South Korea is one of the most corrupt nations in Asia, just like Nigeria is ranking among the worlds most corrupt nations. But why is the world celebrating South Korea without ever referring to the corrupt practices that so define its domestic political economy? The answer is visionary leadership. Like Nigeria, South Korea was under an authoritarian regime that lasted for decades. Throughout the Cold War between the United States and USSR, South Korea, like many other countries, was under pressure to liberize its economy as a shift away from economic nationalism. They rebelled against orthodox economic policies and instead opted for a model of development that is internally driven, based primarily on infant industries and a strong bureaucracy dictated by an authoritarian regime. Not too long, South Korea rose from an economic backwater to an economic wonder, what the World Bank later referred to as Miracle, though some like the Nobel Prize winner in Institutional Economics and former World Bank Vice President Professor Joseph Stiglitz of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, has argued in his book Globalization and its Discontent, that there was no miracle in South Korea outside good policy. On the other hand, Nigeria has been one of Africas greatest nations. There was a time when Nigeria has given hope to other nations. In the wake of economic depression and massive poverty in India, Pakistan, Liberia and Ghana, citizens of these countries flooded Nigeria in droves to seek greener pastures. Somehow, India got it right, and today, their corporations are oppressing Nigerian citizens. The Indian government recognized the importance of Western education and awarded scholarships to its citizens to study in USA, Canada, Britain and other European nations, with the promise to return home and contribute to national development. Like India, South Korea did the same. They sponsored their citizens in Western universities. They copied Western technology and transformed it into the Asian model. They put in place the veritable environment and policies to attract their citizens from the West. They got it right. The Ghanian government got it right when the legendary Jerry Rawlings decided to remove the obstacle to African development - corruption, by eliminating everyone who had contributed to the downfall of Ghana. He laid the foundation for hope in a nation once known as the Gold Cost of West Africa, but suddenly transformed into a desert of despair, and a garbage heap for global disposal of industrial waste. Ghana got it right. Today, Ghana is a favorite destination for Nigerian investors. Today, Nigerians who cannot afford to travel overseas for education or maternity purposes prefare Ghana. Why? They got it right. How did Nigeria transform from a country that had given hope to other nations to a nation that cannot give hope to its own citizens? The answer is governance. Lets take an example from Cross River State. Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke have filled strategic positions in Cross River with foreigners who control key sectors of our economy. I have personally assessed the resumes of these individuals and non of them is better than the Cross Riverians in North America and Europe that I know who are passionate about the problems at home and have acquired the right education and training to contribute in driving our state to enviable heights. Even our leaders who attended elite universities in the West and are exposed to light have failed our generation; they have failed to tap the intellectual potential of Cross Riverians in the diaspora, just like the Ibos and Yorubas are doing to build their states. We are faced with enormous problems all connected to one single variable - governance. I rest my case.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 05:58:58 +0000