Apparently, its fifty years since the independence of Nigeria. According to some, its been a very good thing, and Nigeria has boomed in those fifty years.
However looked at another way, Nigeria remains one of the worst performing countries in the world even on these measures of 'success'. I might add that outside of these official measures of success, Nigeria is also renowned for its total corruption, Internet scams, and racial and religious genocides (Remember Biafra?).
I blame us British for some of this failure. We should have split Nigeria into two countries for independence: A Muslim Northern state (which could retreated into ignorance and backwardness by itself - widespread suspicions over Western morals in schools, mean that girls in northern Nigeria rarely go to school), and a Christian / Animist Southern one, which might have made some progress.
Instead, we hitched separate tribes, languages, and religions together, and hoped to 'make a country' out of this hodgepodge. Instead we got, well a mess. But there our blame ends, the incompetence and corruption they created all for themselves .... It's estimated that in Nigeria, more than $400 billion was stolen from the state treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.
It is interesting to note that Indonesia is also celebrating fifty years of independence ..... they started from around the same base level of measurements, but look at the figures now.
Nigeria and Indonesia compared:
Life expectancy
Population below poverty line
- Average life expectancy up a whopping 10 years from 38 to 48 ...(wow! .... I'd be dead in Nigeria).
- Infant Mortality down from 165 to 98 per 1000 births.
- Average births per female down from 6, to 5.
- Number of doctors per 1,000 up from 0.017148 to 0.40.
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| Fifty Years Since Nigerian Independence |
However looked at another way, Nigeria remains one of the worst performing countries in the world even on these measures of 'success'. I might add that outside of these official measures of success, Nigeria is also renowned for its total corruption, Internet scams, and racial and religious genocides (Remember Biafra?).
I blame us British for some of this failure. We should have split Nigeria into two countries for independence: A Muslim Northern state (which could retreated into ignorance and backwardness by itself - widespread suspicions over Western morals in schools, mean that girls in northern Nigeria rarely go to school), and a Christian / Animist Southern one, which might have made some progress.
Instead, we hitched separate tribes, languages, and religions together, and hoped to 'make a country' out of this hodgepodge. Instead we got, well a mess. But there our blame ends, the incompetence and corruption they created all for themselves .... It's estimated that in Nigeria, more than $400 billion was stolen from the state treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.
It is interesting to note that Indonesia is also celebrating fifty years of independence ..... they started from around the same base level of measurements, but look at the figures now.
Nigeria and Indonesia compared:
Life expectancy
- Nigeria: Men, 47. Women, 48
- Indonesia: Men, 69. Women, 73
Gross national income, per capita
- Nigeria: $1,160
- Indonesia: $2,010
Gross domestic product
- Nigeria: $207.12 billion (mostly oil revenue)
- Indonesia: $510.73 billion
Population below poverty line
- Nigeria: 70%
- Indonesia: 17.8%
Those figures are shocking. Nigeria has had oil and without that would actually be worse off than before independence.
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