I posted this on my Facebook page two nights ago:
“Education is a disgrace: according to the World Economic Forum,” the
country “ranks 132nd out of 144 countries for its primary education
and 143rd in science and maths. The unemployment rate, officially
25%, is probably nearer 40%; half of” its nationals “under 24 looking for work
have none. Of those who have jobs, a third earn less than $2 a day. Inequality
has grown…and the gap between rich and poor is now among the world’s largest”
…The ruling party “has sought to undermine the independence of courts, the
police, the prosecuting authorities and the press. It has conflated the
interests of party and state, dishing out contracts for public works as rewards
for loyalty…This has reduced economic competitiveness and bolstered a
fabulously rich…elite. As a result too little wealth trickles down…Young people
who fail to find work by the age of 24 will probably never have a full-time
formal job…Because the stakes are so high, competition for power is bitter and
sometimes bloody, particularly at the local level”… The ruling party “has more
money than any other party. It can afford to go to townships days before
elections and hand out food parcels.”
“This is an excerpt from a report by The Economist from two years back. Can you guess what country it is
about?
This report actually refers to South Africa. It
was published in The Economist
(October 20th – 26th 2012) highlighting South Africa’s
decline. According to the report, “…South Africa, though still a treasure trove
of minerals with the most sophisticated economy on the continent, is on the
slide both economically and politically. By some calculations Nigeria’s
economy, messy as it is, will overtake it within a few years.”
It seems that both South Africa and Nigeria have
their challenges as well as their strengths. What is fascinating is how so many
of us, both Naija-pessimists and Naija-optimists alike (including people I met
personally), assumed that the report was referring to Nigeria. One overwrought
respondent even scolded me for “always finding fault” with Nigeria – a strange
assertion since he was the one who was willing to believe entirely without proof
that the report applied to his country.
Is it the case that we are too willing to believe
the worst about our country; that we have come to believe that any set of
negative statistics is applicable to Nigeria? Has our pessimism become so
ultimately chronic and self-defeating that positive news about Nigeria is no
longer intelligible to us?
The rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP which has provoked
so much needless disputation is essentially a statistical adjustment factoring
in dimensions of her economic life that were previously not included in the
measurements of her economic progress. It is a statistical reboot not an
economic miracle. It is quite similar to a man who decides to revalue his
assets or to recalculate his worth factoring in assets that were not included
in previous valuations. His worth will rise but that does not mean that he has
a greater quantity of raw cash at his disposal. So, the arguments about how an
increased GDP puts money in our individual pockets, while understandable, miss
the point.
In summary, the rebasing of the GDP is a good
thing; it is not a bad thing. It is an economic map that profiles our strengths
and weaknesses and is therefore a valuable tool for data-driven economic
planning. It isn’t something for which we should break out champagne and
caviar; but in no way does it call for sackcloth and ashes. There is neither
need for triumphalism nor negativism. It just puts our economic progress in
perspective. What matters is how we respond to this new data; whether we rest
on our oars in a self-satisfied stupour or consolidate on it and strike out
boldly to enhance our strengths and remedy our weaknesses. There is much work
to be done.
A nation is always more than one story; it is a
multitude of narratives. This is more so when dealing with a population of over
a 100 million people, with diversities, frictions and fault lines of race,
religion, ethnicity or culture. India, for example, is one of the emerging
market success stories of the past decade but is also dealing with multiple
insurgencies and security threats including those posed by Hindu extremists, Jihadists
and Maoist guerillas.
The United States has about five percent of the
world’s population and has 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Its
criminal justice and penitentiary system disproportionately “targets”
African-Americans and Hispanics. Yet for all of this it calls itself “the land
of the free.” We will find similar contradictions in Brazil, China, Indonesia
and Malaysia; in short in any country that is growing with the burden of
managing the aspirations of millions.
Nigeria’s most readily recognizable narrative is
of a place rife with corruption, poverty and violence but there is also growth
and opportunity. Being cognizant of the former need not blind us to the latter.
Remember, a nation is always more than one story. There is more to this country
at this moment than Boko Haram or corrupt politicians; there are also millions
of people who are creating, inventing, teaching, peacemaking, trading, curing,
innovating; and addressing our challenges in a variety of ways. They too are
Nigerians even though their feats rarely make the daily headlines.
The history of a nation is not the history of its
government alone; it is also of its people. And more than anything else, it is
the exertions of Nigerians since 1990 that have altered the face of the
Nigerian economy. It is the exertions of Nigerians that will continue to propel
our progress not only in economics but also in our politics.
(All images sourced online)
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