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It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

author:The ultimate eye

Hello everyone, here is the ultimate eye, today let's talk about Nigeria, Africa's largest economic power.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is located in East and West Africa, with a territory of 920,000 square kilometers, which is about 26 times the area of Taiwan Province of China. According to statistics, Nigeria's population exceeded the 100 million mark between 1993 and 1997, and the latest data pointed out that the country's population has exceeded 200 million in 2021, becoming the most populous country in Africa. Scholars estimate that by 2050, Nigeria's population will double, surpassing the United States to 400 million, becoming the world's third most populous country after China and India, and by the end of the century in 2100, Nigeria has a chance to reach 800 million people, and the number of people in the country is considerable.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Nigeria's population is not only large, but also quite complex. Looking back at the history of Nigeria, before the British colonial rule in 1914, Nigeria had a very diverse ethnic and cultural composition, and it was not officially declared independent until October 1, 1960, and the 62nd anniversary of Nigeria's formal independence in 202. Today, more than 500 races across the country have seceded from the UK. After independence, Nigeria was controlled by a military junta and warlords, and the Nigerian political system gradually transformed after the death of the head of the junta Abacha on June 8, 1998. The then ruling party decided to return power to an elected government, and in 1999 presidential and National Assembly elections were held, and a new version of the constitution was adopted. and the establishment of a civilian government.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

As Nigeria has abundant oil resources and has become an oil-based economy, in 2014, Nigeria's gross domestic product surpassed the Republic of South Africa to become the largest economy in Africa and is now the 13th largest oil exporter in the world. At the same time, Nigeria is also a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and its abundant human and natural resources make Nigeria promising, and it is listed as one of the four mint countries with high potential. To put it simply, the four mint countries of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey are regarded as emerging economic powerhouses. All things considered, Nigeria should have a very good future, not only as the world's 13th largest oil exporter, but also as Africa's largest economy after South Africa. But behind the seemingly prosperity, more than 80% of the population lives without drinking water.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

It is worth noting that the country is not really short of water, there are as many as 36 regions in the country, and the place name is named after the river. There is abundant water available across the country, but in the absence of proper management and protection of water resources, only 19% of the population has access to clean drinking water through pipes, and most people use oil drums to hold rainwater. The daily little things that we take for granted when we turn on the tap and have water flowing out are almost a luxury for Nigerian residents. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina has said that more than half of Nigeria's population lacks clean drinking water and decent sanitation infrastructure. In response, a group of university students in the UK set up a water charity in 2007 to give people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria access to clean water. In addition, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in the country's society, with the majority of the population living below the poverty line.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

According to the World Bank, although Nigeria is rich in resources and enjoys population welfare, it also has more people living in poverty than in other countries. The economic inequality report released by the British NGO Oxfam also shows that as many as 112 million people in Nigeria are living in extreme poverty, and Dangot, the country's richest man, alone has a fortune of $14.4 billion. The benefits of social wealth and economic growth are concentrated in the hands of a few, and it is the people at the bottom who pay the price. According to the analysis, the income of that wealthy class is 8,000 times that of the bottom people, which reveals the huge gap between the rich and the poor in Nigeria, and Nigeria is also one of the few who has grown economically and the number of poor people has also grown, and the living standards of the country's people have not improved equally with the economic growth in recent decades.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Why has water scarcity, large numbers of people living in extreme poverty, and extreme wealth disparity become everyday in Nigeria? In fact, insufficient education, imperfect industrial structure, insufficient job opportunities, and continuous ethnic conflicts within the country are all key factors that are difficult to solve. However, for these reasons, we can find that the shadow of corruption is hidden inside, and it can even be asserted that corruption is the core of the problem because Nigeria can not escape poverty despite its huge natural resources and population advantages. According to the latest Global Corruption Index released by Transparency International, Nigeria ranked 149th out of 183 countries, down 13 places from 136 in 2014. Nigeria, which is rated in poor grades, is the second most corrupt country in West Africa. The report bluntly states that Nigeria scored only 25 out of 100 on the Corruption Perception Index.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Continued corruption fuels a nation's national crisis. It is reported that from 1960 to 1999, nearly 400 billion US dollars of public funds flowed into the pockets of a few people in Nigeria, and even after the 21st century, corruption scandals still emerge from time to time. To take a well-known example, in 2011, top names Shell and Eni Petroleum spent up to US$1.1 billion to bribe the Nigerian government in order to obtain the rights to exploit the OPL245 oil field, including former Nigerian oil minister Etek, former inspector general Arduk and other high-ranking officials. The multibillion-dollar money, which could have allowed 1.7 million out-of-school students in Nigeria to return to school or train 400,000 more midwives, was eventually found by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crime Investigation Commission to have flowed into former oil ministers and other unknown companies. In addition to high-level government corruption, the general public service such as the military and police system or customs also take advantage of the opportunity to extort incidents often occur, among which the police are considered to be the most corrupt department, even if the corrupt behavior has long been banned by the police system, and some people have been reported and lost their officials, but there is still no obvious improvement in the behavior of the grassroots police. Corruption is not only the individual actions of a few management classes, but a collective movement that can be carried out by all those who hold public power from top to bottom, and such a culture of corruption has serious consequences for society.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

With the rise of international crude oil, the surge in oil revenues has not reborn Nigeria, but the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line has increased year by year, and those wealth that should have been shared by the whole people can finally be built for the whole people. Why is corruption a widespread phenomenon in Nigeria? The reasons behind this may be attributed to the lack of national identity, the insufficient basic salary at the grassroots level, and the impact of the abundant income brought by oil on the country.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Let's start with national identity, the population composition mentioned above is quite complex, there are more than 500 ethnic groups in the country, and during the British colonial period, in order to cope with the convenience of so many races, the colonial authorities adopted a divide-and-rule approach, resulting in constant inter-ethnic strife, and religious differences between the north and the south also contributed to the atmosphere of conflict. However, the democratic system of Nigeria after independence became the way in which various races used to gain political power, and the imbalance between the population of the north and the population of the south also caused injustice on the political map. Ethnic divisions have intensified domestic strife, led to civil wars large and small, and coups d'état. During the same period, Nigeria experienced six military coups in just half a century after independence. Political instability, coupled with the federal system, makes it impossible for the country to have a central government strong enough to solve the people's livelihood problems, so the people's identification with the country still needs to be improved.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Then there is the problem of undersalaries for grassroots personnel. It is understood that even if the oil industry brings great wealth to Nigeria, the result of high dependence on oil revenue is that the government budget is deeply affected by the fluctuation of international oil prices, and once the international oil price falls more than expected, the government will face the dilemma of spending more than revenue and having to borrow. The first is that Nigerian civil servants have to bear the dilemma of salary arrears, not only civil servants, but also the military has repeatedly reported salary arrears, which has evolved into the government's arrears of public units, the military and police are exploiting civilians to get money, civil servants began to have the form of taking more money first, and so on, constantly playing out in the daily life of the country.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

Then there is the double-sided blade that oil black gold brought to Nigeria. In 1956, the Nigerian government discovered oil in the Niger River Delta, and in the five or six decades since then, the country has gradually become Africa's largest oil producer, and the government has earned more than $1.6 trillion in the process of mining black gold. But this huge amount of money did not make the people really feel the country's economic take-off, but the poor population continued to grow. This phenomenon has made this "gift from God" a sharp blade for the people of the country, and senior Nigerian government officials have not used the wealth brought by oil to improve the country's industrial development and have not contributed to the functioning of society. Ironically, Nigeria's state-run oil company NNPC ranked last and the only one with a zero score in a corruption and transparency survey conducted by international organizations of 44 state-owned and international energy companies. It is reported that NNPC controls the country's crude oil exports and oil imports, but does not publicly announce financial reports. Even in times of rising oil prices, oil revenues are falling, and it is clear that the whereabouts of the funds are suspicious. The oil industry not only did not help the people's livelihood economy, but also caused the gap between the rich and the poor in the country to widen year by year, and the businessmen and government leaders related to the oil industry made a lot of black money, and ordinary civilians not only could not benefit, but also suffered from it.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

While Nigeria's many rich people are worth a million dollars or even hundreds of millions of dollars, more than 100 million people in the country live on less than $2 a day, and the rich income brought by oil also saves the upper class from the supervision of voters, so the corruption problem of the leadership is so serious that it is almost impossible to effectively solve it. Even though Nigeria may seem to have a balance of power between the government and the opposition, the country's inequality of wealth makes it powerless to resist corruption and lack the power to monitor. Therefore, politics is still reduced to a tool for political elites to divide the spoils, and the people cannot enter the power system and can only become the object of sacrifice. Corruption not only encroaches on the national economy and makes resources not well used in people's livelihood construction, but also creates a gap between civilians and public power, and mutual distrust seriously hurts the accumulation of social capital.

It's Africa's largest economy, but hundreds of millions of people are below the poverty line, what happened?

The Nigerian government is not without its desire to address the corruption that has accumulated over the years, but it has done nothing effectively to truly eradicate the culture of corruption. In recent years, Nigerian social movements have begun to gain momentum, with large-scale strikes and the Occupy movement, modeled on Occupy Wall Street, which has raised the demands of the leadership for change in the status quo, and people's dissatisfaction with the government has gradually surfaced. The people of the country try to use their ballots to tell the ruling authorities that if they do not do well, they will step down, that they will not solve the problem of corruption, that they will try it out if they cannot take care of the people. Will more radical actions now be able to transform Nigeria and ultimately rely on the government's determination to eradicate corruption? As people's consciousness rises, Nigeria may have a chance to be reborn.

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Text | The ultimate eye

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