 50% of the Nigerian population lives in rural areas. Nigeria has a population growth rate of 2.8% per annum and the current population will double in about 25 years unless appropriate measures are put in place.
Nigeria is blessed with arable land suitable for crop cultivation and animal rearing coupled with a moderate and warm climate. Nigeria’s rain forest region is reputed to be among the richest in Africa and Nigeria is also home to numerous important game reserves, such as the Yankari and Kainji national party which where wild life’s are preserved. Aside from this, Nigeria is endowed with a wide range of mineral resources, one of which is crude oil which was first discovered in 1956 and since then, millions of barrels have been mined and exported. According to the Federal Ministry of Information, Nigeria’s proven oil reserves are about 23 billion barrels while its gas reserves are about 160 trillion cubic metres. Currently, Nigeria produces and exports 2 million barrels of crude oil daily. A member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it is Africa’s biggest oil producer and the 6th largest oil producer in the world. Besides oil and gas, Nigeria is rich in solid mineral deposit which include over 40 million tonnes of talc in Niger, Osun, Kogi, Ogun and Kaduna state; over one billion tonnes of gypsum ( an important material in the production of cement, plaster of Paris, and classroom chalk) spread across many states; over 3 billion metric tonnes of iron ore deposit in Kogi, Enugu,Niger and Abuja; about 10 million tonnes of lead/ zinc spread across eight states; over 7.5 million tonnes of barite and 700 million tonnes of betonies, both of which are the main constituents of the mud used to drill all types of oil wells; over 42 billion tonnes of bitumen deposit; over 3,6 billion tonnes of highly beetle bituminous and hence, environmentally friendly coal; over 1.5 million tonnes of rock salt in Plateau, Ebonyi and Benue state; an estimated reserve of 3 billion tonnes of clay containing kaolin; reserves of alluvial and primary gold in south western Nigeria; and numerous gem stone include sapphire, ruby, aquamarine, emerald, tourmaline, topaz, garnet, amethyst, zircon and fluorspar in Kaduna, Plateau and Bauchi state. In addition to this, Nigeria is also bestowed with gold, copper to platinum and abundant human resources.
REACTION
With the apparent wealth of this nation, one cannot help but wonder why the abundant resources it possesses has been channelled into lasting improvements into infrastructure and construction of the sound base for self-sustaining economic development. Poverty in the midst of abundance is a popular paradox characterizing the Nigerian economy. Compared to other European, Africa and Asian countries with relatively low natural and human resources, Nigeria has failed to live up to expectation. Countries like south Africa and Ghana has risen beyond the early post-colonial remarks and are assuming post of strategic importance in the international system. Nigeria on the other hand, which many people believed would change African politics before its independence in 1960 is not just drabbing but retrogressing. In retrospect, going a little back to the late colonial era, it was very factual and conspicuous that Nigeria carried a very immerse mark of expectations which have been eroded with the passage of sour political decades.
More so, scholars are unanimous about the fact that the growth and development of Nigeria is stunted. Countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil and many others that were at the same level of development with Nigeria in the 60’s during the peak of the decolonization process have since surpassed Nigeria in human, infrastructural, and material development. Nigeria is declining. She is on a gradual and steady route to decay over 60% of her population are immersed in abject poverty and the number is steadily rising. In 2004, the percentage of poverty stricken Nigeria’s was 54.7% and by 2010, it increased to 60.9% despite the large funds the country realises from crude oil and other resources. Some of the states in northern Nigeria have the worst human development indications of any region in the world. It is a sad fact that 47% of the Nigerian population have no access to clean drinkable water; 27% of children under the age of 5 suffer from mal nutrition and 1 in 5 dies before the age of 5, and 31% of the population above 15 are illiterates. A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) shows Nigeria is the 26th poorest nation in the world. With the vast mineral, oil, water, land, and human resources, many Nigerians live on less than $1 (one US dollar) a day. A good percent of Nigerians (about 46%) cannot boast of the ability to afford decent food medical care, shelter and clothing and other necessities of life. Available indices indicate that our gross national product( GNP) which is tool for determining the relative prosperity of citizens of a country is about $260 which is below that of countries like Bangladesh with the per capita income of $370; South Africa with $3170 and Botswana with $3240. The unavailability of infrastructure and basic amenities like health care services, constant energy supply, world class educational system and reliable transportation system and many more is a disappointing fact for the world’s number six oil producing country. It is depicted in the many slums that are abound in many cities and towns and in the thousands of young unemployed men and women who struggle to keep up with the cost of living which is not proportional in any way to the average income of Nigerian citizen. A critic Peter Mass refers to Nigeria as an “ eight circle of hell…a country near collapse corroded from within, unable to govern amid ungovernable decay…in Nigeria, there are no winners, just more and more losers”. This does justice to describing our pitiable security situation in Nigeria as there is no security of lives and properties of Nigerians with bombings and mass killings which have become rampant in recent times.
The reasons for the horrific state of our country are not farfetched. There are various reasons for Nigeria’s poverty in the midst of its abundant natural and human resources. These all work together to create a current situation. One need not look too far to realise that the key reason for our nation’s condition is mismanagement of our resources by our corrupt government. There is no debate after her independence, our country has been ruled by visionless military dictators and corrupt civilians whose policies destroy the nation’s economy and created the state of greed, bribery and corruption we have today. Their lineage system has also enthroned most of the crooks, cronies and pathetic personalities we have today as political leaders. Also, the Nigerian government system that give state and local government autonomy in creating policies and managing resources without a stringent system for monitoring the management of those resources allows grooms mismanagement and uneven socio economic development across the states and regions of the country.
Besides these, the Nigerian style of cronyism and nepotism where government appointment and contract are offered to people based on their friendship and family ties with those in position of authority and with no regard for their qualification or suitability for the roles/ position. They have been asked to play/ occupy means that the wrong people occupy key government position and lead development and poverty alleviation programmes while more suitably qualified people are unemployed. This also results in the creation of government policy that are ineffective and unsustainable, causes failure of different poverty alleviation programme and other programmes aimed at development and lead to misuse of fund. It is estimated that because of corruption, 70% of oil revenue within the entire nation benefit a mere two percent of the entire population. On many occasions, news have reached our ears about outrageous amount of money embezzled by a single political leaders i.e the former governor of Ondo state Olusegun Agagu which after his death, 1.2 trillion naira was found in one of his accounts, James Iborio to mention but a few. The resources are there but efficient leaders are scarce.
Nigeria’s woes started effectively after her independence; when she was entrusted in the hands of corrupt, selfish and inefficient leaders who had not her interest at heart but theirs and what they could obtain from the national cake. The government officials and public servants developed a penchant for ineffectiveness, corruption, and mismanagement and brazen looting of the country’s treasury. For decades, public office holders have focused on milking cash from the country’s crude oil exports instead of focusing on developing infrastructure and creating jobs for the populace. Little wonder cum civilian president told Nigerians that the house of representatives is filled with crooks and criminals. He called it the “house of criminals and rouges”. He further said, “Nigeria has been ruled by fools and idiots for half a century”. Amidst uncountable cases of corruption, can any country be rich or progressive? Obasanjo was speaking as if Nigeria had a great time during his tenure
It is therefore not new that many political scholar and observers concur that leadership problem is the salient problem bedevilling Nigeria. Who would not agree with this in a country where there is enormous human and natural resources and the citizens are still greatly poor. Bribery, impunity, assassination, and money laundering are the order of the day and the political elites feast on the labour of the masses just like in the capitalist West. Nigeria has truly become a degenerated, underdeveloped nation mostly because the nation has been ruled by nonentities and visionless leaders.
To further stress the shortcomings of the government, mismanagement of resources and misappropriation of funds also contribute to Nigeria’s poverty. Previous poverty alleviation, efforts have not had much success for this reason. Such poverty alleviation programmes include the 1972 National Acceleration Food Production Programme; the 1976 Operation Feed the Nation aimed at teaching rural farmers tools; the 1979 Green Revolution Programme aimed at reducing food importation and increasing local food production; creation of a Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure in 1986; the 1993 Family Support Programme and Family Economic Advancement Programme; and the 2001 National; Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) which was created to replace the previously failed Poverty Alleviation Programme. In spite of all these programmes, Nigeria remains very poor. Its local food production is inadequate to feed the population and a lot food staples like rice, fish, and pasta are still imported. Also, aid money invested by international organisations and countries for development in different sectors of the country has not always achieved desired efforts due to mismanagement of funds. This has made a lot of such donors wary of further investment in the country.
At the national level, government allocation of revenue for different sectors affect the development of the nation. For instance sectors like education and health usually have low government allocations compared with other sectors like defence and compared with money allocated for salaries and benefits of law makers and other political post holders.
Furthermore, the greatest problem was caused by the government’s decision to stress the industrial sector above all others. Our governments took the part of rapid, large scale industrialisation at the expense of the agricultural sector and this turned out to be a fundamental error as the necessary capital and skill needed for rapid large scale industrialisation was unavailable and this handicapped the industrial sector. Also negligence of the agricultural sector aggravated matter. The agricultural sector which represent 27% of the GDP and which offers employment has suffered decline over the years. The discovery of oil, popularly dubbed “Black Gold” in 1956 in olubiri, ogbia local government area of Bayelsa state diverted the attention of the government from agriculture and other sectors of the economy to the prolific oil sector. Prior to this monumental discovery, Nigeria had depended on commendable funds gotten from trade in cash crops like cocoa, groundnut, rubber, palm oil and so on with other countries. Now Nigeria, a one-time giant producer of food and cash crops now imports from other countries to meet her population’s needs. For example, Nigeria now imports palm oil from Malaysia, a country she usually used to export to. The discovery of oil led to the emergence of greater economic expectation, new political competitions and relative exploitations and this changed the Nigeria political scene from bad to worse.
Another reason of great importance for Nigerian’s retarded condition is colonial past in Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, a very serious analysis is done to explain critically, not only on influence of Europe on Nigeria but Africa as a whole. The unholy trade which reduced Nigerian’s population still remains its effect on the fortune of the country. Hypothetical questions like “ What might have happened if Nigerians had not been shipped to America as slaves or colonized by Europe…?” leads to absurd speculations about how advanced we would have been as a nation. According to Ahmed Sekuo Toure, Republic of Guinea 1962 “ the relation between the degree of destitution of peoples of Africa and the length and nature of the exploitations they had to endure is evident. Africa remains marked by the crimes of the slave traders up to now, her potentials are restricted”.
Of course, one cannot sheerly challenge the contributions of Europe on the impoverishment and the underdevelopment of Nigeria. Imperial exploitative mechanisms like Royal Niger Company, UAC, Cadbury and so on which made inroad into Nigerian economy during the height of European colonial era still maintain their exploitative hold on the country’s economy. This is not to say that Nigeria is helpless or that the Europeans should take full responsibility for the detestable state of the nation, after all, there are some countries that shared Nigeria’s colonial fate but yet survived and have since taken a progressive path of development. But in analysing the reason behind the country’s mournful status, one cannot isolate the impact of Europe and the country is even till now connected economically, politically and mentally to the west.
Furthermore, the economic relation between Nigeria and the west/ European countries is very heinous. The country can do limited exploit has it lacks the manufacturing or industrial power to break the west hegemony. It is pertinent therefore to know that most third world countries are in this particular problem as Nigeria- they are less industrialised. Hence, they rely on foreign powers to complete the process of making some goods. Multinational corporations like Shell and even Chevron, undermine the nation’s sovereignty by involving in national politics to accumulate advantage for its imperial gains. The Ken SaroWiwa’s case of 1996 is a typical example of Multinational Corporation’s intrigue in Nigerian politics. Thus, neo colonialism has worked against the development of Nigeria and has impoverished the country. This we can also link to the weakness and corruption among the elite, which still boils down to leadership problems in the nation.
Another problem faced by Nigeria is her vast and diverse ethnic groups. Nigeria is a country with multiple ethnic groups, each with peculiar interest which they seek to protect and promote. Although, the ethnic and cultural diversity of Nigeria should be an advantage, it has been a source of discord and misunderstanding amongst the different ethnic groups and tribes in the country. For instance, it resulted in the Nigerians Civil War or the Biafra War which lasted between 6th July 1967 and 15th January 1970 where the south Eastern province of Nigerian attempted to separate from the rest of the country and established as the republic of Biafra. The war resulted in mass loss of lives with over 1million people dying from starvation, famine and fighting. Also, various ethnic-religious crisis in different part of the Nigeria have contributed the disruption in socio-economic development and destruction of lives and property, for instance the crisis in Kano, plateau, and Kaduna states in the past decades. The incompatibility of interest and glorification of ethnic politics is another major reason why Nigeria’s abundant resources are not working for her. It is important to note at this point that even the country’s political elites and leaders are not working in uniformity. Politicians tend to glorify their regional interest over national interest, and every leader want to first satisfy the needs of its ethnic group before taking in to consideration the needs of the nation as a whole, closely related to the ethnic diversity is religion. Although, there are various groups in the country, Islam and Christianity take prominent role in the society and there have been various conflict over the religions of leaders as it is believed that a Christian leader would be partial to Christians in his policies and vice versa. All these have led to various political instability and confrontation and has greatly hindered the development of the country.
More so, government economic policies in Nigeria are deficient seeing as there is no job opportunities for the thousands of able bodied youths. Our large human resources are meant to be utilised by the government to ensure a rapid development of the economy. But due to the inability of the government to provide employment and business conducive environment, a state has necessarily confronted by rebelling youth that have taken to vices like kidnapping, terrorism and so on which have dealt a big blow to the development of the country.
CONCLUSION
What can be the antidote to this aggressive answer that spreads its roots in our economy? The government has to buckle up and put more effort into writing the wrongs: the first step should be studying the past and realising the mistakes that were made and using it as a foundation of frame work formulating policies that will elevate our country from poverty and corruption the government should strive to be accountable to the citizens for their actions. Efforts should also be made to encourage indulgence in agriculture as it is a well of wealth rather than exploiting oil at the expense of environment. Nigeria will likely gain more from developing renewable energy and also renew their industrial sectors. If all these measure are taken there will definite improvement and Nigeria will match forward to be among the major world economies.
REFERENCES: ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ by Waiter Rodney page 108,116,117,119, chapter 5. Panaf publishing, Inc. POWA complex A.T.A. Asokoro – Abuja Nigeria.
‘Trouble With Nigeria’ by Chinua Achebe. Heinemann publishing, 1984 page 5,9,27
Hussaini Abdu, Religious Crises In Northern Nigeria; Issues in Informer Repression, Department Of Political Science And Defence Studies Nigerian Defence Academy Kaduna National Population Commission Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, 2008
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