• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

A future stolen

Children-Nigeria

Some 7 million children were born in Nigeria in 2018, according to estimates by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund or UNICEF.

They must have brought a lot of joy to their respective parents but unfortunately UNICEF also ranks Nigeria as one of the worst places to be born due to having one of the highest infant (under one month) and maternal mortality rates in the world from largely preventable causes.

UNICEF notes that over 80 percent of new-born deaths are caused by premature births or complications during birth or infections, yet the deaths can be avoided if there is access to well-trained midwives during antenatal and postnatal visits as well as delivery at a health facility, along with proven solutions like clean water, disinfectants and breastfeeding within the first hour, among others.

For Nigerian children that do make it past the first couple of months, the future is increasingly looking uncertain and bleak.

They will be growing up in a country (Nigeria), which cannot insulate itself from the global economy (no matter how many imported goods it tries to ban) but is woefully unprepared for the far reaching changes happening in the world today.

The rise of automation, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and application of new technology will impact the jobs market over the next 20 years, just as the youngest Nigerian citizens born in 2018 are coming of age.

A 2018 survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) of members all over the world, noted that global labour markets are undergoing major transformations due to technological breakthroughs.

According to WEF four specific technological advances would drive change; ubiquitous high-speed mobile internet; artificial intelligence; widespread adoption of big data analytics; and cloud technology.

“These changes if managed wisely, could lead to an era of good work, good jobs and improved quality of life for all. Otherwise, it could pose the risk of widening skills gaps, greater inequality and broader polarization,” the WEF report said.

A cursory glance at the drivers of the coming changes shows that Nigeria is a laggard in many aspects and currently lacks the educational system or a coherent government policy to benefit from the rise of technology and tackle the potential job losses from automation even as its population is expected to continue to surge.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estimates that between 400 million and 800 million individuals could be displaced by automation and may need to find new jobs by 2030 around the world and learn new skills in the years ahead.

MGI states that the shift could be on a scale not seen since the transition of the labour force out of agriculture in the early 1900s in the United States and Europe, and more recently in China.

Nigeria meanwhile continues to run it’s largely oil fuelled (dollar earnings, FG and States budget) economy without a thought about the role of innovation, or where the next jobs will come from for its citizens.

It is a curious state of affairs, given that Saudi Arabia which produces far more oil per capita (10 million barrels a day, for a 21 million population), compared to Nigeria (2million barrels a day, for a 200 million population) is already preparing for the end of the oil age.

The Saudi government is pouring funds into education, health care and tourist resorts as part of a campaign called Vision 2030. Subsidies for citizens on basics like electricity have been cut, and more revenue is being raised with a value-added tax. Saudi Arabia has also announced plans to partly privatize its state-run oil company, Aramco, to help fund the transformation, with an IPO estimated to value Aramco at up to $2 trillion.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a report on the possible end of the oil age notes that a transportation revolution is underway that could completely transform the oil market in the coming decades, with the rise of electric vehicles and renewable energy, the way the coal market was transformed a century ago.

The IMF working paper predicts that electric cars could represent 90 percent of the stock of cars in advanced economies and more than half in emerging market economies by 2040 (just some 20 years away), and by then oil will be much cheaper than it is today, with the equivalent of $50 per barrel seeming impossible high then.

Amid all these, Nigerian leaders and economic planners continue with business as usual; exploring for oil in the Lake Chad Basin, pumping money into various intervention programmes with dubious outcomes, getting excited over tomatoes instead of a possibility of the next Apple Inc., coming from Nigeria, burning scarce resources to the tune of N1 trillion a year on fuel subsidies, and generally not having a clue about how to inspire the country to greatness.

Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund (PIF), currently has assets of about $400 billion with a target of increasing it to $600 billion by 2020, as part of the plan to reduce the economy’s dependence on oil.

Nigeria’s main sovereign wealth fund (NSIA), has assets of only $2 billion for 200 million people.

In the holy book, Proverbs 13:22, states: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.”

Perhaps a Few Good Men (in government) need to stand up and be counted, for the sake of generations of young and unborn Nigerians.

 

PATRICK ATUANYA