All is not well with Nigeria

The public acknowledgement made recently by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the co-ordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, (at a dialogue session with the private sector under the auspices of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group), of the growing inequality in the country and the current poor job creating capacity in the economy irrespective of the impressive economic growth figures recorded, and celebrated by the federal government shows vividly that all is not well with the Nigerian economy.

With growth figures reaching 6.81 per cent as at last quarter, up from 6.61 recorded for 2013, Okonjo –Iweala did state that “inequality is high and rising… there is lack of inclusion. We are growing, but the small percent of the population is capturing most of this growth. In Nigeria, it is clear that the top 10 percent of the population is capturing most of the growth there is and the people at the bottom are being left behind.”

It must be said that one of the features of badly governed polities is the inability of the leadership of such polities to spread benefits or dividends across all strata, thus empowering and entrenching just a few at the expense of the majority. This has been the sad story of Nigeria.

We consider Okonjo-Iweala’s recent public acceptance of this Nigerian dilemma as belated and a clear testimony of the extent that public officers or the leadership class go on in self adulation by posting phantom achievements that have no relationship with the real conditions of Nigerians.

However, we commend Ngozi Okonjo Iweala for at least confirming what observers and critics have always said about the charade of governance in Nigeria. With heavy public sector corruption, a leadership that treats such corruption with kids’ glove, and a pattern of governance that creates and sustains prebends, the gulf of inequality will continue to widen.

On job creation, we are disturbed that even without creating new jobs through interventionist government programmes, the usual job openings that arise in the course of the normal operations of businesses cannot be filled by poorly skilled manpower evident in the poor quality of products of the country’s tertiary institutions. The growing skills gap in the country is indeed one major reason for the growth of unemployment and a hindrance to job creation.

That the current federal government allowed public Universities to go on for over five months without academic activities shows that there exists a poor understanding of the correlation between education, skills development and job creation.

We advise that the economic team of the federal government, the federal executive council, and the presidency should do a critical review of the economy and society of Nigeria with a view to devising more realistic ways of making every Nigerian feel the pulse of economic growth in their standard of living.

True governance is about improving the quality of lives across strata and providing virtually every member of society with the opportunity to live better lives. Successive governments in the country seem to have missed this purpose of governance, and are steeped in the pursuit of parochial, short-sighted, selfish and ephemeral agenda that make a mockery of true governance.