When Nigeria transitioned from military to civilian rule in 1999, hope and self-confidence were resurgent among the country’s then 119.26 million people. Fifteen years of unbroken second military interregnum had devastated every aspect of national life, from infrastructure and social services to the economy. The future therefore held the alluring prospect of parlaying their recovered liberty into prosperity.
But those saddled with leadership failed woefully to rise to the occasion. Judged on the insightful summary by American author, David Frum, that “democracy is tested by its ability to deliver security, prosperity and justice,” Nigeria’s 21-year-old odyssey in civil rule has been overall, bar a few positives, a resounding failure and needs an urgent reset.
While the security of lives and property is the primary purpose of government, the Fourth Republic has delivered the exact opposite. In 1999, though there were armed robbery and restiveness in the South and occasional sectarian strife in the North, sectarian riots claimed 1,984 lives by 2018, said the Council of Foreign Relations.
Now, the country has a semblance of being at war. Large swathes of the North are under the control of terrorist insurgents and bandits. The Boko Haram terror group once held sway in 27 local government areas in three North-Eastern states, over 100,000 persons have been killed since 2009 and over two million displaced, says Kashim Shettima, the immediate past governor of Borno State. Bandits have imposed an iron grip on some communities in the North-West and North-Central states and displaced hundreds of thousands. Together with ferocious rapine by Fulani militants, Boko Haram and bandits have disrupted farming and commerce and made travelling on the highways hazardous. Nigeria moved from No. 8 position globally in incidents of kidnapping in 1999 to No. 5 in 2014, as recorded by RiskMap Report 2015. Nigerians have paid over $18 million in ransom to kidnappers in the last nine years, said SBM Intelligence.
That military personnel have been deployed in 33 of the 36 states underscores just how insecure the country has become. From zero presence of terrorists in 1999, Nigeria ranked the third most terrorised country on the Global Terrorism Index 2019, accounting for 13 per cent of all terrorism-related deaths in 2018; its 2,040 death toll surpassed those of such violent states as Somalia, Pakistan and Syria.
The consequences are far-reaching. While Brazil, China and India continued to move more people out of poverty, the country moved in the opposite direction. Whereas poverty level averaged about 54 per cent in 1999, the National Bureau of Statistics reported 112 million to be living below the UN poverty threshold. By mid-2018, the World Poverty Clock said, with its 86.9 million “extremely poor,” Nigeria had overtaken India as host to the largest number of the world’s poorest people.
Yet, the problem is not lack of resources, only lack of leadership, vision and fiscal discipline. The country is endowed with arable land, minerals and a youthful population of 33.65 million that need to be harnessed for development as countries like China, Brazil and India have done. The failure to utilise resources effectively is illustrated in figures by NEITI showing how the federal, state and local governments shared N8.15 trillion from the Federation Account in 2019, N8.52 trillion in 2018 and N6.41 trillion in 2017.
Changing the narrative requires reversing the dependence on oil and gas that still bring in 90 per cent of export revenues and 70 per cent of the budget. Agricultural exports were over 60 per cent of exports in 1965, and oil 25.9 per cent, down from over 80 per cent in 1959 and 1.7 per cent respectively, according to the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. Adult literacy at 62 per cent compares poorly with South Africa’s 87 per cent and Brazil’s 92.05 per cent. Globally, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children with 13.2 million marked down for a very bleak and uncertain future. WaterAid says 55 million persons lack access to safe water and 116 million people lack basic sanitation.
Policies to lift life expectancy from 55 years and the ranking by the World Population Review 2019 of the country 198th out of 202 countries to chase others like Singapore’s 83.5 or Egypt’s 72.06 are urgently needed.
The youth are hit very hard. For them, civil rule has been nightmarish and with a 23.1 per cent unemployment rate, the youth component is estimated at 55.4 per cent. An average young person that was born 21 years ago is likely to be unemployed and battling with grinding poverty. Despairing, the exodus of skilled and unskilled, legal and illegal immigration has risen among the youth. The number of Nigerians migrating to Canada, for instance, outstripped the number of immigrants it received from all other countries, according to the Canadian government. Hundreds of others, desperate for opportunities denied them at home, make illegal trips across the world the last resort. Legal Defence and Assistance Projects, an NGO, estimates that over 16,500 Nigerians are currently imprisoned abroad for various offences.
There has, admittedly, been some progress since. An ingenious debt buy-back scheme enabled the country to escape a decades-old external debt overhang. Privatisation freed the government from 154 state-owned loss-making enterprises and netted N2 trillion, claims the Bureau of Public Enterprises. The liberalisation of the telecoms sector has delivered 180.12 million telephone lines compared to less than 500,000 in the 40 years to 2001 and greater Internet access. From a mere $60 million prior to 2000, private investment in the sector hit $68 billion by 2016. And despite attacks on rights, people feel freer than under military rule.
But too little has been accomplished and far too little looks promising. The power sector privatisation, marred by corruption and cronyism, has not delivered the expected outcomes. Though installed power capacity has risen from under 3,000 megawatts in 1999 to over 12,522MW (USAID), actual deliverable power is just above 4,000MW. The comatose refineries and the Ajaokuta Steel Company are still firmly in state hands gulping resources and driving away investors.
Though the next few years will be critical, there are no objective indications that Nigeria’s vicious and rapacious elite will live up to the challenge. Public infrastructure that will drive economic growth, but neglected over years, has to be fixed. Experts argue that a one per cent increase in electricity consumption leads to a 1.72 per cent increase in economic growth, confirming the existence of a bidirectional causal relationship between the real GDP growth and electricity consumption in the short- and long-run terms. Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. Radically raising the number of paved roads from the current 60,000 kilometres out of 195,000km, quickly completing major highways and fixing ports and the access roads to the Apapa Ports and privatising the airports will provide mobility for the efficient movements of people and goods, as well as providing accessibility to a wide variety of commercial and social activities.
Getting governance right should be the take-off point. Smaller, less endowed countries have done better in that regard. Ghana, Rwanda, Botswana and Ethiopia have shown how leadership and effectual aspirations to global best practices lead to progress. Adult literacy in Rwanda rose from 38.2 per cent in 1978 to 73.2 per cent in 2018 and is growing at an annual rate of 12.62 per cent. According to the Brookings Institution, the country proves “that economic reforms and business-friendly policies can attract investor interest, even in small economies.”
Corruption undermines development by siphoning off resources for infrastructure and public services and by weakening the legitimacy of the state. Nigeria needs to tame corruption that has become monstrous, pervasive and seemingly unstoppable, surpassing every epoch before the Fourth Republic in its audacity.
Every Nigerian has a right to savour civil rule and actualise their group and individual potential. Only politicians and the rent-taking elite currently benefit. But good governance always comes at a price. Citizens’ participation is considered as a means of achieving better governance. Civil society needs to recover its muscle to monitor and keep officials on their toes. Citizens must demand accountability, responsive and responsible governance. The agitation for restructuring needs to gather unstoppable momentum, to compel change and ensure the country operates like a true federation, without which progress will remain a forlorn hope.
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