Watchers of Nigeria’s political landscape welcomed with great expectation the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the Nigerian political scene. The main reason was the urgent need for a formidable opposition to the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which acronym some love to render “People Deceive People” or “Papa Deceive Pikin”. A strong opposition party is required to put a ruling party like the PDP on its toes as it strives to reverse the paradox of “rich nation, poor citizens” which aptly summarises the experience of most Nigerians.
The paradox means that as Nigerian governments at all levels have more money to spend as measured by the size of their annual budgets, the nation’s human development index (HDI) decreases. The HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. Consequently, while the World Bank estimates that the Nigerian government earned over US$ 400 billion in oil revenues since 1970, standards of living have declined over time.
Most analysts who have contemplated this debacle regret that although Nigeria is resource-rich (human capital, oil and gas, solid mineral resources, climate and other assets), the country lacks leaders who could devise effective means of exploiting, managing and utilizing the potential wealth to increase output and bring large numbers of the poor out of poverty like China.
Consequently, Nigeria’s past leaders failed to develop the manufacturing sector while running an import-driven services sector that now accounts for 52 percent of the rebased GDP of $510bn. This fact means that Nigerians cannot expect to prosper until the problem the import dependence places on the foreign exchange rate. The recent devaluation of the naira by the Jonathan administration in response to dwindling revenues from exports and the related austerity measures rolled out by Ngozi Okonjo Iweala , coordinating minister for economy and finance minster, are important policy pronouncements that APC’s shadow finance minister aught to respond to in clear terms. Does APC have such a cabinet at federal and state levels?
The Jonathan administration has surrendered the economy to purveyors of economic policies encouraged by the IMF and the World Bank. What is APC doing about this? What policies will the APC introduce in this respect if it were to wrestle power from the ruling party?
Today, oil wealth fuels the instability, corruption, and patronage-driven politics that is now a feature of governance in Nigeria. What is APC’s shadow oil minister saying about this challenge?
The ruling party recently came under informed criticism by Mike Obadan, professor of economics at the University of Benin when the CME stated that Nigeria’s real growth performance over the 2002-2012 decade called for celebration.
“We have been celebrating growth for quite some time now, indeed, right from the Obasanjo administration. Where has it led the country to in terms of development?”, Obadan queried.
“Our celebration of the country’s growth performance, as one of the macroeconomic achievements of successive administrations, has the implication of making the government complacent”, the professor observed. Why was APC not very active in this debate? A well trained shadow finance minister would have feasted on the national debate that followed the issuance of 50 questions the state of the economy to the CNE by a committee of the House of Representatives.
Economists have consistently pointed out that the incidence of poverty has increased from 54.4 percent in 2004 to 69 percent in 2012 (relative poverty measure), indicating that 112,518,507 Nigerians are in poverty. The Central Bank of Nigeria reports a provisional poverty incidence of 71.5 percent for 2011. Besides the relative poverty measure, all the other measures of poverty indicate increasing poverty incidence. This thus creates a paradox in that the poverty incidence has increased substantially in a period when the economic growth rates were relatively high, averaging over 6.0 percent. Currently, Nigeria faces the challenge of meeting the MDG of halving poverty by 2015. Indeed, the recent reports on Nigeria’s MDGs show that on current trends, Nigeria would not achieve some of the MDGs by 2015
Human Development index (HDI) was 0.471 in 2012 (marginally up from 0.434 in 2005), putting the country as a low human development country with the rank of 153rd out of 186 countries. Nigeria’s human development index of 0.471 did not compare favourably to levels achieved by many other developing countries, e.g. Korea (0.909); Chile (0.819); Argentina (0.811); Malaysia (0.769); UAE (0.818); Saudi Arabia (0.782); Libya (0.769) and Iran (0.742), the last four being major oil producing countries.
Obadan notes that the HDIs of the states in the country reflect the National HDI. As many as nine states in the country have HDIs below 0.40; some others have less than 0.30. Human development is thus so low across the country in a period of celebrated growth rates. What role is APC’s shadow national planning minster doing about this? The same question applies to the following points ably analysed by Obadan.
“The inequality index has remained high and, indeed, worsened. High inequality weakens the impact of growth on poverty reduction. And the restricted drivers of growth in the economy worsen inequalities. Between 1985 and 2004, inequality in the country worsened, with the index rising from 0.429 in 2004 to 0.45 in 2010. The figure reported in the Ministry’s response is 0.49. These place the country among those with the highest inequalities in the world. The high inequality manifests in highly unequal income distribution and differential access to basic infrastructure, education and training and job opportunities.
“Human Development index (HDI) was 0.471 in 2012 (marginally up from 0.434 in 2005), putting the country as a low human development country with the rank of 153rd out of 186 countries. Nigeria’s human development index of 0.471 did not compare favourably to levels achieved by many other developing countries, e.g. Korea (0.909); Chile (0.819); Argentina (0.811); Malaysia (0.769); UAE (0.818); Saudi Arabia (0.782); Libya (0.769) and Iran (0.742), the last four being major oil producing countries. The HDIs of the states in the country reflect the National HDI. As many as nine states in the country have HDIs below 0.40; some others have less than 0.30. Human development is thus so low across the country in a period of celebrated growth rates.
“The inequality index has remained high and, indeed, worsened. High inequality weakens the impact of growth on poverty reduction. And the restricted drivers of growth in the economy worsen inequalities. Between 1985 and 2004, inequality in the country worsened, with the index rising from 0.429 in 2004 to 0.45 in 2010. The current figure is 0.49. These place the country among those with the highest inequalities in the world. The high inequality manifests in highly unequal income distribution and differential access to basic infrastructure, education and training and job opportunities.”
APC must end the waiting game for its shadow cabinet.
Weneso Orogun
