Erasmus Ikhide This is the greatest news of the century! World Bank, which has been presiding over the poverty of the Third World countries has come off it, albeit literarily. In its poverty report index last week, the antitype world economic institution listed Nigeria among the most poorest countries in the world. Surprisingly, since the piece of investigation becomes public asset, the embattled World Bank minder, Dr Goodluck Jonathan have gone into the trenches. Dr Reuben Abati and Dr Doyin Okupe who have disappeared from the financial economy radar can now find their voice. Nigerians have been waiting for them to explain how President Goodluck Jonathans altruistic Transformation Agenda (TA) and job creation propaganda have retained the mass of Nigerians in the trenches of poverty and in the pit of degradation. True to type, Dr Okonjo-Iweala came with another deceptive GDP figures which suggests that Nigeria is the healthiest economy in Africa. She manipulated National Bureau of of Statistics to arrive at another falsehood. She declare a Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of N80.3 trillion ($509.9bn), pushing ahead of South Africa as the continents biggest economy, with $370.3bn GDP. Unfortunately, GDP rebasing is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Standard of living has not improved between the time the World Bank report came out a fews day ago and now. Our Human Development Indices (HDI) has proved it. We have not improved on health care, access to clean water, life expectancy, maternal mortality, infant mortality, literacy, quality of education, employment generation and poverty has remained criminally constant. It could be recalled that the World Bank President, Dr Jim Kim, a few days ago, in Washington, announced that Nigeria was among the worlds extremely poor countries. Other countries that were also rated as Nigeria were India, China, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya. Kim had said the fact is that two-third of the worlds extreme poor are concentrated in just five countries: India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo. If you add another five countries, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya, the total grows to 80 per cent of the extreme poor, he said. A beat of the World Bank report on Nigeria would suffice: The number of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing significantly, revealing a perplexing contrast between the nation’s economic statistics on rapid economic growth and minimal welfare improvements for much of the population. “Poverty rates remain high in Nigeria, particularly in rural areas. These rates declined between 2003-2004 and 2009- 2010, although not nearly as fast as would be expected from the pace of economic growth in the country. “While the officially reported growth rates of GDP well exceed population growth in the country, the pace of poverty reduction does not, this implies that the number of poor Nigerians living below the poverty line has grown measurably. The World Bank said the first Nigeria Economic Report is designed to give some attention to longer term trends in the country, including the puzzle of why a decade of rapid GDP growth by official statistics, concentrated in the pro-poor areas of agriculture and trade, did not bring stronger welfare and employment benefits to the larger population The Global Financial Institution said progress towards a number of the other Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria has also been disappointing, stating that Nigeria was ranked 153 out of 186 countries in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Index, as unemployment rates have been steadily increasing and younger Nigerians are encountering increasing difficulty in finding gainful employment.The World Bank said available data on unemployment suggest a similar story. “Job creation in Nigeria has been inadequate to keep pace with the expanding working age population. The official unemployment rate has steadily increased from 12% of the working age population in 2006 to 24% in 2011. Preliminary indications are that this upward trend continued in 2012, The World Financial Institution highlighted that the official definition of employment in Nigeria (less than 40 hours worked in the past week) is unusual, and is therefore not comparable to that in most other countries. The negative dynamic is very consistent, however, with perceptions of the population of increasing difficulties for finding gainful employment. Going by this, the problem in Nigeria might best be interpreted as underemployment in contrast to unemployment proper, the reports said. The Organisation said further data collection and investigations will be necessary to clarify this picture of what factors are responsible or explain the disparities between economic growth and the welfare indicators of the nation. “Given the seeming inconsistencies between the national accounts data summarized above and statistics based on other surveys, it is imperative to conduct further investigations and statistical tests to uncover the true growth and development story in Nigeria” the World Bank said. “Overall, 2013 should provide a favourable context for the realization of key reforms and investments (power, roads, business climate, education, health, agriculture) that could generate the non-oil growth, productivity increases, and jobs needed to ensure the country’s prosperous future”. The Jonathan administration has increasingly made reference to Nigeria’s GDP and economic growth as signs of successes while the opposition and several Nigerians lament that those growth have not had a corresponding effect on the lives of average Nigerians,the report said. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has another angle to the reports: Our job creation efforts will yield result if Dr Goodluck Jonathan is given another 4 years after the first 6 productive years of his Transformation Agenda, (TA) or something to that effect. Her real words: President Goodluck Jonathan has mandated four or five of the ministers to work together to formulate a social safety programme to be implemented for the benefit of the citizens. Your prediction is as good as mine: President Goodluck Jonathan has mandated four or five of the ministers to work together to formulate a social safety programme to be implemented for the benefit of the citizens after roughly six years in office! The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala reasons for the World Bank recent listing of Nigeria amongst the extremely poor nations is scandalous, to say the least. In an attempt to rubbish the report, Okonjo-Iweala explained that the number of poor people in a country irrespective of the countrys level of development was the parameter used to rate Nigeria among nations with high poverty level. The finance minister advised that the focus of Nigerians now should be on the answers to the problem raised by the World Bank and what other countries were doing that Nigeria could learn from so as to improve. Nobody says that everything is fine but we are learning and where we make some progress like other countries, we should also acknowledge it, she stressed. “Indian is a middle-income country, one of the largest economies in the world like Nigeria, is a big economy, but the largest number of poor people in the world reside in Indian, China and other places. “Most middle-income countries, including Brazil have large number of poor people that is the reality of today and Nigeria is no exception. “And when the World Bank president was talking he also talked about those countries. He mentioned that India is doing well and it has a large number of poor people. “So, we should not try to single Nigeria out. The phenomenon we have in Nigeria is that we are growing but there are poor people everywhere,’’ she added. Case close! This is the devil in the detail. Soonest, President Jonathans panel frick Administration will soon set up one to inquire whereabouts the billion of dollars wasted on the primitive economy hogwash. Predictably, the panel would be headed either by Dr Okonjo-Iweala or the thieving Minister of Petroleum who has swindled the nation humungous some of billions of dollars of more than the budgetary allocation of three African countries put together. Nigerians would have been more circumspect if they knew that the worlds neocolonial poverty development institution was tirelessly reinventing what they have consciously interrogated over the last 50 years. This issue has been settled at the door step of the World Bank as the ultimate enabler of poverty and conscious facilitator of ruinous economic policies that keep African nations on the spot. The World Bank has demonstrated repeatedly as an organisation that is not merely evil by pillaging Africa growth, but the mindlessness of poverty, misery and death in living structure. As the abyss of infamy from which African nation test the bitterness of undiluted and excruciating poverty, we own the ignoble institution nothing more than total denial of space and outright labelling as the ultimate enhancer of poverty in itself wherever it may be found in the Third World countries. This is not to say that the World Bank materialises to steal directly from poor countries coffers. Rather, it formulates neoliberal economy policies, such as Structural Adjustment Programme, (SAP), to devalue the currency of the countries, Privatisation, free market economy, Subsidy removal and other anti-masses policies that reeks Unpleasant havocs on the receiving countries economies. On the other hand, it diplomatically shoves her agents down the throats of countries as managers of economies in order to ruin them. Before now, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been regaling the world with fantastic data and statistical. This constant bombardment of the public sphere has come with rosy data and statistics. Now, she is being contradicted by her bosses in Bretton Woods. Nigerians are never deceived by such statistical scams. We are all aware that until the barber shop in Kano are lighted up and are guaranteed uninterrupted power supply; until Chukwuma, my tailor in Aba, has a free flow of tap water without relying on Aboki (water vendor), any economic statistic indicating that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa is tantamount to day light robbery. Here was Dr Okonjo-Iweala who assured Nigerians that the country will be conscious in borrowing after paying the Paris Club debt in 2005. She has since been presiding over the borrowing of hundred of billions of dollars without recourse to her earlier assertions. Even though all the constrains have been identified towards enhancing growth, including creating investment climate; infrastructure, incentives and policies affecting agricultural productivity; and quality and relevance of tertiary education, President Jonathan Administration remains hopelessly incompetent and could not reconsign facts with figures. The recent unemployment tragedy where 6 million applicants seek to grab less than 5,000 jobs is a case in point. Any wonder the World Bank is trying to extricate itself from the woeful performance of its beloved agent in the person of Okonjo-Iweala. Shall we say the World Financial Institution is trying to be wise by half? Whichever way you view it, Nigeria economy is at a gridlock, occasioned by massive corruption at its submit. The world is patiently waiting for the World Bank, Dr Okonjo-Iweala and President Goodluck Jonathan to reinvent the wheel and answer to their names. Erasmus Ikhide wrote in from Lagos, Nigeria.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:11:17 +0000
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