NIGERIANS' POOR STATUS

IT is often hard to reconcile the sad, impoverished status of Nigerians with the abundant wealth of their country. The glaring paradox in the poor living conditions and the enormous resources nature has endowed the nation with has become a running gag that always draws loud guffaw whenever jokes are made by comedians about Nigeria and Nigerians. The jokes are usually made about Nigerians’ endless want in spite of its prosperity and about the citizens living in squalor despite the country’s increasing foreign reserves and its enormous mineral resources.

NIGERIA, according to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ibrahim Dankwambo, earned N1.379 trillion from crude oil in 2007. The country, it was said, profited immensely from the upward movement of crude oil prices in the preceding year. The excess earnings from crude oil, Dankwambo reported, represented 29.54 per cent of the total earnings from mineral and non-mineral revenue accruing to the Federation Account. There were other revenue sources for the government, but oil, expectedly, was the goose that continued to lay the golden eggs.

THE report of the AGF, certainly, suggests prosperity for Nigeria. But how much of this prosperity Nigerians have received is well stated in a new World Bank report, which reveals that 126 millions Nigerians live on less than $2 per day. The World Bank report puts the percentage of the population of Nigerians living well below the poverty line at 90. The report also reveals that one-third of the children population in Nigeria are malnourished and underfed.

INTERESTINGLY, the World Bank statistics reveal a slight improvement in the living conditions of Nigerians when compared with the 2007 report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The UNDP 2007 report puts the figure of Nigerians living on less than a dollar per day at 70 per cent, indicating that since 2007 there has been a slight appreciation in the economic and social conditions of the citizenry. But the slight improvement has not shot the country out of the hellhole of being one of the poorest nations in the world, in spite of its enormous mineral resources.

IMPORTANTLY, also, the World Bank report clearly suggests the failure or at best ineffectiveness of the government’s poverty eradication programme. It has discredited the statistics being bandied by the boss of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Dr Magnus Kpakol, that poverty has reduced in the country, that it is below 50 per cent.

THE pathetic picture of Nigerians painted by the World Bank through one of its officials, Ismail Radwan, is rather tragic. Nigeria, judging by its large population and its vast mineral resources, should be among the world’s best. Unfortunately, Nigeria has become a glaring example of managerial failure. The inability of successive leaders to harness the nation’s abundant human and natural endowments for national prosperity has pushed the nation down the slope of poverty and want.

THE gross ineptitude of its leadership and the criminal institutionalisation of corruption and nepotism contribute largely to the tragic descent of this hugely endowed nation. The long years of military occupation of the seat of power caused not just economic stagnation, it is in those periods that social existence depreciated dismally. The nation’s moral atmosphere was polluted with the gross irresponsibility and criminality of the ruling class. It was at the time that Nigeria was launched into its current tragic orbit.

NIGERIANS deserve a better deal than they are getting from their leaders. They deserve a life of comfort. And this much can be given to them if the nation is driven by focused, inspired and success-driven leadership. The nation’s reclining economy needs to be given a kiss of life. No nation can survive without an efficient and functioning manufacturing sector. The nation’s manufacturing sector has been in a near comatose state. Most of the companies which were operating at full capacity 20 years ago have closed shop. The few which are still managing to survive are doing so under excruciating conditions. The agonising cry of the operators in this sector and, indeed, of all Nigerians is about the nation’s energy crisis. The epileptic nature of electricity supply has been largely blamed for much of the high mortality of businesses in the country. The Yar’Adua government will re-launch Nigerians into the space of prosperity if it can solve the energy problem.

THE country also needs to strengthen the unorganised sector of the economy where the majority of the citizenry operates. The small scale entrepreneur should be supported to have access to a soft loan. The World Bank advocated the creation of “a deeper financial market” which will cater to the needs of all Nigerians at all levels of economic ladder. But such a market will not achieve much if the interest rate charged by banks on loan remains as high as it is. No society survives on such an astronomical interest rate.

THAT Nigerians live on less than $2 per day should alarm the government. It shows that not much has been achieved in terms of poverty eradication. Government’s efforts towards reactivation of the economy are also not yielding the desired results. Therefore, government will have to redouble its efforts by injecting fresh ideas into the economic revival project. It also has to tackle official corruption in government by intensifying the war on corruption. Nigerians deserve to live well.

when luck(y) ran out...

AS Nuhu Ribadu prepares his notebooks and textbooks to face his teachers at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, he should be glad that, at least, for now, the anti-graft war still appears to be on. Ibori is yet to be freed to meet his Teresa, who the Commission alleged was his partner-in-crime in the UK before they became conjugally partnered. Fayose may have been given reprieve from jail, but his trial is ongoing.

THE latest case that must delight Ribadu is the one involving the former Edo State governor, Lucky Igbinedon, who has ended his lucky run. Ribadu’s EFCC has accused the ex-governor of being a practised and talented rogue. The man returned to Nigeria on his own volition after being declared wanted and risking arrest and repatriation to Nigeria in handcuffs as a fugitive. Some volition!

THE mid-first century Roman philosopher, Seneca, said “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. Well said. Someone should have asked Seneca how to describe what happens when an alleged thieving hand meets opportunity. The Okada-born Lucky did not take the (in)famous Okada ride when he appeared at the EFCC office in Lagos. When he flew to Lagos from Abuja, he didn’t take the Air Okada either. The airline owned by his billionaire father became defunct long ago.

BUT for the kind of amazing evidence that the EFCC has been presenting in the cases of insane graft, over which, at least in one or two cases, it has secured conviction, many would have dismissed Lucky’s trial as — well, since he is a male — “wizard-hunt”! What would a man who is the heir to a vast estate denominated in billions be doing stealing public money, as Lucky is accused of having done? In the 143-count charge of money laundering and corrupt enrichment while in office between 1999 and 2007, the EFCC is figurativelly asking the court to ensure that Lucky runs out of luck. If Lucky ever needed a lucky break, it would be now.

WHEN his former “Excellency” submitted himself at the EFCC office in Lagos, he was treated like every other suspected felon. He was searched, asked to submit his mobile phone and made to register his name in the visitor’s log book. How Lucky must wish for his Protocol Director this day!

HOPEFULLY, Lucky’s trial will begin soon; but he might not be comforted by the Swedish proverb: “Luck never gives; it only lends”. And in the end, every form of “lending” requires some pay back. We wish him luck.