Land of Plenty and Want

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

NIGERIA is a land of plenty and of want. It is very rich in natural and human resources, but it is extremely deficient in the quality of the three productive agents of labour, capital, and organization. Politically it is free; but economically it is utterly subservient. With an area of 356,669 square miles, Nigeria is ‘the size of France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom put together’. And with a population of 55.6 million, it is half ‘France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom put together’, and the ninth largest country in the world.

Its comparatively large area is replete with valuable agricultural, forest, animal, water, and mineral resources. In human and natural resources, it compares more than favourably with Congo Kinshasa and Mauritania, respectively, The density of its population is greatest in its South-Eastern and South-Western parts. But, otherwise, its peoples are fairly well-spread out all over its face; so that there is neither over-population nor under-population in any of its States, Though only about 16% of Nigeria’s soil is under cultivation, yet the country produces enough of a large variety of foods and livestockfor domestic consumptiori; and its exports include large quantities of agricultural, forest, and animal products, such as cocoa, oil-palm produce, cotton, groundnuts, rubber, timber, and hides and skins. Even all this, impressive as it is, falls well below what the unaided fertility of the country’s soils is capable of producing, In its report, entitled Agricultural Development in Nigeria 1965-1980, the F.A.O. classifies 37% of Nigeria’s soils as of high and medium productivity; 47% as of low productivity; 79% as having strong, good, and medium potentialities; and 10% a~ of slight potentialities. Only 16% of the country’s soils is classified as of very low or no productivity, and 11 % as of very slight or no potentialities.

Nigeria’s potentialities are enhanced by the fact that, geographically, it lies roughly between latitudes 5 and 15 north of the Equator, and is blessed with a’ fairly mild tropical climate. Consequently, barring malaria and other debilitating diseases, its climate favours human exertions of a high order. It also favours the growth of good-quality wheat, carrot, potato, etc., and the cultivation of better-quality cotton as well as a number of Mediterranean crops and fruits.

The country’s mineral products, so far as they are known, include tin, columbite, lead, zinc, iron-ore, uranium, coal, gas, and oil. Nigeria is now one of the largest mineral oil producers in the world. It would be reckless to say that Nigeria’s list of mineral resources is closed. Some twenty or more years ago, the country was a not inconsequential producer of gold; and there are speculations, even now, that diamond and reasonable deposits of gold might be discovered, if expert and diligent search is made for them. In this connection, it must be emphasized that the geological survey of Nigeria is still in its inchoate stages, and, therefore, very far from being comprehensive or thorough.

The ethnic diversity of Nigerian peoples has political disadvantages which we have noted; but its economic advantages are tremendous and without qualification. Each ethnic unit has innate skills and traits which, speaking generally, are peculiar to it. Some excel in agriculture, others in manufacture, and yet others in the distributive aspects of economic activities. There is a very happy combination of geographical and ethnic divisions of labour in Nigeria: what one area or ethnic unit lacks the others supply; and the whole country stands potentially enriched thereby.

As a whole, the peoples of Nigeria are by nature hardy, industrious, alert, ambitious, forward-looking, and eager to learn.

Even the once-conservative, easy-going, and complacent sections of the community are fast undergoing a revolutionary change of outlook and behaviour in order to keep pace and conform, in modern economic terms, with their fellow-countrymen who have different traditions and are comparatively quicker in embracing some of the more beneficial patterns of Western civilization. The rate of growth of the population is estimated at roughly 3% per annum. Thus, without more conscious effort than hitherto on the part of Nigerian governments towards economic development, this rate of population growth does imply, other things being equal, . an equivalent autonomous growth rate in all the sectors of the country s economy. In spite, however, of its actual and potential abundance of natural and human resources, the facts reveal, as we shall demonstrate them presently, that economically, Nigeria is an underdeveloped and dependent country. In substantiation of this assertion, it is necessary first to describe and define the essential characteristics of economic underdevelopment and dependence, and then to set out the factual circumstances which place Nigeria in the categories of economically underdeveloped and dependent countries. It is fashionable these days to refer to underdeveloped countries as developing countries. But it must be generally agreed that the phrase ‘developing country’ is a euphemism for ‘underdeveloped country’.

The two phrases are commonly used as synonymous. But in our view, the expression ‘underdeveloped country’ is more precise and more forthright than ‘developing country’. To confine the latter phrase to an economically backward country is misleading and d’eceptive. No country in the world is stagnant or static. Every country is developing all the time, whether it is already highly developed or terribly underdeveloped.

Indeed, the so-called advanced or developed countries are, relatively, developing faster than the underdeveloped ones.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK