EDUCATION, GROWTH AND RELIGION

 Dayo Sobowale argues that religion has a way of interfering  with states’ capacity for sustainable growth

The world in recent times has witnessed a spate of global  conferences which have highlighted the disparities and economic inequalities plaguing our world  today . These   conferences have largely called for new rules to redress the imbalance of  the present lopsided  economic rules that favor the developed world or global north at the expense of the developing or global south . The G 7 , G20 , BRICS , and G77  have all come and gone leaving good food  for  thought on  the economic future of the world . The  clear message is   that  it  cannot be business as usual in a world in which  the rich nations who  call  the economic and financial shots  get  richer and the poor nations continue to linger in poverty and its associated problems and tension of violence and political instability . The climax of these yearly , unending talk shops is the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York from September 19  to September 23  with  about 140  world  leaders attending.

It is my contention today that history and religion have  a lot to do with economic  development especially  the rapid type  we urgently need  to  redress the economic imbalance in the present world development  order . Religion has been branded as the opium of the masses and Napoleon Bonaparte is on record as saying  that religion was created by the rich to prevent them being killed by the poor . Neither historical piece  is  enough to justify  persistent poverty of the poor and the glaring , opulence of the rich in spite of  the   sanctimonious morals of religion or the neglected lessons of history which  are  being ignored with impunity by those who control  the world economic order  today .  I will use the  dialogue and observations from these global  events , a  comparison of economic growth between China and India and the impact of religion on Nigeria’s  2023 presidential elections to  illustrate my own  conviction that  the present global economic arrangement  is exclusive to  the west , unjust and unfair to the rest of the world and should be nipped in the bud urgently.

An article  by Ashoka Mody ,  a University  of Princeton professor   titled ‘ Unlike  China India cannot be an economic super power ‘ noted wryly  that  in the eighties the belief was that India will  outpace China in becoming  a  world power   because China would lose economic steam through its authoritarianism  and  communist   ideology .  But the  opposite has happened because China  has invested heavily in human capital  development and India has not. Mody  quoted  a World Bank  report that highlighted  China’s remarkable strides towards gender equality during the Mao Zedong era  . Rather than  tax cuts  and economic liberalism , the bane of the present World Bank  lending  conditionality ,   China  under   Mao  acted on a historical fact confirmed by Brown University economist Oded Galor . That historical fact  says  ‘ that  since the dawn  of  the Industrial Revolution every instance of economic progress  –  the crux of which is sustained  productivity growth—has been associated with investments in human capital  and higher female work force participation’ . In addition China invested heavily in education and health care and is well prepared for future opportunities .Chinese universities are amongst the world’s top 100 with Tsinghua and Peking universities in China among the top 20 .Tsinghua  is said to be  the world’s leading university for computer science while Peking is ninth . ‘By  contrast no Indian university including the celebrated Indian Institute of Technology is ranked amongst  the world’ top 100 universities .

My addition to these observations is  that China is an atheist  state with no room for religion and India is a very religious Hindu nation that  revels in squeezing out other religions and has scant regard for  gender equality . On that account alone  it  cannot achieve the same level of sustained  productivity  growth  like China.

 It   is here that a comparison between Nigeria , India and  China  comes to mind. This is because Nigeria’s  last  presidential  election was  won on  a Muslim Muslim ticket in spite of the delicate balance in  population between the North and South of the nation and a  presumed  50 – 50 balance  between Christians and Muslims in the nation . In addition there is an imbalance in educational  development in that the North is less advanced than South  educationally . This has given rise to institutions like JAMB  and  the  Federal  Character Commission to arrest  the imbalance . Terrorism especially Boko Haram which says ’No to Western education  ‘ however does  not allow for the educational  gap  to narrow between  the north and south .  Most interesting is that the North has mostly  held political power and Northerners mostly Muslims have held power longer in spite of the educational  imbalance  against the North . Now a Southern Muslim is in power and has brought in meritocracy in appointments which favor the south west his  catchment area and there have been loud  protests. Especially from Catholic bishops who never liked  the Muslim – Muslim ticket  and campaigned against it and is still hostile to the government  that came out of the  victorious arrangement. So in many ways, Nigeria is like Hindu- led India with poor regard for  gender equality in improving the work force especially with Boko Haram  in the Northeast and poor  regard for human capital  development because of its reluctance to make education free.  China which is atheist and  has no qualms  about  religion is enjoying  the benefits of sustainable  economic development and is taking  on the world hitherto led by the US and  its globalized and  deeply    traumatized  democratic system .

sobowale is of arise news