Bad governance behind poverty in Nigeria -Dr Oby Ezekwesili

A former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has
attributed the rising poverty in Nigeria to poor governance
and the monotonous economic structure of the country.
Ezekwesili described the country as an African paradox
with the land rich in natural resources but a large percentage
of her citizens poor.
The former World Bank Vice President for Africa said bad
governance, which had manifested through corruption, was
responsible for the poor economic performance of the
country.
Ezekwesili, who spoke on Tuesday at the opening ceremony
of the 2013 Port Harcourt Book Festival in the Rivers State
capital, observed that Nigeria had been unable to translate
the huge natural resources at her disposal to the
improvement of her citizens' living standard.
She said that 69 percent of over 100 million Nigerians were
living within the poverty bracket
She said, "Nigeria is perhaps the best known example of the
African paradox. It is a country which has struggled with
the development process over the last 53 years of her
independence.
"As the 6th largest producer of oil in the world, it has
earned more than half a trillion dollars in oil export since
the discovery of that commodity in the South-South region
of this country where we are gathered today.
"Unfortunately, the massive revenue from oil has been a
source of enormous sorrow to citizens due to poor
government by our political elite over the many decades
since its discovery."
The ex-minister added, "Nigeria has therefore tragically
failed to translate her rich resource endowment to
improvement in the standard of living of her citizens hence
we today have 69 percent of over 100 million of our
citizens in the poverty bracket, according to the latest data
from the National Bureau of Statistics.
"The poor governance or its more virulent manifestation,
public corruption, is of course the fundamental reason for
Nigeria's poor economic performance despite our globally
acknowledged economic potentials to have become not just
one of the largest economies of the world, but in fact, one
of the most prosperous of those countries.
"There is no better saying of the governance failure in our
nation than the relatively unchanged structure of the
economy of Nigeria since our independence; and it is the
rapid change of the structure of an economy that determines
the level of economic growth, development and prosperity
that would happen. In our case, it has remained relatively
unchanged."
Ezekwesili lamented that while Asian economies had
experienced significant growth in economic prosperity,
countries in Africa had failed to develop economically.
She expressed the need for African countries to search for
other sources of development in order to improve the poor.
"At 48 percent of the continent's population surviving on a
mere $1.25 a meal, it is urgent that the economies of Africa
should find new sources of growth to the present crop of the
poor," Ezekwesili added.
Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi said his
administration would soon construct a N3bn administrative
village.
"We are building a Creative Village at present and it is
going to cost N3bn. In the village, there will be a public
library, a theatre and a cafe, among other facilities," he
said.
Amaechi said the public library was part of the
government's effort to promote the reading culture in Rivers
State, adding that Shell has promised to contribute to the
funding of the project.