According to Chinua Achebe, It’s difficult not to agree. The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else.
From Daron Acemoglu’s school of thought, he believed there is less political inclusion in Africa.
In Paul Collier’s View; he opined that we suffer from several resource curses.
Don urges FG to increase support for locally fabricated machines
Train attack: Humanitarian minister sympathises with victims
In the words of Jeff Sachs, Aid given to Africa is not enough. Interestingly though not new to the field of economics.
Jared Diamond offers his insight by identifying Geography, Weather, and the physical position of Africa on the Globe as the problem.
Dudley Seer memorably put it like this: The questions to ask about a country’s development are therefore:
1. What has been happening to poverty?
2. What has been happening to unemployment?
3. What has been happening to inequality?
If all three of these have declined from high levels, then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned.
If one or two of these 3 problems have been growing worse, especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’, even if per capita income had doubled.”
Nigeria, with our high population growth rate poor income inequality, high poverty rates, a high number of unengaged, unemployed, and untrained youths, poor leadership, misplacement of priorities, incompetent drivers of development…
if we want to get it right, then we need to humanize development for the sake of humanity. We can only humanize development with a competent LEADER as a Driver of Development.
One more thing! We need to lift our millions out of poverty. Do you know why? There is a nexus between conflict and poverty.
In Achebe’s words, a Nation that enshrines mediocrity as its modus operandi, and creates the fertile ground for the rise of tyrants and other base elements of the society, by silently assenting to the dismantling of systems of excellence because they do not immediately benefit one specific ethnic, racial, political, or special-interest group.
That, in my humble opinion, is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today!
In Chinua Achebe’s last book, there was a Country, that chapter titled “State Failure and The Rise of Terrorism” is what is in my mind now.
