- Written by From Abiodun Fagbemi, Ilorin
• Explains how graft, insecurity drive citizens overseas• Decries nation’s underperformance
• Warns fresh global financial crisis may threaten country’s economy
FOR former United States (U.S.) Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, the greatest challenge to Nigeria’s development is corruption.
Carrington stressed that for the country to develop, corruption and insecurity must be checked. He lamented that these two problems had prevented Nigerians in the U.S. from returning home.
The former envoy yesterday delivered a lecture in Ilorin to commemorate the 29th convocation of the University of Ilorin.
The lecture, entitled “On the Dawn of Nigeria’s Second Century: Challenges to a New Generation”, drew capacity audience and was moderated by the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali.
Lamenting why Nigeria is under-developed, he said: “First of all, I ask you to ponder a perplexing paradox. Africa is the world’s richest continent in terms of natural resources and yet by all measurements developed by the United Nations (UN), its people are the poorest. In terms of education, health, and most standards of living, they lag behind the rest of mankind. Why, oh why, should this be so? A few Africans may indeed be rising but too many others are falling. The old maxim that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer seems all too true as the gap between Africa and the rest of the world grows ever wider.
“The latest Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme better known as the UNDP was released in March this year and lists the world’s 46 lowest ranked countries. Thirty-seven of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. All of the bottom 26 are African with the single exception of Afghanistan. All rates lower even than Haiti. Out of 187 countries surveyed, oil- producing Nigeria is ranked 153, the lowest, by far, of any non-African member of OPEC. Indeed, with the exception of Angola (which ranks 5 places higher than Nigeria), all other members, including war-ravished Iraq (107), are included in the ranks of the more developed. Your neighbour, Niger, at 187 has the dubious distinction of coming in last.”
He continued: “The UNDP’s Index, in arriving at its rankings, surveys life expectancy,… and expected years of schooling, gross national income per capita, standards of living, quality of life, and child welfare. What it does not disaggregate is the status of women about which I will have more to say later.
“An earlier UN report in 2007 predicted that in little more than a year from now, in the year 2015, nearly a third of the world’s impoverished will be black Africans. This would be a significant increase from one-fifth fraction which was the case in 1990.”
While sharply criticising the mono-economic policy of Nigeria, with her over-dependence on oil, Carrington canvassed an exploration of such other sectors as agriculture and industrialisation viewed as possessing more capacities for employment.
He noted: “The proponents of the Africa Rising thesis point to the significant economic growth experienced by some countries on the continent during a time of economic retraction in much of the developed world. Growth indeed there was although often from a rather low base. Nigeria’s was impressively a little above six and a half per cent. But how much was this in a case of growth without concomitant development?
“According to the latest IMF estimates, Nigeria has the second largest economy on the sub-continent with a GDP or gross domestic product of 270 billion U.S. dollars behind only South Africa whose GDP is 375 billion. Thus Nigeria, the 7th largest country in the world by population, has only the 40th largest economy by GDP. It is overly dependent on an oil and gas sector which provides 70 per cent of its federal revenue, but is the source of a much smaller percentage of jobs than agriculture which employs 70 per cent of the country’s labour force.”
He added: “But Nigeria suffers, as do so many other highly endowed extractive natural resource countries, from what economists label as the ‘Dutch disease’ whereby other sectors of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing are relatively ignored.
“At Independence in 1960, Nigeria’s yearly agricultural crop yields were higher than those of Indonesia and Malaysia. Today they have dwindled to half as much. The fact that Nigeria’s current yield per hectare is less than 50 per cent of that of comparable developing countries dramatically demonstrates how much Nigeria has abandoned its once promising agricultural sector. Until Nigeria is able to rely less on capital-intensive sectors of the economy and more on labour-intensive ones, it will be difficult to see how it will meet its ambitious goals to make the country one of the world’s twenty most important economies.
“Diversification is urgently needed to make the economy less vulnerable to downswings in petroleum prices. Even when oil prices were historically high, the national unemployment rate, instead of falling, rose from 21per cent in 2010 to 24 per cent in 2011. As the African Development Bank report pointed out, Nigeria’s recent economic growth has been mainly driven by the non-oil sector because of high consumer demand. The cruel irony is that whatever Nigeria and others in Africa might do to improve their economies, their efforts in the short run could be undone by a renewed global financial crisis. As I was writing this, there was still much uncertainty over the consequences that might ensue if the United States failed to meet its international debt obligations. Thus this continent remains at the mercy of a world financial order over which it has little or no influence.”
Carrington said it would be erroneous for Nigerian policy makers to reduce unemployment ratio to the level of university graduates and that of the school leavers as many other Nigerians do not have formal education and thus form part of the challenges on unemployment.
He said: “Those of you who will be earning a university degree this week are among the most privileged of your generation. Over twenty million young people between the ages of 15 and 35 are unemployed. An overwhelming number of them do not have the education you have received. They are part of a burgeoning army of the unemployed even as the economy is growing. You however will become a valued part of Nigeria’s unmatched pool of human resources. No country on this continent has historically had such a richness of human capital.”
He lamented the exodus of many tested Nigerians during successive despotic military regimes in the country. For him, with more conducive environment and adequate security system, many of such persons would return to the country of their birth.
Carrington said: “Unfortunately, during the days of military dictatorships, so many of your best and brightest fled abroad. Students overstayed their visas and professionals remained abroad, so reluctant were they to return home. As a result, over 3 million Nigerians live and work in the United States and Canada to say nothing of the large numbers in the United Kingdom. They everywhere excel in their contributions to all sectors of our society. I have said many times to American audiences that I regard Nigerians as the most accomplished immigrant group in the United States. What made Nigeria the country that I looked up to for so long was the fact that it produced some of the most educated, most talented black people to be found anywhere on earth.
“My country and others around the world profit from Nigeria’s greatest export - her accomplished people. I often ask Nigerians who are legally in the U.S. why they remain. The two major impediments to going back which they cite are their fears of the omnipresence of corruption and the growing absence of security. They cringe whenever they hear Nigeria belittled on television comedies because of 419 schemes. They have so much to contribute to their homeland and ways must be found to create the environment which will invite them to return and reverse the brain-drain which does so much damage to the body politic.”
On the corruption in Nigeria, he noted: “As we all know, corruption is the most terrible monster that confronts Nigeria but we must all work hard to tame this monster. In other words, I am certain that virtually all the problems associated with governance would be removed if we can all summon the courage to tackle corruption and banish it from our activities. Development doesn’t have a bigger enemy than corruption and the development of Nigeria is hinged on ridding our polity and politics of corruption and corrupt practices.”
On the role of women in economic development of any nation, he said: “Earlier, I mentioned the role of women. They are estimated to carry on about 70 per cent of economic activity in Africa but they own but a paltry two per cent of the land and are woefully under-employed in the formal workforce. And they are, in so many other ways, continually discriminated against. They remain victims of ancient patriarchal customs… President Jonathan has done better than any of his predecessors in bringing women into the top ranks of his government. A third of the members of his cabinet are women and he has appointed the first female Chief Justice.”
He added: “Nigeria has been too long an under-performer on the world stage. It has ceded to South Africa the pride of place as Africa’s leading spokesman. When the G-8 or other gatherings of the world’s most powerful nations occur, it is more often to Johannesburg that they call than to Abuja on those all-too rare times when they seek an African perspective. In its second century as more than a geographic entity, Nigeria must at last realise its full potential. Even now, as woefully neglected as it has been, its manufacturing sector produces a large proportion of West Africa’s goods and services. What it has done for the region, it can certainly in the years ahead do for the entire continent.
“You are indeed the giant of Africa. Your population of close to 170 million dwarfs all others. You are, by far, the continent’s largest and most appealing market. Surely Nigeria can raise the future amount of its exports to members of the African Union (AU) beyond its current level of 11 per cent. Africa’s success is crucial to Nigeria’s own. Even if it accomplishes all of its 2020 goals by 2050, it will find it difficult to long prosper as an oasis in a desert of impoverished countries.
“It will become the attraction for massive illegal immigration as has the United States to its poorer neighbours to the South or has Europe to the peoples of the poorer countries of Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. That is why it is in Nigeria’s enlightened self-interest to be concerned as much about the plight of its neighbours as it is of its own. Those are the responsibilities that the members of the club of the world’s most powerful nations, which Nigeria wishes to join, must shoulder.
“Nigeria has the potential to be in fact the giant of Africa which it has always thought itself to be. Its agricultural output is already second to none on the continent and 25th in the world. By making it more of a priority Nigeria could become a major player on the world’s commodities market. It must refine at home more of its 37 billion proven barrels of oil which is the world’s sixth largest reserve of crude oil. Its 187 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas is the eighth largest gas deposit in the world. Its flaring must be stopped and the gas harnessed to meet the country’s mounting energy needs. The pipelines carrying oil and liquefied natural gas must be better protected for both ecological and economic reasons.
“The second century must be dedicated to diversifying this economy away from its overdependence on oil and to adding value to Nigeria’s treasure trove of the other natural resources lying beneath its soil. This can be done by sending not raw materials abroad but rather enhancing their value at home through a revitalised manufacturing sector, which refines and finishes the more than thirty different minerals lying beneath the nation’s soil.”
He added: “The question must now be asked, why is Africa’s most endowed country, which earns $57 billion a year in oil revenues not yet able to solve its persistent problems of electric power and infrastructure? The African Development Bank report has summed it up thusly: After decades of neglect, infrastructure in Nigeria is in a dilapidated state. The ranking of overall infrastructure is very close to the worst rank in Africa. Power supply is erratic, roads are in a state of disrepair, and the railway infrastructure is in a poor state. The erratic supply of electricity has continued to plague every aspect of the economy and it is viewed by the Federal Government of Nigeria as the bedrock of the country’s future growth, if addressed. Billions of dollars have been spent on the power sector by various administrations but without success because of mismanagement and implementation problems. However, with the political will to tackle mismanagement in the infrastructure sector and the desire to find a solution to the infrastructure problem in the country, there have been some improvements in the state of infrastructure in the country.”
While reiterating the need to formulate robust policies on poverty eradication, Carrington said that the true measurement of a healthy economy was the population of the poor against the rich.
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