Nigeria economic growth dependent on a caring environment – Ezekwesili

Former education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, has declared that Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa by GDP can only attain true economic growth if the government earnestly implement sound policies, strong institutions and efficient and effective public and private investment.

Ezekwesili, who observes that the missing link between a developed country and developing nation is the caring co-efficient such country leaders adopt to drive her governance structure, stressed that only when the government of Nigeria and her citizens make such deliberate moves towards collective good of the nation would the country stand a chance to compete among the comity of nations.

Ezekwesili, while speaking at the launch of the Bunmi Adedayo Foundation in Lagos yesterday, on the topic ‘A caring society grows faster and better,’ said “Nigeria cannot achieve her full potential economically until it starts to pay attention to important matters such as sound policies, strong institutions and efficient and effective public and private investment,” which she observed had affected the collective development of the country.

She said Nigeria as a country missed the opportunity of creating a formidable national identity immediately after independence, saying, “In missing that opportunity, we have failed to form a nation with national focus.

“The inability to resolve the issue of shared national focus and identity has led to the failures we experience in our nation today.” The challenge facing the country stems from the inability of the government and her citizens to prioritise the problems identified and collectively work out possible solution that would move the nation forward, she said.

She advocated a democratisation of influence in leadership, stressing that until the country’s leadership moved away from the negative tendency of I don’t care, it would not achieve the desired development.

Ezekwesili lamented that the nation had had the misfortune of having leaders “who think only about themselves rather than those they lead.” She also observed that many citizens were not sincere in telling bad leaders the truth, as “government is not a transaction because that is what we have made it to be.”