Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and the world’s 27th largest economy, is something of an enigma. Don King, the late American broadcasting icon, once lamented that Nigeria imports what it has and exports what it lacks.
King was derisively alluding to Nigeria’s dependence on imported refined petroleum products which it should have abundantly as a leading crude oil exporter, and its strange promotion of democracy in war-torn Sierra Leone when it was ruled by a kleptomaniac military despot named Sani Abacha.
Nigeria at that time as a crude oil exporter was importing refined petroleum products. It had no democracy, but it was exporting it to Sierra Leone as Abacha worked frantically to conduct elections in the war-torn country.
When king made that assessment, Nigeria’s four refineries were lumbering at about 40 per cent of their installed capacities. Nigeria was importing less than 60 per cent of its refined petroleum products.
Today the refineries run at less than five per cent of their installed capacities. Nigeria now imports 95 per cent of the refined petroleum products it consumes. In the 1990s when that fitting conclusion was drawn about the world’s 27th largest economy, it was exporting democracy, an invisible commodity it desperately needed.
Today it is exporting jobs even as 45 per cent of its bustling youthful population is jobless and inauspiciously resorting to armed robbery, kidnappings and banditry as means of livelihood.
With its near-total dependence on imported refined petroleum products, Nigeria exports thousands of jobs in the petrochemical and refinery industries to the countries producing the white products it consumes. Nigeria as an enigma leads the world in most of the negative economic and social indices.
With a population 1.1 billion less than that of India, it replaced India in 2018 as the country with the world’s largest number of extremely poor people.
With 13.5 million children of school age hawking all sorts of wares at city traffic gridlocks, Nigeria is cursed with the world’s highest number of out-of-school children.
Nigeria has the world’s highest cases of malaria, the deadly disease that kills six children every minute. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently announced that El-Salvador, an impoverished central American country with a scant gross domestic product (GDP) of $27 billion, has eliminated malaria within its domain.
El-Salvador’s victory over malaria is the outcome of 50 years of persistent budgetary allocations to the campaign. Nigeria has no plans to eradicate or even prevent malaria.
With 814 deaths in every 100, 000 live births, Nigeria has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate. It accounts for 20 per cent of world maternal deaths. It also has one of the world’s highest infant mortality rates.
Bill Gates, the world’s richest man who has spent a good chunk of his fortune fighting malaria and HIV-AIDS in Nigeria once listed Nigeria as one of the most dangerous countries to have a baby.
The prodigious philanthropist was tragically prophetic. Nigeria’s lean health budget has transformed the country into a maternal and infant killing field. In some frenzied years, Nigeria allocates a scant 3.5 per cent of its lean budget to its tottering healthcare delivery system when the World Health Organisation (WHO), demands a minimum of 15 per cent. A huge chunk of the lean allocation slips into the pockets of corrupt government officials leaving the hospitals and primary healthcare centers ill-equipped and under-staffed.
Two weeks ago Nigeria added yet another accolade to its endless string of deleterious firsts. Unemployment rate hit the 33.3 percent mark making Nigeria second only to Namibia among the 80 countries monitored by Bloomberg.
The race between Nigeria and Namibia in unemployment rate is a tight one. Namibia leads with a negligible 0.1 per cent as it chalks up unemployment rate of 33.4 per cent against Nigeria’s 33.3 per cent.
Namibia’s narrow lead would certainly be depleted as Nigeria’s obdurate insecurity and eternal darkness combine to drive away jobs from the rich country. When the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announces its next unemployment figures, Nigeria would be sitting comfortably on top of the world with the highest unemployment rate.
Nigeria’s treacherous unemployment rate is the consequence of years of unparalleled corruption, avoidable insecurity crisis, epileptic power supply and corruption-ridden multiple exchange rate system.
The insurgents in the north-east have practically driven the peasant farmers producing 70 per cent of Nigeria’s food items out of the farms because corruption takes the army to the battle field with its hands tied to the back. Last November, the terrorists slashed the throats of 70 farmers without anyone in the army raising a finger in protest.
After that, few would dare the Islamic lunatics by entering the farms. Consequently, the rice farmers themselves have joined millions of restive youths in a boisterous labour market. The unemployment rate is just beginning to rise.
Nigeria’s eternal darkness is primarily at the root of the unemployment time-bomb which is already exploding in the north by way of unmitigated banditry and kidnappings.
The illiterate and unskilled graduates of Al-majiri schools are now venting their anger on a failed fatherland that deprived them of education and skill acquisition in the guise of religious fanaticism.
Many Nigerians can create jobs for themselves if the government can supply power for an average of 15 hours a day. The power supply situation is so abysmal that it has frustrated welders, barbers and even shoemakers and fashion designers who produce with sophisticated sewing machines powered by electricity. Their joblessness is the consequence of a failed power system which no one knows how to rehabilitate.
Nigeria can fight its alarming unemployment by leveraging on the yawning deficit in the housing industry. Nigeria has a 17 million housing deficit which leaves millions of compatriots living under bridges and slums created by a dangerous rural- urban drift.
The property industry can create thousands of jobs if government abandons its bizarre approach to housing development.
One of the handicaps to housing development in Nigeria is the failed mortgage system. About 90 per cent of Nigerians depend on their personal savings to build their houses rather than taking mortgage loans with 20 years’ repayment period.
Nigeria’s mortgage industry is in an advanced stage of financial asphyxiation. Its capitalization is a scant one per cent of GDP when South Africa musters a mortgage industry with 34 per cent of GDP.
Unemployment is here to stay. It is the product of the one-handed economy promoted by the government.
