Rich nation, poor people: What has democracy got to do with it?

A street beggar with her children at Iwo Road in Ibadan

Nigeria, which is entering its sixth republic today, is a nation of many contradictions;  home to mega rich few individuals, yet has millions wallowing in an unimaginable degree of poverty. It is one of the top 10 oil producing countries, yet grapples with energy crisis, has first-rated and internationally acclaimed professionals, but is ruled by the dregs. EMMANUEL ADENIYI, in this report, examines the Nigerian nation, its economy and scores of gnawing issues about its wealth and palpable poverty of its people.

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

TY Bello, a Nigerian musical artiste, is a quintessence of creativity and artistic wizardry. Noted for her sonorous voice and the richness of her insightful lyrics, she has several times crooned alluring songs about Nigeria and its people. In one of her albums, Green Land, the nightingale painted the country in glowing colours and sang, “This land is green, is green for me. This land is green, is green can’t you see?”

One would definitely be under a misapprehension to counteract the artiste’s submission about the “greenness” of Nigeria, though the prevailing circumstances in Africa’s most populous country seem to be pointing to the contrary. Is Nigeria really rich? Has its wealth trickled down to the largest number of the populace who appear to be poverty personified?

With a population of about 151.9 million, $369.8 billon GDP (PPP), (CIA- The World Factbook, 2011), $2,249 per capita (GDP), over $76.398 billion exports (2010 est.), oil revenue of  $59 billion, 28.6 per cent unemployment rate, soaring inflation, over 65 per cent of its populace living below poverty line and life expectancy of its average citizen put at 47.56 years, Nigeria, to experts in national planning, has not fared well in many respects.

Equally disturbing is what keen watchers of the nation’s political economy have described as the existence of chasm and total disconnect between the nation’s democratic experience and delivery of democratic dividends to Nigerians.

Though experts have established a nexus between good governance, robust economy and good living standards of people, Nigerians, despite the much touted democratic governance that returned to their country 12 years ago, have not had it real good.

When in 2010 the United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, expressed her disgust at the poor management of Nigeria’s enormous resources and lack of purposeful leadership in the country, many Nigerians, especially government officials, took a swipe at her and described her comment as a mere vituperation of a diplomat having little understanding of the country’s socio-economic and political peculiarities.

Mrs. Clinton, at a town hall meeting in Abuja, had declared point blank that there was a need to recognise the fact that “...in the last 10 years, a lot of (the) indicators about quality of life in Nigeria have gone the wrong direction.”

Though her remarks were greeted with scathing counter reactions, the high ranking US diplomat helped to speak the minds of Nigerians that all is not well with the state of Nigerian nation.

According to the 2011 index of Economic Freedom, a publication of the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, Nigeria is ranked 111th in the world behind Gabon which is ranked 110th.  The publication examined 10 different components of Nigeria’s economy to determine whether the country is economically free or its economy is still tied to the apron strings of the state. 

Components examined include: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption and labour freedom. 

Economic Freedom notes, “Nigeria economic freedom score is 56.7, making its economy the 111th freest in the 2011 Index.  Its score is 0.1 point lower than last year, reflecting declines in half of the 10 economic freedoms.  Nigeria is ranked 18th out of 46 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, and its overall score is below the world average.” 

The publication had previously ranked Nigeria as “...mostly unfree economy due to high trade barriers, heavy regulation and excessive government intervention, (while) instability and misguided economic policies have curtailed investment outside of the oil sector.”

With billions of naira realised from its daily oil export, many people believe the nation is rich while its resources, if well utilised, could boost its economy and wipe off poverty among its people.

Different surveys carried out by professional bodies within and outside the country have however proved that endemic poverty prevails in Nigeria.  Many people, across the country, are said to be living in pitiable conditions, while an army of unemployed persons roams the streets in search of jobs.  Decadent infrastructures, ethno-religious uprisings and corruption are said to have nearly grounded the country.

If Nigeria is rich, what about its teeming populace?  Why are Nigerians poor, despite the wealth of their country?  Could the attitude of an average Nigerian person increase his susceptibility to poverty, in view of the belief that some Nigerians exude indolence, complacency and profligacy?

“What about corruption and bad leadership as well as the nation’s political space and the socio-economic complexities of the nation that allow concentration of wealth in few hands and leave majority grappling with abject poverty?  What is wrong with the Nigerian nation?

Answering some of these posers, the President of Nigeria Voters Assembly, Comrade Mashood Erubami, described Nigeria as a paradox having huge resources in human and material wealth with weak and very poor citizenry. 

He attributed the palpable imbalances in Nigeria’s wealth distribution to “corruption, unfocused leadership, (and) poverty of material wealth, idea and courage which have become prevalent in the country,” adding that the inability of the nation’s political leadership to move from government to governance and make people focus on development has left masses of the nation in a tight corner.

“Year in and out, Nigerians filed out to vote, their  votes  were not made to count.  The people voted for by the masses are made to pursue justice in the courts and tribunals  while losers are sworn in with fraudulent and unrestricted access to the commonwealth of the people assuming unbridled power of life and death over the people.

“In this respect, democracy has been redefined as government of some people, by some hoodlums for some charlatans.  This is the real context which has made the making of democratic profit impossible, preventing the sharing of dividends of democracy to compensate for the investment of the people in the electoral process.

“Corruption and unemployment represent two very obstacles to development, while poverty and hunger are twin brothers that militate against human sustainable empowerment, making life miserable for people.

“Nigerian people have suffered untold hardship in the hands of selfish politicians which by their attitude have shown common enmity to the people.  Since 1999, there has not been any gain of democratic rule, reasons being that no democracy has been put into the rule. 

“It is the craziness in the demon that has prevailed all through, imposing legislative boxers and wrestlers who do not have the spirit of service to the people but to fight for their selfish ends,” Erubami said.

In his views, Chief Nathaniel Oke, (SAN), said the ongoing democratic experience had had positive impacts on Nigerians, noting that the country is rich but there is no “just and equitable distribution of her wealth in such a way that all and sundry will be beneficiaries. 

Government cannot employ all but can provide an enabling environment that will encourage self employment.  Moral value has been debased and as such corruption will continue to thrive.  We have to go back to the basics.”

According to the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Rotimi Akeredolu, (SAN), the level of poverty witnessed in the country presently should not be there in view of the enormity of material and human resources with which the nation is endowed.  He added that Nigeria’s democratic experience, since it commenced 12 years ago, had left people more impoverished.

“A lot of money has come into this country from oil, yet we have nothing to show for it, except  for the fact that we are running big government that is taking a lot of money.  The government of this country must be focused.  The incoming government must reorder its priority. 

"They must be committed to programmes that will improve the lives of majority of our people.  No doubt, one of such is the provision of stable energy.  If we improve our infrastructures, average people will benefit from it, as they will not have to run their businesses on generators.

“The government should focus its attention on providing good health, good roads and education.  They don’t have to embark on grandiose projects, but these basic ones that will touch everybody must be addressed,” he declared.

Speaking about the attitude of Nigerian person and his penchant for white collar jobs, his habits of indolence, complacency and misplaced priority, the legal pundit said this was so because “our values are perverted. 

We are lacking in values that even the rich ones among us are enticed by titles.  The psyche of Nigerians has been so pummeled that you are not able to decipher the difference between things that are necessary or not.  There is a need for a reorientation of the people and to reorder our values, and that can only be done by a good leadership.  A good leadership can set an example.”

He, therefore, advised President Goodluck Jonathan not to fritter away the goodwill he enjoys among Nigerians, urging him to be focused and bring in young men with bright ideas into his government rather than recycling individuals who contributed to the woes of the country.

In his reaction, Professor Niyi Osundare said Nigeria had a democratic system without a democracy, adding that genuine democracy means touching the citizenry of a country positively through good programmes that could turn around their lives.

In his words, “Let our politicians ask the people of Nigeria if their lives are better now in 2011 than they were in 1999 when they started this journey? I don’t know how many people will be able to say yes.

“Things are deteriorating every year. Our educational system was bad in 1999, now it is disastrous. The economy has not recovered from the meltdown of two years ago. All other countries have been recovering.  The Nigerian Stock Exchange has been down in the doldrums for about three years. All the indices of development are pointing down.

“My colleagues, who come from other countries, always ask, how can you say your country is so rich yet your people are poor? The answer is very simple; a few Nigerians are criminally rich, while the majority of us who are poor are criminally poor.

“The poverty of the majority has become opulence of the few rich. The question is, the few rich who are among us, how have they come about their wealth? Who are the people who cut their way to the oil block? Who are the people who participate in the bunkering of the Nigeria’s oil?

“What about the legislative members? The Senators, representatives, right down to the local government, look at the money they have allocated to themselves. Almost half of the Nigeria’s resources are being squandered on the political class, and this is a very unproductive political class, yet they call themselves guardians of our democracy.

“A Nigerian senator earns more than the President of the United States of America. What can be more criminal than that? Democracy does not run the way it is being run in Nigeria.

"How many of our legislators are literate enough to know the difference between a bill and law, but look at the money they earn? Let me say this that the worst democratic government is better than the best military government.

“If we are being ruled in this foul way, it is because we as citizens have not shown enough interests in our rights. Let Nigerians be interested in the way they are ruled. Let them refuse to be coerced or be persuaded into rigging elections. Let them start to ask questions.

“The politicians take us for granted because they know we are mumus.  Few people who ask questions are called mad people. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Nigerian people need to be more vigilant, because there is no democracy without the people. Nigeria’s democracy is the democracy of the elite. It is lootocracy or kleptocracy, government by thieves,” the professor said.

Dr. Ayo Teriba, a Lagos-based economic consultant, also described Nigeria as a rich nation judging from the size of its oil export and non-oil exports, but said the failure of the democratic experiment in the country to reposition Nigerians for development had put some people in the country at a disadvantage position. 

He said the warped structure of Nigeria’s socio-economic space had birthed and empowered few public office holders and their cronies to convert public wealth to private use.

When asked whether the Nigerian educational system should be restructured to prepare Nigerian youths for the challenges and vagaries of the nation’s economy, a don in the University of Ilorin, Dr. Saheed Abegunde, advocated a change in Nigeria’s educational curriculum to accommodate the teaching of subjects such as simple economics, social education and other core subjects that would prepare students for challenges ahead and probably make them to be self-employed.

“It is not true to say that there are no jobs in Nigeria.  There are jobs, but our students, our youths are not qualified for the available jobs.  People go to universities to study courses that are not complaint with our economy, and they keep complaining of being unemployed. 

“There are jobs in oil and gas sectors, but Nigerians are not educated for the jobs.  Most of the unemployed who roam the streets are graduates of almost irrelevant courses.  Who will employ them in an economy that is service driven?” he asked.

Though the Federal Government has reeled out several promises to tackle poverty in the land, Nigerians seem to have taken the promises with a pinch of salt, in view of what some of them called government’s insensitivity to the plight of the masses and its habit of reneging and failing to deliver on its promises.

Just a couple of days ago, President Goodluck Jonathan, at the 2011 Presidential Inauguration Lecture in Abuja, told the audience that his government meant well for Nigeria, saying that was why he insisted on conducting free and fair elections. Speaking on A Transformation Agenda for Accelerating National Development, the president disclosed that it was necessary that leaders derived their powers from the electorate and not through shady means.

In his words, “When I took over and I was confronted with this issue of election and I promised that elections must be credible, free and fair. As a sitting president, I knew I had the instrument of aggression and other advantages more than any other person but I said I was going to make sure elections are free and fair and I didn’t care if I was voted out because to me either left or right, I will make a name.

“If I won the election, I would make a name and if I was voted out I will make a name in Africa that I was a sitting president that was voted out and when I inaugurated the INEC chairman I told him to make sure that the elections were credible.

“From what the legal adviser of PDP told me some weeks ago, the number of election litigations compared to 2007 have dropped to over 80 per cent and that shows that even in terms of electoral process we are transforming.

“We are going somewhere just because of the little changes we have made we were able to reduce litigation with over 80 per cent. I believe in 2015 we will reduce it by 95 per cent and as we progress in the next 20 years, going to court after election will be a thing of the past,” President Jonathan said.

He also spoke on the imperative of national transformation, noting that it was a sine qua non if the nation must move forward. According to him, “For there to be meaningful transformation in the country, there is need for planning… We are working with the National Assembly, and I believe as we progress in the transformation agenda we will close up this gap and whenever we take up a particular change we will follow it up.”

President Jonathan, however, refused to agree that the major problem the nation is facing is corruption but greed, saying everybody contributes to the rottenness in the land “when one person alone wants to amass the money that his entire generation cannot spend.”

One of the sixth National Assembly senators, who craved anonymity, however, blamed the poverty witnessed in the land on maladministration and lack of foresight of Nigeria’s leaders. The senator, who failed in his re-election bid, disclosed that the situation would continue for years, except government and the political class demonstrate enough willingness to end poverty in the land.

Whether Nigeria is rich or not, the three tiers of government have the responsibility to ensure the wellness of the country and its people.  Government should also know that nothing good comes from poverty and there is no scandal like rags, or any crime so shameful as poverty.

This story was published on May 29th, 2011 to commemorate the 12th anniversary of democracy in Nigeria.

NB: SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria)