Less than a week after Forbes
Magazine chronicled the list of 40
richest Africans in which 11 of them
were Nigerians; another different
list emerged that was unfavourable
to Nigeria. The quantification and tabulation by
Forbes, maintained that Aliko
Dangote was still the richest person
in Africa for two consecutive years,
2011 and 2012 respectively. Many
Nigerians were probably proud to have one of their own at the top of
the list. Of course, Dangote works for
his money and has been providing
jobs to Nigerians. He is part of the
solution by heavily investing in Nigeria
and Africa, unlike those that siphoned their wealth abroad. And here comes the bombshell, The
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a
sister company of The Economist
magazine, complied a list of its 2013
Where-to-be-born Index and of the
80 countries evaluated, quantified and covered, Nigeria comes last in the
ranking at 80 out of 80: "it is the
worst place for a baby to enter the
world in 2013." This is beyond just a
bad news, it is depressing, no matter
how you look at it. Nigeria is among the worst and
miserable places for wealth
redistribution and income inequality
in the world. An oil and mineral
resources rich nation, where less than
1% of the population controls about 99.5% of the country's wealth. This
implies that Nigeria wealth
distribution is more like a pyramid
with tiny wealthy class at the top
and large base of poor and
destitutes at the bottom. No country can progress without a thriving
middle class. Nigeria does not have a
middle class, but few very rich and the
large very poor. This is a pathway to
gloom and doom, not a recipe for
winning a future. Nigeria a nation of private jet
owners, tantalizing cars and
expensive wine drinkers, is also a
nation of massive homelessness,
joblessness, disease infected water
and starvation. Many women and children go to bed at nights on empty
stomach with malaria infected bodies.
Nigeria is the only oil exporting nation
without reasonable electricity,
drinking water and health care
facilities. Wole Shadare and Faith Oparugo,
writing in Guardian News on Nigeria's
growing ownership of private jets
wrote: "WITH Nigeria holding the record of a
country with the highest private jet
ownership in Africa, the aviation
sector has brought into sharp relief
the paradox of a nation that is
endowed with huge oil resources but where only a few are wealthy. In a country where the average
Nigerian lives on less than $1 a day,
there is a super rich class of business
moguls, bankers, preachers,
politicians and oil magnates whose
private ownership of jets is more than that of any other country. While
the rich can afford such luxuries, the
economic crisis in the nation is seen in
a situation where the aviation sector
needs financial succour from the
Federal Government. According to an official of
Bombardier, the Canadian aircraft
manufacturer, Nigeria ranks behind
the United States, United Kingdom, and
China among countries that top their
orders for the supply of the aircraft type; just as there are indications
that N1.30 trillion may have been
expended in the last seven years.
Nigeria is said to top the market for
private jet ownership." Well this time around, the country of
jet owners has been classified as the
worst place to be born in the world. What does this really mean? Well, it is
loaded and this is not good for
Nigeria and Nigerians. Without being
defensive as usual, the world is
actually losing the hope they
bestowed on Nigeria. Nigeria is not a confidence nation
and Nigeria without doubt, rely on
how the rest of the world sees her.
This is important because the world is
telling Nigeria that her so-called
image re-branding and public relation are not working. The most important
image re-branding is doing the right
thing, not tricking people to think
otherwise. The Economist Intelligence Unit
assessment actually means that
among the poorest countries in
Africa, Latin America and Asia, Nigeria
is the worst place to be born in 2013.
Cynics and realistic Nigeria may refute such an assumption and
conclusion, but that may not be
necessary because they do not have
the bigger microphone to dispute EIU
assertion and convince the rest of
the world that Nigeria is the 'best' country to be born. Nigerians do not have access to
media industry as big as CNN, BBC or
EIU that can
easily dispense and dissipate information
to all the four corners of the world.
Therefore Nigeria has to lick her wound and move on as usual. Nigeria is
now becoming like a football to be
kick around without any
consequences because our leaders
and policy makers are so
inconsequential in global affairs and do not command any respect. Is Nigeria really the worst place to
be born? The answer depends who is
answering the question. Of course
the fat cats and politicians will
resoundingly say NO, but the average
Nigerian without food, electricity and drinking water will say YES. But it is also easy to pick on Nigeria,
because of its management failure.
Nigeria's natural and human resources
have not been properly managed, due
to weaken internal mechanism
of operandi . This is the principal factor that deterred her from
greatness and parked her where she
found herself today. Nigeria can be a miserable place for
our youths whose unemployment rate
is at a disastrous and alarming level.
Our youths are poorly educated, and
less than 5% of them are gainfully
employed. This means that 95% of Nigerian youths are roaming the
streets without purpose and
employments. The implication of
this scenario is crime, restlessness and
vandalism that are running rampant
among energetic youths and elusive minds. The rate of joblessness for the
entire country is alarming, Nigerians
without full employment should be
approaching 75-80%. The operating
world is 'full employment' and when an
individual is fully employed, it means that he is not underemployed and he
can survive comfortably from the
gainful employment. Nigerian wealthy class are known for
spending their fortunes in foreign
lands. Big shops in places like
Dubai, London and many others
cannot be satiated until wealthy
Nigerians step into their expensive stores and impressed them with hard
currencies. At same time it must be
clearly clarified that spending one's
earned income is his right. But when
the rich could not utilize their
disposal income to help boast the well-being of their country, then
there is a problem. Nigeria must be serious about
improving the quality of life and well-
being of her people. The brain
drain occurring in Nigeria is not
healthy for the most populous
country in Africa. Nigeria needs all the brain power it can muster and as
much as it can gather to improve her
economy for her poor citizens. There
are emerging leaders and active
Nigerians that are rising to the
challenge of making their nation better but the critical mass has not
been approached. As The Economist Intelligence Unit
(EIU) narrated: the "quality-of-life
index links the results of subjective
life-satisfaction surveys—how happy
people say they are—to objective
determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps
more than anything else, but it is not
all that counts; things like crime, trust
in public institutions and the health of
family life matter too. In all, the index
takes 11 statistically significant indicators into account. They are a
mixed bunch: some are fixed factors,
such as geography; others change
only very slowly over time
(demography, many social and
cultural characteristics); and some factors depend on policies and the
state of the world economy." Corruption has arrested affirmative
development in Nigeria. The country
must slow down corruption to be
able to win the future for posterity.
Corruption has become so bad in
Nigeria, that even sports, the only institution that Nigerians
collectively adored has been touched
by corruption. The Nigerian Green
Eagles coach recently narrated how
bribery and corruption played a role
in selection of the players. Nigerians are becoming sick and tired
of hearing Nigeria called, " the most
corrupt, the worst country, the bad
and the ugly". For once Nigerians
desire to be proud to announce to all
and sundry - We are Nigerians without anybody reminding them
how backward, corrupt or bad
Nigeria is. When is that going to
happen? Or Nigerians asking too
much?

Interesting

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