At the 2019 End of Year Thanksgiving Service which took place at the Aso Villa Chapel, the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, in his goodwill message to Nigerians drew inspiration from Psalm 65 verse 11. According to the erudite professor of law, he says “God is going to crown this year-the end of this year, with His goodness and with abundance and he will give us the fattest of the land in the mighty name of Jesus. I believe very strongly that God is going to bless this land and prosper the land.” I was motivated by the word prosperity to say a resounding amen at the end of the prayer.
After paying attention to a powerful prayer from the man of God, I saw a ray of hope. A ray of hope because I want to be prosperous. Indeed, all Nigerians wants to be prosperous. It is good to have hope. But I am convinced beyond measure that hope is not a strategy in governance. When I look at the figures provided in the Q3 report of the National Bureau of Statistics, the conclusions drawn from figures contained within do not tally with the assertion that the year of our Lord 2019 will end in abundance in Nigeria. Where will the abundance come from with an economy struggling to grow at 2.1 percent when the population growth is about 2.6 percent? How are we going to tackle the soaring unemployment rate which is expanding faster than the rate of job creation? So, with these few challenges, how do we expect abundance in the next 21 days when 2019 will come to an end? I know that God is a miracle worker and very glorious, but certainly not a magician.
When one observes nations that understand the mechanism of the world, they do not allow their economies to go out of control. Their leaders know that once an economy goes out of order, controlling it becomes a huge problem. Today, a few nations particularly in Europe, Asia, and America are taking charge of their economies, while most sub Saharan African countries struggle to control their economies. Poor countries are poor not because of their geographies or cultures, or because their leaders do not know which policies will enrich their citizens, according to some political economists. They argue, however that prosperity and poverty are determined by the incentives created by institutions, and it is politics that determines what institutions a nation has.
The first country to experience sustained economic growth was Great Britain. The growth emerged slowly in the eighteenth century as industrial revolution occasioned by technological breakthroughs and their application in industry took root. Industrialisation in Great Britain spread to Western Europe and the United States. Other countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand tapped from the anointing of the English prosperity. It was the prosperity of the latter three countries that gingered Japan, South Korea and Singapore to work towards achieving prosperity. China, India, Taiwan, and Indonesia and a host of other countries in Asia have experienced rapid economic growth.
There is inequality in the world. If you make a list of poorest thirty-five countries in the world today, you will find that almost 80 percent are from sub-Saharan Africa. In that league of poor nations, we have countries like Afghanistan, Haiti and Nepal, though not in Africa, all share poverty with most African countries. If you engage a time traveller who visited these countries fifty years ago on contract to move round same countries today, it is likely that the overall picture that emerged then would almost be the same as what it is currently. But for oil, some Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirate would have been poor. But not as poor as those in sub-Saharan Africa.
When experts say that Nigeria should carryout political and economic reforms that will delete the name from the list of poor nations, they do so in the interest of the country.
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So, why has sub-Saharan African nations failed to achieve sustained economic growth seen in Western Europe, while much of East Asia has experienced rapid rates of economic growth? Some leading academics have answered this question. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their book Why Nations Fail- The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, argue elegantly that for nations to prosper, citizens need “inclusive institutions” which create virtuous circles of innovation, economic expansion and more widely-held wealth. They argue further that tropical diseases obviously cause much suffering and high rates of infant mortality in Africa, but they are not the reason why Africa is poor.
Disease, they affirm, is largely a consequence of poverty and of government being unable or unwilling to undertake the public health measures necessary to eradicate them. England in the 19th Century was reported to be a very unhealthy place, but the government gradually invested in clean water, in the proper treatment of sewage and waste, and eventually, in an effective health service. Improved health and life expectancy were not the cause of England economic success but one of the fruits of its previous political and economic changes.
When experts say that Nigeria should carryout political and economic reforms that will delete the name from the list of poor nations, they do so in the interest of the country. Has there been any occasion when those in any government- military or civilian- ask why agricultural output per acre is so low in many African countries? Again, experts argue that low agricultural productivity has little to do with soil quality. “Rather, it is a consequence of the ownership structure of the land and the incentives that are created for farmers by the government and institutions which they live.”
Or how can one explain that differences in agricultural productivity is responsible for world inequality. The inequality we all see today in contemporary world is as a result of uneven dissemination of industrial technologies and manufacturing production. Essentially, inequality in modern world largely results from the uneven dissemination and adoption of technologies.
(To be continued)
