Nations classified as developed are those that are technologically advanced. They possess a high degree of industrialization and economic clout occasioned by indigenous technological capability. Equally, nations that command greater influence in world affairs maintain a reasonable control of their economy. In other words, developed nations control factors of production and industrialization which are backbones of any meaningful industrial and economic development of a nation. When there is technological backwardness in a nation and consequently economic underdevelopment, there is need to put into focus underlying reasons why visions of leaders cannot be actualized.
The aspiration of Nigeria to be among the 20 top economies by the year 2020 in order to transform the nation from an economic laggard to a ‘new economy’ is not achievable in the next five years. This is because Nigeria’s economy is currently unstable and it is apparently becoming less easy to support the nation’s almost 173 million people simply by revenues derived from crude oil. Unemployment is rising and many school leavers are unable to get job. There are other problems in the country’s economy that need urgent attention, namely: poor school enrolment record; falling standard of education; weak institutional regime; weak ICT capacity; leadership failure; followership apathy and recalcitrance; incessant electricity supply; infrastructural decay and corruption, amongst others. With these problems, Nigeria’s expectations are very high for the president-elect to proffer workable solutions. But they must realize these problems have persisted for long that all Nigerians must be prepared to work very hard towards solving the problems.
With the rebasing of the nation’s GDP in 2014, Nigeria was ranked the 26th largest economy globally with a GDP of $510 billion ($453.96 billion based on current exchange rate). This, according to reports, makes Nigeria’s economy superior to that of South Africa, Denmark, Malaysia and Singapore. It is very clear that the rebasing of GDP is politically motivated to score cheap popularity by the outgoing Jonathan-led PDP government as the level of poverty of most Nigerians does not reflect anything comparable to what is obtainable in Singapore. How can we say that Nigeria’s economy is better than Singapore’s? For avoidance of doubt and to appreciate the impact of various economic policies of Nigeria’s government on the quality of life, we may have to examine level of human development in Nigeria and Singapore.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living and quality of life for countries worldwide. In 2014, UNDP report shows that Nigeria ranks 175, while Singapore ranks 34 out of 185 countries. Nigeria has HDI of 0.54 which rates the country as a low human development nation, while Singapore is rated as a high human development nation with HDI of 0.901. The UNDP further reports that Nigeria is not one of the African countries recording remarkable improvement in its Human Development Index (HDI). Despite experts’ claim that Nigeria’s economy is ‘robust and resilient’, life expectancy, according to UNDP, is 52 years, while 68 percent of Nigerians live with about $1.25 per day with an adult literacy rate of 61.3 percent. The best rank the nation’s economy has achieved as reflected in the World Economic Forum report is 127 out of 144 countries, while Singapore ranks second after Switzerland in the world’s top 10 economies in 2014. Nigeria did not have a place in the sub-Saharan Africa top 10 economies as Lesotho was the 10th in sub-Saharan Africa but ranked 107 out of 144 countries.
In fact, the nation’s economy, just like most African economies, is inert as a substantial proportion of the country’s foreign reserve has leaked out to purchase foreign goods and services as well as settle bills incurred before and during recently concluded political campaigns. Additionally, for more than five decades there has been a sluggish production response to the increase that has occurred in domestic demand with most of the rise in demand dissipating in inflation. It could be seen that there is nothing exceptional about Nigeria’s natural resource base, particularly oil. This is because no natural resource will on its own evoke economic development. Our economy regardless of GDP reclassification is unable to respond to pressures of demand from 173 million people in spite of availability of abundant mineral and natural resources.
With five more years to go, it is deeply sad that Nigeria has not successfully keyed into the knowledge economy which is an economy that constantly generates knowledge with the use of same to pursue domestic and international goals of national interests. In an era of globalization, institutionalizing knowledge economy will enable productivity and growth which further give rise to accelerated investment, wealth creation, low inflation and elimination of poverty. Again, Nigeria has low position in the global knowledge pyramid. The World Bank developed the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) to show the rating of nations on the Knowledge Economic Index (KEI). The KEI used four pillars of knowledge to benchmark countries, namely: ‘education and training; innovation and technological adoption; ICT infrastructure and economic incentive and institutional regime’. ‘In the year 2102, the KAM was designed by measuring 148 structural and qualitative variables from 146 countries in order to determine how countries in comparison to one another are prepared to compete in a knowledge economy (www.worldbank.org/kam). The scores vary from 0 to 10 with a score of 10 indicating top performers and 0 indicating worst performers.’ In 2012, Nigeria ranked 119 out of 146 countries assessed. In the same year, Singapore ranked 23, while Malaysia and South Africa ranked 48 and 67, respectively. Although no reason was adduced for Nigeria’s low position in the knowledge pyramid, weakness of educational system and development institutions coupled with weak innovative capacity and ICT base could be responsible.
Our economic managers know all these but they lack the political will to do things differently, rather they prefer following the path of least resistance. That is why we are far from being regarded as an industrialized nation when it took 16 years (1999-2015) to add about 1500 MW to the national grid after spending more than $20 billion within the same period. This brings to question the kind of leaders we have been parading since the nation’s independence.
In Nigeria, we have seen how different types of leaders emerge and what they stand for. Some of our leaders are characterized by rascality and financial recklessness with the result that their branding is reflected in incapacity, disorganization, political violence and development myopia. Other characteristics our leaders exhibit include failure of building strong and effective institutions coupled with regularization of mediocrity. The situation with leadership in the country is such that when a leader knows what to do, he often claims his hands are tied by political godfathers who kept him in office. Thus, his inability to fulfill campaign promises.
‘What it takes to get there’ will be concluded next week. Stay blessed as I wish you all God’s speed.
MA Johnson
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