Keeping a nation healthy is no small business, especially when the underlying conditions that should support a decent pace of growth are non-existent.
Nigeria is blessed with so much in human and non-human resources. Still, this blessing has turned to be a curse on its inhabitants. The country’s sad tale models an ecosystem whose abundance is controlled by less than 20 percent of the entire population while more than 80 percent of the ever-increasing populace can hardly keep up with daily living.
Undoubtedly, the Nigerian authorities have been trying to give the country a decent facelift and push the entire economy out of its current gloom. They have set some broad macroeconomic targets against which the country is expected to be compared over time as far as broad-based performance is concerned. However, recent data show that the country’s responses to policy treatments have not been impressive.
Nigeria’s broad macroeconomic goals are categorised into four distinct but inter-related points: to achieve an accelerated and sustainable level of growth; maintain price stability by keeping prices below the 6 to 9 percent target; reduce unemployment to bearable levels and achieve external sector stability and competitiveness. All these are expected to be achieved through a decent mix of appropriate fiscal, monetary and trade policies.
Read Also: Nigeria’s sluggish recovery reflects weak macroeconomic fundamentals
Accessing the first goal: Achieving accelerated and sustainable growth
Nigeria’s predictably wobbling economy is expected, by policy speculation, to outperform its potential growth projection of 3.8 percent in 2021, while the real gross domestic product (RGDP) is also expected to grow faster than the population growth rate of 3.2 percent, according to reports from Financial Derivatives Company (FDC).
In all, it is expected that Nigeria will experience new growth trends that will usher in an all-inclusive form of development where every citizen will be a metric in the growth description narrative and a partaker of the growth process as well.
However, Nigeria’s current standing dictates otherwise. According to FDC data, real GDP has behaved inconsistently with policy projections. Actual 2021 growth (0.51%, Q1:2021) has significantly lagged behind the potential figures (2.5% and 1.5% according to IMF and AfDB, respectively for the year 2021). Also, it is observed that the recessionary gap has widened, and the country has earned the reputation as the world poverty capital.
According to the World Bank, Nigeria’s poverty rate stands at 40.1 percent (2019 estimate), and it is projected to jump to 45.2 percent in 2022.
In terms of life expectancy, the country is known to have the fourth lowest life expectancy globally, with an estimated 53.8 years, according to data records with the FDC.
Why Nigeria’s growth lags
Achieving a sustainable level of growth in the country seems like a shadow chase in the light of current experiences. But this has not been the case from the onset; Nigeria’s economy was once a much-coveted story from a global viewpoint, and every citizen owed his or her pride to the buoyancy of the nation.
As far back as 1980, less than one Nigerian naira equalled one United States dollar. During the time, there were volumes of exported refined petroleum leaving Nigeria to the various destination countries. The domestic automobile industry was also fully operational, with locally assembled cars, buses and trucks making up for a large percentage of vehicle production in the country.
Radio, television sets, refrigerators and air conditioners were assembled in the country, and the textile industry also boomed. Public pipe-borne water was efficiently distributed and dispensed while many household gadgets and utensils were locally produced.
The country at that time also flew her national carrier – the Nigerian Airways, which flew passengers to most places around the world. Consumption of home-grown food items in their various categories was commonplace, and most homes barely lacked what to eat per day.
In short, Nigeria produced nearly all it needed in the ’80s, and the world labelled the country blessed.
Today, nearly all production activities have gone aground while the few produced goods are carried out in the most sub-optimal ways. Export revenue from international sales of domestically produced goods have fallen drastically, foreign reserves have been heavily depleted, and the national debt burden has become a prime challenge for the nation.
Undoubtedly, a certain point to consider from these is the need for the nation to return to its productive days. If the government does not intensify efforts to return Nigeria to the days of massive industrialisation, agricultural exploration and production, as well as improve on its education and health sectors, then the economy’s performance may never be near its potential forecast.
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