Merely by its serial doomsday prognostications on the Nigerian economy, it is probably safe to assume that the World Bank’s cup – in the eyes of the Nigerian government – will now be full and running over. If you consider that the bank, and its Breton Woods cousin, the IMF, have been running their mouth over just about every matter Nigerian – from its unsustainable debts burden to negative social indices, you will understand why the federal government not only goes cagey each time the global institution trains its searchlight on the country’s affairs but would go as far as putting out a disclaimer.
Guess you already know what our dear president thinks about the World Bank and their figures. In case you don’t, here is what he said not too long ago about the World Bank and IMF: “Today, most of the statistics quoted about Nigeria are developed abroad by the World Bank, IMF and other foreign bodies…Some of the statistics we get relating to Nigeria are wild estimates and bear no relation to the facts on the ground”. In other words, the stats are spurious!
Spurious or not, here is the latest offering taken from the bank’s website – last updated in October: “Growth averaged 1.9% in 2018 and remained stable at 2% in the first half of 2019…Growth is too low to lift the bottom half of the population out of poverty. The weakness of the agriculture sector weakens prospects for the rural poor, while high food inflation adversely impacts the livelihoods of the urban poor. Despite expansion in some sectors, employment creation remains weak and insufficient to absorb the fast-growing labor force, resulting in high rate of unemployment (23% in 2018), with another 20% of the labor force underemployed. Furthermore, the instability in the North and the resulting displacement of people contribute to the high incidence of poverty in the North East”.
And the grim conclusion: Without significant structural policy reforms, Nigeria’s medium-term growth is projected to remain stable around 2%. Given that the economy is expected to grow more slowly than the population, living standards are expected to worsen….”
Now, say what you may of this rather unflattering prognosis, I wager that most Nigerians would readily agree that the signs are neither deniable nor are the symptoms overstated. Whereas the most excitable ones among us cite the World Poverty Clock as sufficient proof that poverty has found a new capital in the biggest economy on the continent, the greater majority would appear to be in wonder if indeed those behind the clock are not light years behind in their reading. In any case, the latest and perhaps by far the most brutal putdown of the acclaimed deliverables of governance by no less a personality than the First Lady Hajia Aisha Buhari at the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) General Assembly and National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja recently has more than validated what the World Bank has been saying all these while.
Her words: “We should either fasten our seatbelts and do the needful or we will all regret it very soon because, at the rate things are going, things are getting completely out of hand.”
“People”, she went on, “cannot afford potable water in this country while we have governors. Since this is the highest decision-making body of Islamic affairs, for those that are listening, we should fear God, and we should know that one day, we will return to God and account for our deeds here on earth.”
And now, as if that was not already damning enough, the global institution in its latest Nigeria Economic Update released on December 2, puts Nigeria’s low ranking on the Human Capital Index on the poor quality of education or inadequate learning. In a section ‘Financing Human Capital Development: Basic Education’, the bank says “Inadequate learning has contributed to Nigeria’s low rank on the Human Capital Index of 0.34, placing the country at 152 out of 157″. In other words, our country is sixth worst nation on earth based on the HCI survey. In this, it shares the ignoble spots with Chad, South Sudan, Niger, Mali and Liberia in that order.
Read Also: Aisha Buhari, World Bank and the Nigerian condition
Talk of the Nigerian nightmare; we know precisely what these are. The first is spiraling, uncontrolled population. At current grow levels of 2.6 percent per annum at a time the economy is sub 2 percent, some reckon that it would take 31 years for the Malthusian dilemma – defined as the survival of the fittest – to set upon us. By that time, the country would have it 402 million in population – nearly twice the current population!
Think of the other part of the story – the extremely poor investment in basic education and vocational training. Whereas our leaders have mastered the refrain about the 10 – point something million kids currently out of school, there’s yet nothing of a matching strategy to clear the mess. Like an element on a typical party manifesto, it seems sufficient for our leaders to kick the problem down the road, or in some instances, deploying it, as one will, as talking points in a public forum. Just imagine what would happen in say, 20 or 30 years’ time without a matching attention to the unfolding tragedy!
Add to this the 1.9 million-odd admission seekers into the nation’s tertiary institutions. Once we thought JAMB was the problem; then came Post-JAMB and other devices meant to keep those hapless children out of the elite class. And then, we had tertiary institutions mushrooming, Nigerian style only to find that the supply can’t match the pace of demand. And now, we have settled on how to get Prof Ishaq Oloyede and his crew at JAMB to fix the 1.9 million kids in the 520,000 available spaces!
And so we hear unemployment – more so youth unemployment – is a ticking bomb; I say it’s probably worse. But then, it is a symptom of the profound structural maladies in our society. It is a vicious circle, no doubt. Imagine the same kids denied places in high schools and yet can’t find room in vocational schools to learn skills in a world that is increasingly finicky about skills.
I understand the frenetic pace of investment in highways and railroads. However, we need to do more in the area of putting our kids in school and training them in appropriate skills. There is no other way to guarantee the future that we all desire. Without deliberate efforts to match the pace of physical development with the human components, even the current modest efforts in infrastructural development, sooner than later, come to naught. The great Singaporean leader, Lee Kuan Yew learnt this early via the globally acclaimed transition of his tiny country from third to first world. That to me is the wisdom in the World Bank position.
Leave a Reply