Oil Wealth,
Profligacy, Poverty, the Youth and Nigeria’s Dignity: The Epistle of
Mrs. Ezekwesili
By
Dr. Emmanuel
Ojameruaye
emmaojameruaye@yahoo.com
In my previous
article on the controversy between Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili and the
reputation managers of the federal government over an offending
sentence in Mrs. Ezekwesili’s UNN Convocation on January 24, 2013, I
pointed out some errors or mistakes made by Mrs. Ezekewesili and
then emphasized that they are not usual among economists and in
public policy. I also noted that the offending sentence does not
warrant the attack on the person of Mrs. Ezekwesili by Mr. Maku and
Dr. Okupe. Clearly, the controversy has overshadowed the central
messages of the lecture and the lessons the current administration
and all Nigerians must take from it. In this follow up article, I
will summarize these and how we can to use Nigeria’s oil wealth to
reduce poverty and restore the country’s dignity.
Mrs. Ezekwesili’s
lecture was on the topic “The Wealth and Poverty of a Nation: Who
will restore the dignity of Nigeria”. From the penultimate
paragraph of the lecture, it is clear that her goal was to
motivate and empower the graduating class to leave the university
with a determination to “walk and work as a part of the Turning
Point Generation that courageously dares to restore the dignity of
Nigeria”. The intermediate objectives of the lecture were:
a) to
stir up their
collective effective angst at the indignity of their
inheritance–massive oil wealth, profligacy and pervasive poverty;
b) to
raise their determination to free Nigeria from the oil trap and see
tertiary education as a tool to move Nigeria up the economic
development ladder; and
c) to
sensitize them to join in the crusade to redefine and build a New
Nigeria.
In other words, the lecture was not intended as an
attack on the federal government but to appeal to our youths to
stand for good governance. In order to achieve her goal and
intermediate objectives, Mrs. Ezekewsili delivered some very
important messages which have largely been ignored by the media.
Therefore, in the interest of those who have not read and digested
the rather lengthy lecture, I have summarized the key messages into
10 points which I have christened “Ezekwesili’s epistle on oil
wealth, profligacy, poverty and restoration of Nigeria’s dignity”.
They are as follows:
-
Nigeria’s oil
wealth breeds poverty and Nigeria has become a “poster nation
for poor governance wealth from natural resources”. In other
words, Nigeria is an example of Bhagwati’s immiserising growth
model and a victim of the Dutch disease syndrome or “resource
curse” because the massive oil revenue over the past 50 years
has failed to reduce the incidence, depth and severity of
poverty in the country over time.
-
Oil wealth has
reduced Nigeria to a parable of prodigality. Nigeria has spent
and continues to spend the “free money from oil” like the
biblical prodigal son, a tragic rentier and drunken sailor. Due
to this profligacy or squandermania, Nigeria’s human development
indicators are disappointingly low and dismal. The country holds
the “world record” in the rank of countries that have worse
human development scores when compared to countries without
endowments.
-
The country
has failed to take advantage of the cycles of oil boom to
transform the economy and to reduce poverty. Ironically, each
cycle of oil boom moves Nigeria further down the rungs of global
economic ladder and ranking. The recent cycle of oil boom (from
about April 2007 to date, excluding the period from October 2008
to September 2009 when oil prices declined) is particularly
egregious.
-
Tropical
geography, small or large population, area size, culture,
multi-ethnicity and colonialism are not significant reasons for
Nigeria’s poor economic performance. Poor governance and
corruption are largely responsible for the poor development and
pervasive poverty in Nigeria.
-
Nigeria lags
behind most of her peers at independence in terms university
enrollment and major human development indicators. For instance
only 4.3% of Nigerian youth have opportunity for university
education compared to 37.5% for Chile, 33.7% for Singapore and
16.5% for Brazil. The “crawling progress” in tertiary education
in Nigeria is one of the key factors why most of her former peer
nations have outpaced her in global economic performance and
ranking, and it is a classic example of the cost of “imprudent
choices” and profligacy.
-
A rentier
economy like that of Nigerian sows the seeds for its implosion
if it fails to advance into a productive economy.
Nigeria’s Big Problem is the failure of politics to deliver the
right environment in which a productive economy can thrive
outside of the extraction of natural resources that fuels the
destructive choices of the ruling elite.
If Nigeria is
able to sort out its political mess, it can improve its chances
of getting a productive economy that delivers the benefits of
growth in the form of jobs and improved incomes to all its
citizens.
-
The current
generation of youth
can
change the trajectory of Nigeria’s development if they are “no
longer prepared to be spectators watching the world go by, but
want to be ‘players’, to make a difference…and begin to question
and overturn the status quo and established new norms in the
governance of the country”.
-
The
generation of youth that decides to save Nigeria from its cycles
of disastrous and destructive choices promoted by the older
generations is the Turning Point Generation. This
will happen when the youth generation realizes that politics is
the root cause of the country’s repeated failures.
The turning point
is the point of restoration of Nigeria’s dignity.
-
For
Nigeria’s dignity to be restored the youth generation must build
a coalition of entrepreneurial minds ready to ask and respond to
the question “What does it take for nations to become rich?”
-
The
current youth generation can define a new character and quality
of politics in Nigeria and the quality of governance outcomes.
They can birth a New Nigeria devoid of all negatives that have
inhibited the country’s greatness. To do this, the youth must
understand and engage the stunted political context and turn the
country around into a mature democracy by creating a new
political context in which citizens’ demand for good governance
and accountability begins to compel those who govern to
persistently make choices that will more likely improve the
outcomes of economic management for the larger number of
Nigerians. The current youth generation must decide whether they
are ready to play the role change agents or adopt the safer
option of “siddon look.” There is no better time to make such
life changing decisions than the day of graduation from a
tertiary institution.
Whilst some people
may chastise Mrs. Ezekwesili for the offending sentence in her
lecture, I do not think that anybody who is knowledgeable about the
political economy of Nigeria vis-ŕ-vis those of her peers at
independence and other oil exporting countries will question her
epistle. However, while the current youth generation has a critical
role to play in the restoration of Nigeria’s dignity, the task is
for all Nigerians, particularly the political leaders who must
improve governance, reduce corruption, promote accountability and
transparency in the use of the country’s oil and other revenues, and
invest prudently in areas that benefit the poor. This is how we can
ensure a significant, sustainable and measurable reduction in the
incidence, depth and severity of poverty in Nigeria within the next
decade, and reverse the failures of the past five decades. It is
hearth-breaking and degrading that with its vast oil wealth, about
64% of Nigerian still live below the poverty line (on less than
$1.25 or N200 a day) and the country is still list in the group of
“low human development” countries and “failed” countries (i.e. those
in “alert” group) - Nigeria ranks 31/187 in terms of human
development and 14/177 in terms of degree of state failure. There is
no doubt that our dignity in the international arena has plummeted
over the past 30 years. The restoration of the lost dignity is a
task that must be done. This is the essence of Mrs. Ezekwesili’s
epistle.
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