A
former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has attributed the
rising poverty in Nigeria to poor governance and the monotonous economic
structure of the country.
Ezekwesili described the country as an
African paradox with the land rich in natural resources but a large
percentage of her citizens poor.
The former World Bank Vice President for
Africa said bad governance, which had manifested through corruption,
was responsible for the poor economic performance of the country.
Ezekwesili, who spoke on Tuesday at the
opening ceremony of the 2013 Port Harcourt Book Festival in the Rivers
State capital, observed that Nigeria had been unable to translate the
huge natural resources at her disposal to the improvement of her
citizens’ living standard.
She said that 69 percent of over 100 million Nigerians were living within the poverty bracket
She said, “Nigeria is perhaps the best
known example of the African paradox. It is a country which has
struggled with the development process over the last 53 years of her
independence.
“As the 6th largest producer of oil in
the world, it has earned more than half a trillion dollars in oil export
since the discovery of that commodity in the South-South region of this
country where we are gathered today.
“Unfortunately, the massive revenue from
oil has been a source of enormous sorrow to citizens due to poor
government by our political elite over the many decades since its
discovery.”
The ex-minister added, “Nigeria has
therefore tragically failed to translate her rich resource endowment to
improvement in the standard of living of her citizens hence we today
have 69 percent of over 100 million of our citizens in the poverty
bracket, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of
Statistics.
“The poor governance or its more
virulent manifestation, public corruption, is of course the fundamental
reason for Nigeria’s poor economic performance despite our globally
acknowledged economic potentials to have become not just one of the
largest economies of the world, but in fact, one of the most prosperous
of those countries.
“There is no better saying of the
governance failure in our nation than the relatively unchanged structure
of the economy of Nigeria since our independence; and it is the rapid
change of the structure of an economy that determines the level of
economic growth, development and prosperity that would happen. In our
case, it has remained relatively unchanged.”
Ezekwesili lamented that while Asian
economies had experienced significant growth in economic prosperity,
countries in Africa had failed to develop economically.
She expressed the need for African countries to search for other sources of development in order to improve the poor.
“At 48 percent of the continent’s
population surviving on a mere $1.25 a meal, it is urgent that the
economies of Africa should find new sources of growth to the present
crop of the poor,” Ezekwesili added.
Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi said his administration would soon construct a N3bn administrative village.
“We are building a Creative Village at
present and it is going to cost N3bn. In the village, there will be a
public library, a theatre and a cafe, among other facilities,” he said.
Amaechi said the public library was part
of the government’s effort to promote the reading culture in Rivers
State, adding that Shell has promised to contribute to the funding of
the project.
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