Economic growth and President Jonathan's scorecard by Sina Adelusi

Recently, President Goodluck Jonathan gave an account of his
stewardship in the last two years since he took over the mantle of
leadership in Nigeria. He launched a compendium in which he chronicled
the achievements of his administration.
Reactions have been rife in the social media as whether Jonathan
really deserved most of the accolades he gave himself. This write-up
is not out to score Mr. President's performance as he rightly demanded
from all Nigerians but discuss on Nigeria's experience within the
ambit of the international political economy in thepast two years. By
the end, I would leave the decision to Nigerians to score Mr.
President in areas of economic growth and development.
The 1990 Human Development Reportissued by the United Nations
Development Programme and published in the same year, has been widely
acclaimed in the Third World countries (including Nigeria) as one of
the most realistic and authentic documents ever produced by that
agency. Besides these general positive reactions, however, the UNDP's
projections about Africa, particularly in respect of its poverty
record, must at once be sobering and disturbing to all true-blooded
Africansnay Nigerians.
According to the report, nearly 400 million people in Africa will be
living in "extreme poverty by this century" outlining the grim
deficiencies of human development on the continent. The document
reported that life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is only 51 years,
compared with 62 years for all developing countries and 74 years for
the world's industrialised nations. While an average of 61 per cent
and 55 per centof the population in developing countries have access
to health services and potable water respectively, only 37 per cent of
Africans enjoy safe drinking water andonly 45 per cent have access to
healthservices.
The report further noted that all over the continent, the number of
persons living below the poverty line rose by two-thirds in the first
half of the 1980scompared to an increase of about one-fifth for the
entire world and thatAfrica, with less than 10 per cent of the world's
population, accounted for a quarter of its extremely poor.
The revelations then were not meant to merely fuel lamentation. They
showed, quite clearly, that Africa is not just poor, but is being
progressively impoverished. And it must now be quite obvious that
unless there is a new commitment to reversing this trend, it may soon
be difficult to even consider Africa as partof the developing world.
If the picture is ever to be improved, however, we must first
acknowledge that there has been, almost all over the continent, a
failure of leadership. Apart from a few exceptions, the continent has
been run by men without vision and by ruling cliques that have failed
to appreciate the twin imperatives of sustained economic development
and stable virile democracy. The point cannot be overemphasised that
unless we all join hands in the current efforts in various parts of
the continent, the worst fear of the UNDP report, may yet materialise.
The concept of economic development (or economic growth) is heavily
value-loaded and consequently, an operational definition of economic
growth is a matter of what a nation values most as its economic goals.
For example. Okun and Richardson define economic development as "A
sustained, secular improvement in material well-being which is
reflected in an increasing flow of goods and services." The notion of
improvement in material well-being could be interpreted to mean
improvement in the number of houses built, numbers of cars,television
set, shirts, and bicycles owned". This improvement is said to be seen
or reflected in an increasing flow of goods and services, the totality
of which is called the Gross National Product. It seems that, by
definition. If there is an increase in the GNP (in constant monetary
units) there is development or growth.
The emphasis on this definition is "material well-being" and any
nation whose "material well-being" - number of cars, television sets,
houses, bicycles - is low has not developed and is therefore
under-developed or less developed. However, if there is an expectation
of increasing the number of these "materials" preferably by buying
them even if payment is by loan, the nation is developing and might
eventually develop.
There is nothing wrong with this definition as long as the goal of a
nation is to amass economic goods and services. However, the goals and
aspiration of any two nations will hardly be identical. This makes the
definition and all other similar definitions of economic
developmentfaulty in that all nations are assumed to mirror and should
aim to be like the Western European nations. This definition of
economic development is probably adequate and acceptable for advanced
economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the
Federal Republic of Germany because of the level of development
achieved by these nations two centuries ago.
In a developing nation like Nigeria, a definition of economic
development which excludes income distribution factors, resources
ownership patterns,employment and poverty variables is inadequate.
Thus economic development is an experience. not merely a growth in
Gross Domestic Product and productivity or an increase in the
aggregate of goods and services produced by a nation. It is stated
that economic development is not achieved by any nation unless that
nation experiences a reduction in poverty, a continuing reduction in
unemployment and an equitable distribution of income.
In the final analysis, economic breakthroughs or increases in a
country's GDP are not really an avalanche of joy if they cannot be
converted into demonstrable improvement in the human condition. I do
not think that the average Nigerian in 2011 was better off in terms of
material condition. The electricity is still epileptic; government
workers are lamenting every day as a result of marginalisation while
the politicians are living in affluence. Most of the Federal civil
servants that managed toget promotion after a long stay on particular
grade levels are not placed on the respective new grades. The
situation is worse in some ministries like education, agriculture and
works. Some of them have two or more promotion letters spanning over
six years without being placed on their respective grade levels.
Unemployment rate is getting worse.
The need for the government and thepoliticians to check profligacy is
becoming expedient now. While Nigeria's activist foreign policy
appears to have paid off in the past in the countries such as Namibia,
Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Liberia; the continued use of
our hard-earned resources to prosecute peace missions in countries
such as Mali, Ivory Coast and Congo DR still needs to be re-tooled
both in terms of what legitimate objective is supposed to serve, and
in terms of even the composition of the participating countries. But
as the clearest example of the most activist foreign involvement of
this administration, the cost of such involvement both in men and
materials should be considered carefully. In the end one wonders
whether such activism is not a luxury reserved only for rich and
powerful nations if it is not to prove too much of deprivation for our
domestic political economy.
Advances in economic and international relations are ultimately
justified in terms of their contributiontowards improving the human
condition at home. People's expectation is that 2013 and the rest of
Jonathan's administration will be used to further the objective.
Politics must be less self-centred, people's conception of democracy
must be lessformalistic, and the economy more people-oriented. All
this means fewereconomic deprivations and cumulatively, more freedom
and opportunities for the citizens. All this will not be achieved in
2013. But the year should mark a conscious striving toward these
objectives.
- Adelusi wrote in from Ijebu-Ode