DO YOU THINK NIGERIA CAN BREAK FREE FROM POVERTY?

One crucial lesson Nigeria provides is that rich endowment of resources is not enough to ensure economic development. In the book Power and Prosperity, Mancur Olson theorizes that a nation must comform to two "general conditions" in order to reach a prosperous development. The first of the conditions is "the paradoxical condition of secure and well-defined individual rights." The second one is that there is no "predation of any kind" (Olson 195-196). However, the political and economic model of Nigeria makes it very hard for these conditions to be met. All property rights, in said nation, emanate and revolve around the State. The property rights of individuals are trumped by the supremacy of the government, which can appropiate or nationalize any number of resources at any time. Also, because a small group (without an encompassing interest in the economy's welfare) can gain access to government and manipulate to its benefit, the State is generally a predative force on the economy. It is no coincidence that despite a constant struggle to meet the basic needs of its citizens, many of the heads of state of the Nigerian nation have ended up in the lists of the wealthiest men in Africa. Once a diagnosis is proposed for the possible causes of underdevelopment in Nigeria, a much more complicated question arises. How can the post-colonial African nations escape their persistant and seemingly inescapable retardation? If lack of development is a result of the models of governance and economic production imposed by 'alien' colonizing cultures, would the path to development have to be derived from a purely domestic process? In other words, can the nations and peoples from the developed world lend a helping hand in finding a new way for the African economies, or should they learn from the pitfalls of imposing a foreign system on nations that have not undergone their own progression of development? Should nations like Nigeria be left alone to work out their internal conflicts in hope that they can develop a better suited framework of political and economic interaction and then forge their way out of poverty?

Reason for the Scarcity: Major Pipeline Vandalization Dr Ibrahim said that two points of the corporation’s major pipelines were vandalized – one at Akute in Lagos, and another in Ogere, Ogun state, both in the South-west region of Nigeria. He noted that the current situation was one of distribution, not shortage of supply, and explained that the corporation has been working since Tuesday to restore functionality to the two points. “It was a problem of distribution and not shortage of supply, and it was due to the vandalization of the two main lines of Mosimi and Atlas Cove. “Our team has started working since Tuesday (Feb. 18) and as at 2.30 pm today (Wednesday), we have started re-streaming Mosimi line and by 4.18 p.m., we were able to pump to Atlas Cove. “With the two lines in operation, normalcy will return immediately because we are also monitoring the pipeline,” he stated. However, This Day Live newspaper reports that Lagos’ fuel situation may have been worsened by an oil spill across the Lagos metropolis in the Ijegun area of the state. The spill is reported to have flooded over 300 houses in the area, which forced the PPMC to lock the fuel valve to forestall further spill. The valve lock has resulted in a fuel shortfall, which has translated to a scarcity wave in Lagos, which has led people to panic buying. An anonymous government official, reporting to This Day, said: “When the community alerted NNPC of the spill. They were forced to shut down production in order to carry out repairs. They stopped pumping products. “The products that are in the market were those already in the pipeline. Once the valves were shut off, repairs began in order to restore the pipeline back to order. “When the marketers discovered what has happened, they started hoarding products because they are not sure when or where they would get products to buy. “That hoarding of products is what is manifesting today as fuel scarcity. But that would soon end because once NNPC starts pumping again, we can assure you that products would be back to the market.”