Nigeria: 50 Years of Sovereignty

Features, West Africa  |  10.01.10   By Kevin Johnson-Azuara

A swarm of hot air balloons and fighter jets cascade across the skies of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, for the umpteenth time.

A small part of the extravagant celebrations to commemorate the country’s independence from British rule on october 1, 1960.

But Nigeria’s delusions of grandeur need to be brought abruptly back to earth.

The nation is teetering on the edge of a demographic disaster and social unrest, unless its stagnant economy rapidly expands to support its teeming youth population.

Estimates in a recent report by the British Council show Nigeria’s population of 150 million people will swell by another 63 million people by 2050.

This could see the West African nation become the fifth most populous country in the world.

Yes, Nigeria could reap enormous economic dividends through a ready supply of workers for the future with more than 40 percent of the West African nation’s younger than 14.

However, the oil-rich nation’s gross domestic product  (GDP) remained flat as its population multiplied in the last two decades, leaving it dangerously out of balance unless true economic development occurs, the report said.

To avoid a destabilization, the report urges Nigeria’s government to stop relying solely on its crude oil revenues and encourage investment in emerging industries like telecommunication and manufacturing.

However, if the country continues its current level of economic growth, while also creating jobs and boosting health and education standards, more than 30 million people could be lifted out of poverty by 2030.

But blinded by oil revenue, the government has allowed the country’s one-time dominant agricultural economy to be devastated and many of the nation’s factories sit idle.

The oil industry contributes 40 percent to national GDP, but only employs 0.15 percent of the population.

Meanwhile, those without opportunities in the north remain susceptible to radicalization — a dangerous precedent in a region already prone to religious violence that borders nations where terror group al-Qaida already operates.

Illiteracy remains high as the education gap grows even wider — children have access to better schooling in the Christian-majority south compared to those in the Muslim north.

But even an education does not guarantee a person a job.

More than 30 percent of those who have completed secondary education remain unemployed.

Official statistics place the levels of national unemployment at 20 percent, but these are laughable and generally disputed because analysts believe they are higher.

Nigeria’s government also needs to offer better “family planning” services to slow its population growth.

But telling an African man about family planning is like telling a cow not to graze.

Can Nigeria create some 25 million jobs over the next 10 years to avoid a a bleak and catastrophic future due to continuous ethnic and religious conflict and a dysfunctional political system?

Maybe.

Nigeria stumbled upon democracy 10 years ago, hopefully it will not take the nation’s leaders another 50 years to create and implement the needed policies to move the country forward

Kevin Johnson-Azuara is the Editor-in-Chief of PoliticsAfrica.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevinjazuara

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