Facts about Nigeria

Hello everyone, today I am busy writing some paper for a conference in Prague. I came across some data on Nigeria and decided to share it. Do you know that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a population of about 128.7 million people (World Bank, 2007)? According to the World Bank 2007 report, Nigeria has the second largest economy, with a GDP of US$51.7 billion that is behind South Africa, which has the biggest economy with a real GDP of US$152.3 billion (2004). With huge amount of human, natural and mineral resources, Nigeria possesses the potential to join the worlds growing economies like China and India. The country’s economic advancement is partly hindered by over dependence on oil and traditional sectors, such as agriculture and services. Nigeria’s economic structure remains undiversified. Oil exports account for 95 percent of total exports, while manufacturing accounts for less than 1 percent (World Bank, 2005). Small and medium-size enterprises have suffered due to Lack of demand for their products and services. There are ineffective linkages between industry and research institutes and universities. The relationship between universities and government remains strained over implementation of agreement. As a result of this strain, the unnecessary strikes by university academic and non academic staff; therefore crippling the educational system. The lack of political will and technical know-how to translate raw materials into finished goods and maintain existing machinery combine to hinder economic growth despite being blessed with untapped resources including oil wealth.

Despite the fact that Nigeria is a member of the Organisation of petroleum exporting countries and is the sixth largest oil producer in OPEC (Madujibeya, 1976), the country is ranked as the twenty sixth poorest in terms of human poverty (Elijah & Uffort, 2007; Madujibeya, 1976; report, 2007/2008; UNDP, 2007/2008). World Bank (World Bank, 2005) reported that in 1980s and 1990s, Per capita GDP in Nigeria was among the lowest in the world costing it decades of development. It was estimated in 1980 that 27 percent of Nigerians lived in poverty.

I hope this information builds some desire for Nigerians all over the world to help steer that country towards greater heights. It has got the potentials. The data is there to support this but some aspect of our culture, beliefs and orientation needs to be changed in order to get to where we want to (DEVELOPMENT). I hope this article gives you information on what a great country Nigeria is but crippled by the greed and corruption of a shameless few.