goofyone:
I kinda agree with your post. But you'd be surprised Nigeria actually earns much more than that or at least should be earning much more than that. Since the whole bulk of the country's earnings go to recurrent expenditure, it's actually very hard to sustain development. It's like when you earn, say, 1.2 million per month and then you have to give 3/4 of that to siblings and friends, of course the remainder 1/4 will be hardly sufficient to run a home. Get it?

In addition, there's a lot of sabotage in the Nigerian system. There's bunkering, there's tampering with infrastructure and all sorts. All these set back any administration and unwarranted expenses are incurred
Further cutting down money available for national development.

You see? I quite agree with you. Though i support Buhari to effect some changes, but if there isn't a radical alteration to the culture of spending in Nigeria, there's very little he'll be able to do to turn the nation around.

SkyBlue1:
Nigerians think Nigeria is a rich country because they are ignorant. We are only rich in potential but in reality quite poor, some meagre cash with no assets (infrastructure) and a lot of liabilities. And having that in mind only makes the profligacy and corruption of past governments even more unforgivable. May 29th can't come fast enough.

Sweetguy25:
Nigeria earns more than that in reality and that's if I tax and other IGR which amounts to about 2 trillion naira. This is still too small to properly take care of security in Nigeria. Even if we cut down on expenses and block loopholes, the money left will still be unable to take of our pressing needs.

goofyone:

I disagree with you on that.

mars123:
A country where over $2bn went missing and nothing spoil isn't a poor country...the other day Ghana borrowed half that amount from IMF and it still isn't a poor country.Nobody in Africa believes Nigeria to be poor,but a place where endemic corruption exists.

mcquin:
A country that spends so much in running government isn't poor. Govt only needs to cut down on its expenditure, put adequate facilities in place and maintain it. That is all we need to grow.

Lest I forgot, corruption should attract death sentence. I know pro-jona won't like this as they already begging for Ibori's release. They will come here and say everyone is corrupt, so we should fold our hands.

Sweetguy25:
Seriously, its annoying. We should all face reality and acknowledge that we are poor. We are one of the poorest countries in the world.

We should not be carried away by reports that Nigeria makes 70 billion dollars a year from crude oil. 70 billion dollars is chicken change for 170 million people. 70 billion dollars is not enough for Lagos state; 70 billion dollars in not enough to fix the rot in our education sector; 70 billion dollars is not enough to give us that level of infrastructure we see in the developed world.

Nigeria needs to be earning revenues of about 300 billion dollars annually in order for any serious development to take place. There's no hope in sight that this will achievable in the next ten years.

To make matters worse, the way the money Nigeria earns is shared makes it very difficult for Nigeria to develop or for the money be used to achieve anything meaningful. As long as all that Nigeria does is get money from crude oil and share the money among all the state and local governments, then we are wasting our time. We have been trying that for the past sixteen years and nothing has changed. We should try something new

The truth is that we are decades away from development and the farther you neglect your education, infrastructure and economy, the harder and more costly they get in order to fix.

We failed to fix these problems in the early days when they were easier to fix, we have to live with the brunt of our failures and mistakes.

I wish Buhari well but I doubt if he can do much or create any impact.

onoja12:
i think you don't seem to know much about Nigeria economy and probably you haven't travel either,first of all Nigeria is the 23th richest country in the world and Nigeria has a purchasing power of almost 700billion dollars,i don't know who told you Nigeria makes 70 billion a year that is a lie,please try to educate yourself more about Nigeria.Nigeria is a rich country by all standard the problem is the distribution of wealth as for what the 178million population does,well if you have a market of 178million you would understand the importance

Sweetguy25:
Hate it or love it, Nigeria is a dirt poor country when we compare ourselves with more advanced countries. Yes, the money we spend on running government should be reduced but even that, we are still poor. Heck, even if we stop financial corruption in Nigeria, we will still not be rich enough to cater for the needs of 170 million people.

Sweetguy25:


These are the top 30 richest countries in the world (GDP per capita). I can't find Nigeria there.

1 Qatar 143,427
2 Luxembourg 92,049
3 Singapore 82,762
4 Brunei 73,233
5 Kuwait 71,020
6 Norway 66,937
7 United Arab Emirates 64,479
8 San Marino 60,664
9 Switzerland 58,087
— Hong Kong 54,722
10 United States 54,597
11 Saudi Arabia 52,183
12 Bahrain 51,714
13 Ireland 49,195
14 Netherlands 47,355
15 Australia 46,433
16 Austria 46,420
17 Sweden 45,986
18 Germany 45,888
19 Republic of China (Taiwan) 45,854
20 Canada 44,843
21 Denmark 44,343
22 Iceland 43,637
23 Belgium 42,973
24 France 40,375
25 Finland 40,347
26 Oman 39,681
27 United Kingdom 39,511
28 Japan 37,390
29 Italy 35,486
30 Korea, South 35,277
31 New Zealand 35,152

GiantParrot:
Nice post @ OP. How can people seriously think a country whose GDP per capita is 3005.5 USD is rich? http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

Education in this country is just too poor. That's why someone will say Nigeria has $70b to spend from crude oil sales per year. How is that even possible when you sell approximately 2million barrels per day which at $100 per barrel will earn you $73b per year. Won't the cost of production and the entitlements to the IOCs and other partners be removed from the $73b before you determine what Nigeria can actually spend? Production costs vary between $20 and $35 per barrel depending on the location and company.

Well, these things may become clearer when the more trusted new government comes in and realize that what there is to spend is really not as much as what people have been led to believe. The earlier we start thinking of creative ways to improve our economy and earnings rather than hoping to spend monies that do not exist, the better for us.

onoja12:
i think you don't seem to know much about Nigeria economy and probably you haven't travel either,first of all Nigeria is the 23th richest country in the world and Nigeria has a purchasing power of almost 700billion dollars,i don't know who told you Nigeria makes 70 billion a year that is a lie,please try to educate yourself more about Nigeria.Nigeria is a rich country by all standard the problem is the distribution of wealth as for what the 178million population does,well if you have a market of 178million you would understand the importance

Sweetguy25:
Hate it or love it, Nigeria is a dirt poor country when we compare ourselves with more advanced countries. Yes, the money we spend on running government should be reduced but even that, we are still poor. Heck, even if we stop financial corruption in Nigeria, we will still not be rich enough to cater for the needs of 170 million people.

Sweetguy25:
Seriously, its annoying. We should all face reality and acknowledge that we are poor. We are one of the poorest countries in the world.

We should not be carried away by reports that Nigeria makes 70 billion dollars a year from crude oil. 70 billion dollars is chicken change for 170 million people. 70 billion dollars is not enough for Lagos state; 70 billion dollars in not enough to fix the rot in our education sector; 70 billion dollars is not enough to give us that level of infrastructure we see in the developed world.

Nigeria needs to be earning revenues of about 300 billion dollars annually in order for any serious development to take place. There's no hope in sight that this will achievable in the next ten years.

To make matters worse, the way the money Nigeria earns is shared makes it very difficult for Nigeria to develop or for the money be used to achieve anything meaningful. As long as all that Nigeria does is get money from crude oil and share the money among all the state and local governments, then we are wasting our time. We have been trying that for the past sixteen years and nothing has changed. We should try something new

The truth is that we are decades away from development and the farther you neglect your education, infrastructure and economy, the harder and more costly they get in order to fix.

We failed to fix these problems in the early days when they were easier to fix, we have to live with the brunt of our failures and mistakes.

I wish Buhari well but I doubt if he can do much or create any impact.

Sweetguy25:


These are the top 30 richest countries in the world (GDP per capita). I can't find Nigeria there.

1 Qatar 143,427
2 Luxembourg 92,049
3 Singapore 82,762
4 Brunei 73,233
5 Kuwait 71,020
6 Norway 66,937
7 United Arab Emirates 64,479
8 San Marino 60,664
9 Switzerland 58,087
— Hong Kong 54,722
10 United States 54,597
11 Saudi Arabia 52,183
12 Bahrain 51,714
13 Ireland 49,195
14 Netherlands 47,355
15 Australia 46,433
16 Austria 46,420
17 Sweden 45,986
18 Germany 45,888
19 Republic of China (Taiwan) 45,854
20 Canada 44,843
21 Denmark 44,343
22 Iceland 43,637
23 Belgium 42,973
24 France 40,375
25 Finland 40,347
26 Oman 39,681
27 United Kingdom 39,511
28 Japan 37,390
29 Italy 35,486
30 Korea, South 35,277
31 New Zealand 35,152

FG Needs N485trn For Implementation Of Infrastructure Master Plan

President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the Federal Government needs about N485 trillion for the implementation of the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP), which is to be achieved in three phases.

Jonathan sated this in Abuja yesterday during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, adding that the plan would be implemented over a period of 30 years from 2014 to 2043.

He explained that the first five years phase between now and 2018 will require $166.1 billion for implementation.

The plan will, among other things, address the lack of linkages in the infrastructure sector. It focuses on core infrastructure, including energy (power and oil and gas), transport (roads, rail, ports and airports), housing, water and Information and Communication Technology. Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil, alongside the Ministers of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, National Planning, Abubakar Sulaiman and Transport, Idris Umar, recalled that Jonathan had in July 2012, approved that the National Planning Commission (NPC) coordinate the preparation of NIIMP for the country.

Other infrastructure classes include agriculture, mining, social infrastructure, vital registration and security.

Baawaa:
This is one of Jonathan's product"prodigal son".