NIGERIA’S GIANT STRIDES IN THE ECONOMIC SECTOR SINCE INDEPENDENCE
By Udo Etefia

At independence in 1960, Nigeria took steps to lay a solid foundation for its economic development.
This led to the formulation in 1962, of national development plans spanning about two decades.

The plans were designed to harness the abundant human and natural resources in the country for the economic advantage of its citizens.

However, a series of unfortunate political events in the country, including a 20-month civil war, hindered the realization of the objectives of the development plans.

The Indigenization Act of 1973 was a major economic stride as it made it possible for Nigerians to take over the running of the economy from foreigners who hitherto had entrenched themselves in all facets of the country’s economic life.

The Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) initiated by the Ibrahim Babangida administration in 1986 came as a response to the dwindling oil resources.

But SAP was terminated two years later when it became obvious that it was not achieving the purpose for which it was introduced.

Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, successive administrations have embarked on wholesome reform of the economy.

Initially, the reform was anchored on the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS).  NEEDS was designed to facilitate the achievements of national goals of wealth creation, employment generation and poverty reduction.

The privatization of public enterprises witnessed in the country in recent years is embedded in the policy. 
The idea is to reposition these enterprises to meet the national aspirations of wealth creation and employment generation.

Government’s liberalization policy brought a revolution in the telecommunications industry as the sector experienced an unprecedented boost making it the fastest growing in Africa.

The sector has attracted a whopping eighteen-billion- dollar private investment, including foreign direct investment, with the number of telephone lines jumping from four hundred and fifty thousand in 1999 to the current eighty million lines.

The democratic environment in Nigeria has also provided the needed impetus for reform in the banking sector.

The reform, which raised the capital base of banks to twenty-five billion naira, was designed to ensure that the banks were better positioned to finance the industrial sector.

It is generally believed that the consolidation of the banking sector shielded the industry in Nigeria from the 2008 global financial melt-down which saw the collapse of a number of strong banks in more advanced economies.

The reform of the sector is still on-going with the current sanitization programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria which has nationalized some ailing banks and revealed some operators’ excesses.

With a democratic environment, the needed legal framework has been provided to deal with the problem of corruption which has impeded development over the years.

For instance, the bill establishing the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission was among the first set of laws sent to the National Assembly by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration on assumption of office in May, 1999.

This was later followed by that of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The battle against corruption has recorded tremendous gains with the successful prosecution and conviction of some high profile politicians and businessmen, thereby recovering huge sums of stolen public funds.

In 2006, Nigeria made history by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt owed to the Paris Cub estimated at over thirty billion dollars.

This has helped the country to free-up at least one- point-one-five billion dollars annually for poverty reduction programmes.

In 2007, the administration of late Umaru Yar’Adua launched the Vision 20:2020 programme, aimed at launching Nigeria onto the path of sustained and rapid economic growth so that the country could become one of the top twenty economies in the world by year 2020.

The strategy advocates integrated sectoral planning to enhance linkage and synergy.  This is to ensure that agriculture, oil and gas as well as mineral sectors serve as sources of inputs into the nation’s local manufacturing industry.

Today, Nigeria is the second largest economy in Africa after South Africa and the largest economy in West Africa.

Just like his predecessors in the current democratic process, President Goodluck Jonathan is giving priority to growing the economy with special attention to the power sector which is the catalyst for achieving set economic goals.

With all these in place, it is expected that by 2015, Nigeria would be on the right track towards realizing its target of being one of the world’s top twenty economies by 2020.

Broadcast on Tuesday October 4, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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