A Ghetto of Misery and Discontent

THE PUBLIC SPHERE with Chido Nwakanma

SOS to Prof Paul Collier. What you predicted in The Bottom Billion is unfolding and coming real concerning Nigeria. It is frightening for its socio-economic and geopolitical implications for Africa and the world.

In 2007, Oxford economics Professor Collier submitted that if the world does nothing to arrest the development stasis of countries housing a billion of the world’s population, they will form “a ghetto of misery and discontent”. He listed Nigeria among the suspect countries. In the present circumstances, we seem to hurry to get to the feared destination of “a ghetto of misery and discontent”.

How times, circumstances and outcomes revolve around leadership. Who still remembers when Nigeria ranked as the land with the happiest people in the world? The smiles have disappeared since 2015. All the surveys now record Nigeria as a land of unhappy people.

The bottom billion are those countries where citizens have experienced little income growth in the 1980s and 1990s despite international aid and support. These countries suffer from a mix of development traps. They are “falling behind and falling apart”.

The countries of the bottom billion are those caught in one or more development traps. These include conflict, mismanaged dependency on natural resources, weak governance, economic isolation surrounded by impoverished neighbouring countries.
With 100million persons adjudged extremely poor, Nigeria accounts for ten per cent of the global bottom billion. We regressed since the publication of Collier’s book and the twin recessions we have suffered since 2015. The prognosis is looking even more dismal.

Take conflict. Conflict is one of the development traps. Its features include civil wars, insurgencies, and general instability. With Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists, Nigeria is a conflict zone. The thesis is that the longer conflict subsists in a country, the more the conflict entrepreneurs entrench and find more ways of extracting profits. Kidnapping is now the preferred trade of the Fulani terrorists that have replaced the traditional herdsmen Nigerians know over a century. Conflict is now a business.

Then there is the natural resource trap. Experts have for long lamented the curse of the Dutch disease and Nigeria’s obsession with crude oil. Even as the oil market is shutting down, the government is doing nothing about diversification and alternatives. Indeed, we cannot even implement policies to ensure the utilisation of the options in abundance in the land. Gas is one.

Nigeria continues to make pronouncements on gas without implementation while we continue to waste the asset through flaring. The Department of Petroleum Resources on 6 September 2020 created one of those audio pronouncements when it mandated 9000 filling stations to “commence the upgrade of their facilities to allow them to dispense gas to vehicles”. It was ostensibly a step in the implementation of the National Gas Expansion Programme. Even the Central Bank stepped in by outlining a scheme to provide funding for the programme. Since then, nothing has happened, not surprisingly, as the DPR memo had no timeframe for the implementation.

Nigeria continues to play the ostrich on the matter of natural resource management. Indeed, as Collier and other development theorists observed, the discovery of natural resources such as gold, bauxite and others could also be an additional source of conflict rather than progress. “Paradoxically, the discovery of valuable natural resources in the context of poverty constitutes a trap. It often results in misuse of its opportunities in ways that make it fail to grow and stagnate”. According to a summary of Collier’s work, societies at the bottom are frequently in resource-rich poverty”.
Zamfara descended into a conflict zone since sundry local and foreign players commenced exploiting its gold deposits. There is no indication that the resource will be treated the same way as oil in the South and made available to the Federation Account.

Then there is the quality and effect of neighbouring states. Misery attracts its kind. A country surrounded by poor and poorly managed neighbours could fall into the law of attraction. At best, there would be no motivation to do better, like Ghana, two countries away, is forcing on our government. Our immediate neighbours do not appeal.

Developments in Chad could bear out this fear some more.
The worst trap is bad governance. Poor governance and policies could result in a quick downward spiral. Our trajectory since 2015 proves this point vividly. From being ranked as one of the fastest growing economies, we nosedived into the poverty capital of the world. The result of policies and governance.

It is also about choices. The Federal Government on Thursday 22 April 2021 affirmed that Nigeria is not averse to having officials who promote and extol terrorism and terrorists in its cabinet. Though Isa Ali Pantanmi, minister of communication and digital economy, admitted to promoting terrorism and hate against religions other than Islam, the Federal Government engaged in dissembling and muddying the waters to defend him. Spokesman Garba Shehu claimed that President Buhari “stands behind Minister Pantami and all Nigerian citizens to ensure they receive fair treatment, fair prices, and fair protection in ICT services.”

The talk about fair treatment and prices is disingenuous because it was not the issue with Pantanmi. The disclaimer by Pantanmi is also disingenuous. He made the provocative statements allegedly based on the Koran. Is he now disowning the roots of the statement? He already had a first degree nd was responsible enough to be appointed Chief Imam of a mosque. So what is this piffle talk about making the statements as an immature youth? Now that half of the country does not trust him to be fair in the discharge of his duties, what point would he and the Presidency prove retaining him?
Decisions from the Presidency are like Supreme Court judgements as they establish precedents. The Pantanmi judgement adds to the decisions that are promoting discontent in the land.