To all those who do not know the economies that make up the Asian Tigers, they are four economies in total which include: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In the 1960s, where many nations around the world were becoming independent, the Asian tigers stood out from the rest.

But the question is what led these economies to their success? These economies are notable for maintaining an exceptionally high growth rates, over 7% a year from the 1960s to 1990s. Through this period, they became industrialized, even though they are not rich in natural resources.

The reason behind their astonishing growth is that they found their Comparative Advantage. Hong Kong and Singapore focused on being international financial centers and Singapore in particular also focused on becoming a port hub. Taiwan and South Korea on the other hand focused on their manufacturing sector with an emphasis on information technology. All of these nations in one way or another became some of the leading exporters to the U.S. and they definitely export more than they import. Let us not forget that they focused on HIGH TECHNOLOGY, and not on the export of agricultural luxury products like we do in Africa. Even though I see nothing wrong on exporting agricultural products, Malaysia is doing that for instance and has become wealthier, we should focus on our own comparative advantage.

But what else is their secret of their success? My next answer is their focus on EDUCATION. As they say in the United States, knowledge is power, and this is what the Asian Tigers focused on. And I feel that is lacking in the African continent. Our education system is very poor and we do not put an emphasis on educating our youth. If African states could get their act together, we would become industrialized like the Asian Tigers and other Asian states. Sometimes I feel within Nigeria, that education amongst the social classes is the greatest divider. We need to close this divide.

Another secret to the Asian Tigers success is that they established a banking system that favors their own states. In addition, they have also limited their foreign spending, in which they invest solely in their nations. While in Nigeria for instance, our so called leaders do not even invest in their nation. They will purchase homes in Europe, Dubai or in the United States. Capital flight must be stopped.

I could go on, but the main components of why the Asian Tigers have excelled, is through smart finance and a focus on education. This should be the primary focus in Nigeria, if we want to excel. Maybe Nigerians should focus on our healthcare industry, since I see many Nigerians who live in the U.S. are focused on that particular sector and excel.

I came to Nairaland believing that people would want to debate the issues that are plaguing Nigeria and Africa in general. But now I see that people would rather argue about nonsensical issues, such as whose "tribe" is better than the other. It doesn't make sense. I would think that supposedly educated Nigerians would want to talk about issues that matter. However, it would seem like that I am sadly mistaken. Where are the intellectuals on this forum? I did not come to this site to read tribalistic postings.

@Op

Great thread. The trick is how to contribute to the knowledge base of the board without getting entangled in tribalism. Instigators both from home (the shameless looters) and abroad (colonialists) are astute of the divide and conquer mechanism to keep The Lions of Africa from uniting.


I enjoyed reading your lucid logic.

Keep up the good fight, and don't get discouraged.

@Afro_Blue

Thank you for the encouragement. I will keep that in mind as I try to add to the intellectual discussion that occurs in this forum. Concerning your point about the external/internal factors that are preventing the Lions of Africa from uniting; I feel that before we can focus on African unity, we need to focus on our own respective states. The key to the Asian Tigers success was not a focus on outward connections, these nations focused on their own people first. The Asian Tigers such as Singapore and Hong Kong focused on the education sector.

I feel that many African states need to focus on EDUCATION. We need to focus on our education sector. We need African nations producing computer scientist, engineers, medical doctors etc. How can we expect to advance if many of our people remain uneducated and illiterate?

@OP
YES at least the Indonesian put their corrupt money in Indonesian banks, Africans put it outside of the country. That is the BIGGEST PROBLEMS. CAPITAL FLIGHT!!! We must no longer accept any foreign aid from anybody because it is owed back.Capital must stay in Nigeria. Put the 20 billion dollars in Nigerian bank and that bank can give loans to people which will create jobs. The Asians and Europeans come to Africa because they have CAPITAL!! They are no smarter than us. There are many Nigerians who can run big businesses but there isn't enough money in bank compared to other countries.

Education: Free education until university. We also need our education to teach our true great history and about tolerance to other ethniciryies. We should be learning our own language in school as well. Free education for anyone studying science, technology, and for doctors lawyers. We need more of them for our economy. Free healthcare for children under 5 and pregnant women. This will reduce the child, infant and maternal mortality. We don't want our future dying.I see that the government is serious about the power situation. We need roads and railroads. People will spend less money on fixing cars and more on other products.This is better for distribution. Once we have full power then we will get more factories, people will spend less money on generators and more on other products.

About South Korea, thy have a VERY protectionist history. The IMF wouldn't let any countries do that today. Read the book Bad Samaritans by Ha Joon Chang to understand that. Also, the problem with Africa is the resources and that the west will do anything for the resources. Including killing our leaders and supporting bad dictators. Look up Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, and look up the bad dictators Mobutu and Campore. If you look at Mauritius, they are decently developed because no countries want their resources because they don't have any.

There needs to be money invested into agriculture. We need to get a tractor manufacturing company to build tractors and other farm equipment to build the economies food. We should be a net exporter not net importer. Also, we need farming schools to teach people how to farm so more people can become farmers, this creates millions of jobs.

Nigeria can be a G20 nation and be developing over 20% a year if all of this happened.

Much has been written about the rise of the BRICS and Asia’s impressive economic performance. But an analysis by The Economist finds that over the ten years to 2010, six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa. On IMF forecasts Africa will grab seven of the top ten places over the next five years.

@Horus
The middle class needs to grow, the poor need to be educated and get good jobs to join the middle class. This will help the economy more. A big middle class is great for the economy. Africa's middle class is growing slowly, it needs to go faster. The rich are getting super richer. You need to look at the Gini index this needs to drop in Africa in total.

Thread Supplement


JANUARY 19 2008

How Brazil outfarmed the American farmer

After a half-century of dominance, the U.S. is losing its edge in agriculture to a booming, high-tech Latin American powerhouse. Its secret weapon? Soybeans.



http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/16/news/international/brazil_soy.fortune/index.htm



*

igbo2011:

@Horus
The middle class needs to grow, the poor need to be educated and get good jobs to join the middle class.  This will help the economy more.  A big middle class is great for the economy. Africa's middle class is growing slowly, it needs to go faster.  The rich are getting super richer. You need to look at the Gini index this needs to drop in Africa in total.

Education, is the key to betterment; We need to breed doctors, IT specialists , lawyers, scientists, teachers, public speakers, congressmen. And, we must find a way to instill these alternatives into the minds of our youth. Even though it may take a little longer and they may have to study a little bit harder, the results will be long term success.

@Horus
I am not sure about the congressmen because this style of democracy isn't for Nigeria IMO but this is a good list. More engineers, business people, etc. But we need INFRASTRUCTURE first. We have many engineers who can make products but we have no power to do it. So we import from China.

December 13, 2011 6:40 pm

Ghana leads African quest to boost growth

By William Wallis in London

While much of the world is fighting to avert a fresh downturn, Ghana’s economy has expanded by an estimated record 13.6 per cent this year, placing it among the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Nigerian and South African finance ministers have said that Europe’s economic plight threatens to hinder Africa’s recovery. But Ghana’s data reflect positive trends as businesses expand in poorly served African markets, and emerging powers such as China compete with multinationals for the continent’s rich natural resources.



African officials are cheered, too, by a certain reversal of roles. After the debt write-offs of the past decade, many countries have relatively healthy balance sheets compared with Europe.

Ghana has often led the pack – in winning independence, tumbling into bankruptcy, establishing democracy and now in its potentially transformational economic growth.

Last year, the country became one of only a few on the continent to be categorised as lower middle income. This was after the national accounts were re-appraised and annual gross domestic product per capita raised by $500 to $1,300.

On top of a record cocoa harvest of more than 1m tonnes, and soaring gold revenues, Ghana began pumping oil for the first time this year. The additional earnings will help to cushion the economy against the kind of past external shocks that sent it reeling when the cost of oil imports rose and gold and cocoa prices fell.

The oil, discovered in 2007, has also allowed the government to leverage loans towards building infrastructure to process gas, increase electricity output and lower costs.

Almost by default, as a result of its relative political stability, the country is becoming the regional base for business. But Joe Abbey, a former finance minister who runs the Centre for Policy Analysis, an independent Accra-based think-tank, points out that much of the growth has been “jobless”.

At least 7 per cent is attributable to the onset of oil production. Increased cocoa production was partly the result of good weather , and more needs to be done to boost productivity. Beyond the jobs it provides, gold mining delivers little to the state – the reason the government has given for raising corporate taxes on miners and imposing a 10 per cent windfall tax.

An election year is now approaching. Ghana has undergone three years of austerity and stabilisation following the last round of election spending, which badly hit the budget deficit. Mr Abbey says it would be a tragedy if the same were to happen again, just as interest rates have come down, inflation has been brought under control, and the conditions for investment in productive and labour-intensive sectors are falling into place.

I see that a robust discussion has occurred since I left. Thank you everyone who have participated. Now let me offer some additional information. African nations import more than they export. We all know this is a major problem. Even from the goods that we do export, such as agricultural products and raw minerals; we do not get a high price for such exports.

If we take a look at the Asian Tigers, manufacturing/production base, they have a higher rate of production. In order for Africa to advance as a continent, we need to focus on establishing a manufacturing base instead of exporting our raw materials to the developed nations. Developed nations use our raw materials to create finished products and then export it to our nations at a higher price than we sold the natural resources. This type of trade is not sustainable for us. We must start creating our own goods. I remember I once heard that Nigeria imports its toothpicks. That is unacceptable in my opinion. If we do not have manufacturers that can create toothpicks, then we are seriously in trouble.

However, I do see signs of hope. The Dangote Group is one bright spot, but we need more companies that manufacturer products for domestic consumption. Nigerians have an entrepreneurial spirit which is one of our strongest characteristics, but I feel that we are squandering our talents.

@Horus

I agree with you concerning education. Educating Nigeria's youth should be the focus of any government. I support infrastructure projects, but the education of the youth is something that can pay dividends in the future. We definitely need to educate todays youth about the rule of law, which is something that I hold dear to my heart, as well as prepare them for the sciences. We need more engineers to build up the infrastructure of Nigeria, we need doctors to treat the growing population of Nigerians, and we need more teachers who can teach the next generation's leaders. Let me not forget that it would be wise to teach farmers how to use the soil, so that we do not deplete one of our most precious resources.

Nebeuwa:

I see that a robust discussion has occurred since I left. Thank you everyone who have participated. Now let me offer some additional information. African nations import more than they export. We all know this is a major problem. Even from the goods that we do export, such as agricultural products and raw minerals; we do not get a high price for such exports.

If we take a look at the Asian Tigers, manufacturing/production base, they have a higher rate of production. In order for Africa to advance as a continent, we need to focus on establishing a manufacturing base instead of exporting our raw materials to the developed nations. Developed nations use our raw materials to create finished products and then export it to our nations at a higher price than we sold the natural resources. This type of trade is not sustainable for us. We must start creating our own goods. I remember I once heard that Nigeria imports its toothpicks. That is unacceptable in my opinion. If we do not have manufacturers that can create toothpicks, then we are seriously in trouble.

However, I do see signs of hope. The Dangote Group is one bright spot, but we need more companies that manufacturer products for domestic consumption. Nigerians have an entrepreneurial spirit which is one of our strongest characteristics, but I feel that we are squandering our talents.

We have two groups of people holding us back from that. The domestic greedy politicians who make money from importing generators and the international politicians who want Africans to depend on them forever The main thing is that if we don't export raw materials then America or China would probably just kill us all to be honest.

Europe/America does business with us with a gun to our head. They kind of force things on us. We don't give, they TAKE. There isn't much money in extracting, it is all in processing, that is where jobs are created. We don't need anything from the west, we can make everything in Africa. But they have a HUGE army and they will just TAKE. Most wars are fought over resources of some sort.

igbo2011:

We have two groups of people holding us back from that. The domestic greedy politicians who make money from importing generators and the international politicians who want Africans to depend on them forever The main thing is that if we don't export raw materials then America or China would probably just kill us all to be honest.

Europe/America does business with us with a gun to our head. They kind of force things on us. We don't give, they TAKE. There isn't much money in extracting, it is all in processing, that is where jobs are created. We don't need anything from the west, we can make everything in Africa. But they have a HUGE army and they will just TAKE. Most wars are fought over resources of some sort.

Tha asian "tigers" and BRIC all had the issues you described above, with politicians more corrupt and savage than anything we have. We can t hide behind excuses forever.

[flash=450,350]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBRE7n-mRM[/flash]

Need for Africa to Trade with Itself

Africa is the only continent that trades less with itself than any other. And the Africa Export Import Bank stands ready to address just that.

Nice topic, i would add to the other points that we need to focus on education that includes, science, technology, engineering, vocational training and management. We also need infrastructure to support our manufacturing effort and we need policies and laws to protect local players from negative outside influence.
We should start by targeting first other African countries before shipping our product to the west.

We need unity and stability because i don't see how we are going to progress with these bombings , tribal and religious divisions. Maybe what we need to do first is to hold a sovereign conference before we chart the way forward from here. I think we should focus on manufacturing, agriculture, technology development and services.


Where lies our comparative advantages?

Nebeuwa:

I came to Nairaland believing that people would want to debate the issues that are plaguing Nigeria and Africa in general. But now I see that people would rather argue about nonsensical issues, such as whose "tribe" is better than the other. It doesn't make sense. I would think that supposedly educated Nigerians would want to talk about issues that matter. However, it would seem like that I am sadly mistaken. Where are the intellectuals on this forum? I did not come to this site to read tribalistic postings.

Welcome to the frustration of some of us. It still amazes me what some prefer to discuss yet we claim to want a developed Nation. I simply think the divide-and-conquer tactics , used by our leaders, has worked too well on people who are too hungry to think properly. They therefore prefer fighting others who are as much a victim as them while leaders, from all walks of life, swig champagne together and laugh, holding hands, all the way to the bank.

@Topic.

My take is that the power sector must genuinely be treated as an emergency. Gradualism must stop and efforts towards full privatisation must be immediate unlike what we see now whereby what we were promised almost two years ago (States to distribute own energy) is now only beginning to appear possible.

Everything is tied to adequate power. Assuming that is realised, I believe we can forge our own model of growth and development others may come to reference in future. For one thing, SME's (small to medium enterprise) are the lifeblood of virtually all the major economies of the world, impacting on everything from employment to GDP. The Nigerian SME sector is not exactly healthy because of the epileptic power supply that makes cost of running business extremely high. This is why Politics still remains very attractive as a way to make a living i.e involvement in it assures you of benefitting from Nigeria's wealth.

Manufacturing , for me, is overrated. We cannot tout it as the sole panacea to our problems in a globalised and fast changing world where goods and service move quicker than ever to even include intangible considerations worth money yet can be traded on the internet. We must of course seek to increase manufacturing in areas we have a competitive advantage at, but this should be tempered with the notion that we have fallen behind terribly to the extent that manufacturing goods with a balance of attractive quality/image and pricing may take a while to achieve.

In the short term, the entire nation should seek to drastically hurdle together to make our power woes a thing of the past ASAP. With power , the SME develops and wealth increases both for individuals (salary plus investments of income ) and States (taxation). Employment increases, per capita income will creep up. The effect of increased employment on security and peace is automatic as more idle hands and mind obtain gainful employment. We will see more Nigerians , desirably, move into the middle class sector as owners of businesses or as a result of higher availability of senior positions . Manufacturing (small scale) will even increase appreciably.

With stable electricity, no Country can be more attractive than Nigeria as a destination of FDI (foreign direct Investment) . Ghana , even with a farely modest market in comparison to Nigeria, is benefitting immensely from it situation of stable power and comparatively good security. FDI is flowing in and tourism is now a fully fledged sector bringing in $billions for the nation.

We should just declare a real and genuine state of emergency on power ASAP and throw everything at this problem because it is the one sector where success recorded will virtually guarantee sucess almost everywhere else.

This is a nice topic and very also very constructive decisions. Problem is that Nigeria in particular has a very long way to go with regards to formulation and implementation of policies that could remould the country's future for the better.

Wε have a lot of old cargos in the helm of affairs who don't know sh*it, and wouldn't employ the services of those that know. TĦey are far behind in issues like this, and would not have great minds as consultants, since tĦey themselves live in the stone age.

I have a belief that if only Nigeria has good, vissionary leaders, in little or no time, Nigeria would actually be the 'giant of Africa' in the real sense of the word. I mean, there are huge potentials in that country, but those at the helm of affairs are mainly 'clueless'. Let's even leave out all the huge amounts of capital constantly 'moved' by these politicians, and what use those monies could be put to. Infact let's consider other areas that could help develop this nation, apart from this over reliance on oil. The tourism industry for one seems to be left unattended to. Nigeria doesn't seem to know what iτ̅ can gain from tourism. There are so many things to see all across the country. Each region has its own beauty, which if properly harnessed, developed, maintained and marketed, could lead to a massive influx of capital to the country. The beauty of the rocks and ancient wonders in the west, the greenry and the rainforest in the Niger Delta, the natural beautiful lakes and vegetation in the east and whatever tĦey have in the north , could all spell a lot for Nigeria.

Looking at how Dubai transformed to a tourist haven leaves little to imagine what Nigeria would have been like, with all its natural resources. If Dubai can be as beautiful with almost everything there being man-made, how much more Nigeria?

This translates to the govt. Being able to invest in its people, to create an enabling environment for people to receive proper education. Individuals cannot do all these alone. Its here that a collective effort is required in order to boost the country to unimaginable heights.

Where the youths are willing and desperate for a change, and the old cargos in power are not willing, but more interested in looting, then . . .

So many typos. . . Thanx to typing on my phone.

Gbawe
Power solves our problems halfway but i think the way the government is going about it wrong, The country is so far behind we need to tripple our efforts to catch up.
I believe we should concentrate on getting power to the villages and remote areas. The country currently generates about 4000mw and IPP power stations yet to come on board. My thinking is this IPP's should not be connected to the national grid but should be distributed to factories in remote villages like,
Papalanto is one ipp in ogun state and when it is ready, i think it should just generate power for the cement factories in ogun state which should in directly lower the cost of cement which in turn should jerk up construction in the country,
I know its not as simple as i make it out to be but the government should be ingenious

A-ZeD:

Gbawe
Power solves our problems halfway but i think the way the government is going about it wrong, The country is so far behind we need to tripple our efforts to catch up.
I believe we should concentrate on getting power to the villages and remote areas. The country currently generates about 4000mw and IPP power stations yet to come on board. My thinking is this IPP's should not be connected to the national grid but should be distributed to factories in remote villages like,
Papalanto is one ipp in ogun state and when it is ready, i think it should just generate power for the cement factories in ogun state which should in directly lower the cost of cement which in turn should jerk up construction in the country,
I know its not as simple as i make it out to be but the government should be ingenious

Totally agree. You are 100% correct about bringing power to the villages and remote areas also. In fact I started a thread where a rural electrification project in Ogun State opened up economic activity to the beneficiary community:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-798837.0.html

It can be as simple as you suggest if the genuine political will is present and our leaders are not the sort who pretend to want to catch a criminal yet prolong the chase via giving him a 4-day head start to get away !!!!

nanidee:

I mean, there are huge potentials in that country, but those at the helm of affairs are mainly 'clueless'.

Indeed. They are mainly "clueless" because they were not selected as the best to develop Nigeria. Rather, they are the acceptable choice of those who want business as usual to continue. For me, because we cannot focus on the past forever, everything starts with our current democratic experiment which began in 1999. All the Presidents so far (OBJ, Yar Adua and now GEJ) are not radically progressive as say Nkrumah or Lula of Brazil (certainly one of the greatest and most "transformational" Presidents in modern history). Unfortunately, we keep gaining President who must, by their "contract" of employment, protect the interest of the enemies of Nigeria's progress. What we then have is stunted growth and very slow development. Occurences in the power sector , for example, bear me out.

Till today, the seriousness is lacking and the power sector remains one of cynical self-enrichment rather than "transformation". Huge contracts are awarded regularly for central power project only for the FG to now says it want states "with the capacity", to distribute their own power when this should have been done immediately and without Government issuing contracts we all know will be embezzled.

It does not take Rocket Science thinking to see that Government always planned to shift the burden of generation onto the States anyway but a few folks had to cynically get very rich hence the delay we saw in letting this happen to facilitate the billions we have seen approved by the FEC for power sector contracts in the past year alone. Obviously, once States "with the capacity" (as has now being announced) are allowed to distribute the energy they generate, we know , miraculously, that virtually all Nigerian States will find the "capacity" overnight. It is not very difficult with PPP arrangements once the Private sector has realistic assurances of profit.

As with the telecom sector, there will be virtually almost 100% private sector uptake rate in Nigeria because of large customer base. Even sparsely populated States can join others to develop PPP models that serve all involved !!! We have to ask : why has this not been allowed to happen much earlier along with other considerations that can develop Nigeria rapidly such as the transparent concessioning of our refineries into competent private sector hands?

Instead, we get the crazy decision to hand over our refineries to the clearing house of grand corruption , i.e NNPC, for the next 2 years. Forumers should mark my word that the decision is predicated on securing the required delay till our refineries can be conceded to pals of the Government like Otedola, Dangote et al.

Anyway, I think we may be on course if indeed full ratification is gained soon for States to fully distribute the power they generate to themselves first ,as priority, instead of the former practice of output to the National power grid and then shared redirection back to source of generation. That puts off many States from even considering IPPs. I generate you use. Forget it. I generate I use first and you have any excess. More like it.

To be honest, I believe Nigerians should focus on healthcare not only in education, but also improving our own healthcare sector. This could be our comparative advantage. As I walk around my graduate university in the United States, I see large numbers of Nigerians who are studying to be pharmacist, medical doctors, nurses etc. Maybe we as a nation should focus on providing quality healthcare for the world. But first, we must learn to provided healthcare for our own citizens.

If we can improve our healthcare sector, that would also help our economies. Let me give you all some information that I have come across that I find quite worrisome. Our average life expectancy is around 48 years. Compare that to South Korea's average life expectancy which is around 79 years. South Korea had a challenging past just like Nigeria had, but look at the discrepancy. South Korea went through Japanese occupation during World War II, where the country suffered dearly and there was also the Korean War. But look at how far that nation has climbed.

Our maternal mortality rate is 840 deaths/100,000 births. This is definitely too high and it is an indictment on our healthcare sector. South Korea's maternal mortality on the other hand is 18 deaths/100,000 births. This is amazing and it clearly shows a nation that is focused on providing quality healthcare for its inhabitants.

Even our infant mortality rate is horrible in which 91.54 deaths/1,000 live births. If we compare it to South Korea, which has an infant mortality rate of 4.16 deaths/1,000 live births is quite astonishing. Our healthcare sector is in dire straits, and it should be declared a state of emergency. Many women in Nigeria go on "vacation" to Europe and the United States in order to give birth, because of the inability of our healthcare sector to provide them with quality healthcare. And they are the women with means, what about the women who cannot afford to travel to give birth? Do we just give them anything?

I hate to continue with these sad facts, but I feel that I need to shed light on such matters. The physician density in Nigeria is 0.395 physicians/1,000 population and South Korea's physician density is 1.967 physicians/1,000 population. Our hospital bed density should not even be mentioned, because it is so pathetic but here it is: 0.53 beds/1,000 population. South Korea's hospital bed density is 12.28 beds/1,000 population and it is number 3 in the world.

South Korea transformed itself from a backwater village nation to now a manufacturing powerhouse that is able to provide quality healthcare for its people. Nigeria on the other hand, which had the same starting point as South Korea has actually went backwards in its achievements, but all is not lost. All of the problems that is impacting Nigeria can be trend around, but we need dedicated leaders who wish to make a difference instead of looting public coffers.

@Nebeuwa
You need to understand the Korea doesn't have puppet rulers like we do. Even though the Asian tigers are corrupt, atleast they put the money in their economy. America puts 100s of billions of dollars into the military industrial complex. Why can't nigeria do this? We can create weapons, planes, boats and what not. You can have you r own weapons manufacturing company. But NOOOOO they have a generator import company to benefit the producers of generators. If they had a companies that made their own jets and the leaders were corrupt, atleast they would put it in the country.

Our leaders are puppets to the west and Korean ones are not. We need a revolution for them to stop being puppets. We should have Nigerians going to school in Nigeria not going abraod. We need to build more universities and schools. People are thinking about puttting Nigeria in BRICS. HOw can we do that when we have leaders who ship all their money abroad and buy estates in Dubai? Atleast buy estates in the DAMN country. It is so annoying.

@igbo2011

I doubt that it is about who are "puppets" and who are not. Keep in mind that the United States has a military presence in South Korea and Taiwan, while they have left Africa to its own devices until now (AFRICOM). I am actually getting a little tired of these excuses, in which we always blame the West, but never take responsibility for our own actions. Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was backed by the West, but it was the will of the people that got him ousted. The same goes for Tunisia with Zine Ben Ali. Nigerians and Africans in general need to come to the realization that the people have the power. We are not suppose to be servants of the government, the government is suppose to serve us. If the people have a problem with our so called puppet leaders, then it is up to the people to show the rest of the world that they will not be bullied by any foreign power.

However, I do agree with you about our leaders who ship their money abroad. They are not wise. Even though I abhor corruption, the least they could do is put the money into our banks or show some patriotism. How do they expect Nigerians to be patriotic, when they are not patriotic themselves, when they invest their money abroad. It is sad that Europeans see Africa's potential for investment more than our own selfish leaders.

Nebeuwa:

@igbo2011

I doubt that it is about who are "puppets" and who are not. Keep in mind that the United States has a military presence in South Korea and Taiwan, while they have left Africa to its own devices until now (AFRICOM). I am actually getting a little tired of these excuses, in which we always blame the West, but never take responsibility for our own actions. Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was backed by the West, but it was the will of the people that got him ousted. The same goes for Tunisia with Zine Ben Ali. Nigerians and Africans in general need to come to the realization that the people have the power. We are not suppose to be servants of the government, the government is suppose to serve us. If the people have a problem with our so called puppet leaders, then it is up to the people to show the rest of the world that they will not be bullied by any foreign power.

However, I do agree with you about our leaders who ship their money abroad. They are not wise. Even though I abhor corruption, the least they could do is put the money into our banks or show some patriotism. How do they expect Nigerians to be patriotic, when they are not patriotic themselves, when they invest their money abroad. It is sad that Europeans see Africa's potential for investment more than our own selfish leaders.

Africans are starting to wake up. People in Ivory Coast died for Gbagbo and people are dying to get Kabila from Congo out and have a new leader who is NOT a puppet. Congo has been screwed for like 220 year ever since Leopald stept foot, then Lumumba died and mobutu brought hell then Kabila of 2001 died and now this new puppet. They see what is happening to them

Nice topic.

It is good that we still have great minds amongst us. There is hope, one day one of you or your likes will be a decision maker.

I think it would be a great time to resurrect this thread. Nigeria has so much potential as a nation, but many people do not believe any meaningful change is achievable. Is it possible that we can learn from other nations who have traveled the same route, but I had different results in the end? When I look at South Korea and Malaysia, these once impoverished nations are steadily becoming developed nations. It can be argued the South Korea is a developed nation. South Korea has found its comparative advantage in electronics and it has even outpaced Japanese electronic products, by currently holding 2 of the top 3 spots with the brand names of Samsung and LG.

igbo2011:


We have two groups of people holding us back from that. The domestic greedy politicians who make money from importing generators and the international politicians who want Africans to depend on them forever The main thing is that if we don't export raw materials then America or China would probably just kill us all to be honest.

Europe/America does business with us with a gun to our head. They kind of force things on us. We don't give, they TAKE. There isn't much money in extracting, it is all in processing, that is where jobs are created. We don't need anything from the west, we can make everything in Africa. But they have a HUGE army and they will just TAKE. Most wars are fought over resources of some sort.

they couldn't take Vietnam?
So I think we're good if we decide to go head to head with them