CHUQ

The biggest prob in the country is poverty--will the new pres be a godsend or will he be just another leader with an agenda--a self centered agenda?


That Nigeria is the richest country in Africa is no longer in doubt. As the world's sixth largest producer of crude oil, with huge reserves of mineral and agricultural riches and manpower, one would think that the country should be enjoying some of the highest global living standards, but this is not exactly the case. Despite its plentiful resources and oil wealth, poverty is wide spread in the country. The situation has worsened since the late 1990s, to the extent that the country is now considered one of the 20 poorest countries in the world


allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Poverty - How Will Yar'Adua Tackle the Malaise? (Page 1 of 2)

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Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Here's the current president of Nigeria: Umaru Yar'Adua



I think Nigeria has to be more business friendly. I really don't know enough about the Nigerian economy to say what stands in the way of small businesses there.

Brother Oz

Massive corruption is what stands in the way.

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Abraxas

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Hi Abraxas,

Interesting comments, although I do not think that you have shown that the method by which you arrived at your argument (poverty causes corruption) was any superior to the methods by which Brother Oz arrived at his argument (corruption causes poverty). You say that the low human rights index shows that Nigeria is poor. So you are saying that the ability to measure something statistically determines if it is a cause of poverty or not? I don't agree with that, but even if I did I could point to the polls taken by Transparency International, which I think would place Nigerian politics and business as even more corrupted than China and India.

You say that Nigeria has to tackle poverty, but won't tackling corruption tackle poverty?

Aside from this, I am curious, what do you think the program should be for tackling poverty in Nigeria? What would your plan be if you were President?


WEB

nsap

Well if I am the President i would,

1) Encourage investment from foreign countries.
2) This will create more jobs for the local population
3) Set a minimum wage range for salary base on economic and cost of living standard.
4) Encourage local agricultural plants to be exported and local consumption
5) create a better education system
6) create designated areas to be developed by stages, factory, constructions, Information technology, medicines etc.
7) Create a goverment policy for for local employment rate for international companies that invest factories in nigeria. Must have higher local employee.
8) create better and affordable electricity and water for rural areas.
9) export of natural resources to oversea market.
10) Set up a comittee to oversea all the above and release a quartely report of progress to be available to the public.

well im sure by doing all this it should create more jobs for local population, encourage foreign investment, able to export local products and increase the living standards of local people and inturn will help tackle the poverty problem.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

Hi nsap. Welcome to the forum, you wouldn't perchance have found this forum through the Nigerian village, did you?

Several of your comments remind me of what China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore did to develop their economies into roaring Tigers. However, one thing they all had was competent governments which could provide tax breaks to foreign investment as well as stable sources of electricity, port facilities and other infrastructure. They also could give investors physical security.

What do you think prevents foreign investors from investing in Nigeria?


WEB

nsap

Hi thanks for the warm welcome,

Ok for me, the Nigerian goverment need to provide a sense of security for foreign investment. Create a trade free zone in a designated area. maybe for those company that can provide certain amount of jobs for local nigerian they will be exempted from certain taxes or a lower taxes etc. This will attract more interest. Furthermore, nigeria have the manpower to work in these factories and the manpower in nigeria will be much more lower compare to other countries. So this is a benefit also to the foreign companies. With the natural resources at its disposal, its just a matter how it will be utilize.



As to answer your question:

Nigeria currently dont have enough things to attract foreign investment, security wise there is no designated area that is a concentrated industrial zone. so it goes back to my earlier posting of what it can be done to solve this issues. that is if it is carried out. As the fear of corruption etc, well form an independant commission to observe and come out with a quarterly report on the progress in the papers, new etc.

Abraxas

Hi, DuBois!

In other words, we are now confronted with a "chicken-and-egg" dilemma: Does poverty cause corruption, or is it corruption that causes poverty?

Maybe, we can shift the paradigm a little bit, and ask the hypothetical question: Between a policeman in Bangladesh, and a cop in Sweden, who will most likely accept a "kind offer of a tip" from a tourist that committed a minor traffic offense? The Swedish policeman or the Bangladeshi policeman? Why?

I believe that corruption just does not manifest itself outside of the context of prevailing circumstances, particularly the degrading impact of pervasive poverty. You cannot starve a whole colony of mice for days on end, and expect them to behave properly while three or four of their kind are having a sumptuous banquet of exotic French cheeses! Metaphorically speaking, that fictitious colony is Nigeria today.

Nigeria, despite its size and accrued revenues from crude oil is just another poor African country, ravaged by its elites (military, political, intellectual, and feudal), who have cornered the commonwealth of that nation for themselves, while maintaining a strong grip on the means of state coercion to ensure strict conformity, and minimum rebellion!

The very least that any "compliant" victim of such a constrained set up would do in order to maintain life and limb, is to be CORRUPT, or die, or fight back.
Mind you, this is not, in anyway, a defense of corruption, but then, that is what happens when a people go through sustained impoverishment, for some 40 years, under various shades of brazen military despotism (including the predatory autocracy of the immediate past, supposedly democratically elected president, Obasanjo).

The Nigerian military elite IMPOVERISHED Nigeria through the systematic looting of that country's treasury, in joint venture with their friends in Nigeria, the USA, the UK, the EU, the Middle East, ... you name it, from 1966 to date. The Nigerian military elite should therefore be held accountable for Nigeria's mind-blowing poverty. Therefore, the solution to addressing poverty in Nigeria, and by extension, corruption is roughly as follows:

(1) Bring all past military regimes, no matter how benign their dictatorship may have been, to justice.

(2) Completely dismantle ALL existing security agencies, particularly the police, and re-organize them from SCRATCH.

(3) Carefully select the "catalysts" and "drivers" of a corruption-free massive infrastructural development and revival projects (electricity, refineries, rural water supply, expressways, telecommunications, agriculture, etc) nationwide, to engage idle manpower, at least.


However, all of the above are rigorously dependent on the LEADERSHIP given, at ALL levels of the Nigerian society, to a ensure the success of a poverty-free Nigeria. That leadership, I regret to accept, has NEVER been TRULY there in Nigeria.

In short, the answer to your original question "How will the New Nigerian President Deal with Poverty" is: "His leadership style and example will dictate whether or not Nigerians will follow him and collectively address the problem of poverty, or they would "pragmatically" opt out, and "look out for No.1, via individual corruption."

Cheerio! I will be back .......(soon).

Don Juan-Carlos ABRAXAS (III)

africanhope

Although I agree that poverty is a cuase for corruption on lower levels (forinstance, with the pay our traffic police gets, you can sometimes understand that the temptation to take bribes exist). Yet poverty is not a sole explaination, as corruption occurs on very high levels aswell. Our highest was our DEputy President who was fired for corruption 2 years ago, and his facing criminal charges on hit. He was very highly payed, and could not use poverty as an excuse.

AH

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