the causes of its people, of bettering their lot,
of preparing a visionary and inspired landing for its children,
it is gradually losing its shirt – like they say it in football or other contact sports. It is losing its relevance, even though it may retain power for long.”
-Tope Fasua
For the 2015 elections, I decided I was going to engage in less of commentary and more of practical actions on the ground that can add modest value to the elections and our democracy in general. To this extent, I have being working with various international development organizations to train candidates for elections across Nigeria; empower party/polling agents with appropriate knowledge; conduct voter education interventions, etc.
My intellectual commentaries regarding the 2015 elections have been fairly limited to developments in my home state of Abia where the rot and steady drift into the cesspit of poverty, hunger, arrested development and sheer looting of the state have now reached such a frightening and desperate level that silence was no longer an option.
But when I recently read the latest Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) “Where To Be Born Index”, I knew that the report certainly deserved the attention of Nigerians, particularly, the response of all political candidates who seek to lead us at various levels of governance. Given that the mantra in the run-up to the 2015 elections has been 'issues based politics only, please', I thought that nothing can better serve as a legitimate issue of discourse and debate than the troubling verdict of the EIU. So what is this worrisome report from the EIU?
In 1988, The EIU ranked America as the best place in the world for a child to be born. 25 years later, in 2013, a lot had changed. America now ties with Germany as number 16 on the list. Switzerland, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Singapore, in that order, now occupy the first to sixth position on the EIUs Best Place to be Born index. Surprised?
Well, that is not even the shocker. The real news is that, whereas South Africa manages to hold a decent 53rd position on the index, Nigeria comes in as number 80 on the index. Put precisely, Nigeria stood out as the worst place in the world today for a child to be born. Out of the 80 countries researched for the index, Nigeria came in at, yes, you guessed right, number 80. Nigeria came in last with a score of 4.74 points out of the available 10 points. To put it in the words of the EIU, “Nigeria has the unenviable title of being the worst country for a baby to enter the world in 2013”.
Now to put in proper perspective how disconcerting this report is: war torn Syria, sanction crippled Iran, separatist conflict laden Ukraine, Egypt that is still struggling to shake off the haunting shadows of the Arab Spring, Angola that is only just emerging from the scars of 3 decades of war and Kenya that is struggling with a GDP that is far less than that of Lagos state, all came in ahead of Nigeria.
For those who may be quick to challenge the veracity of the report and the organization that produced it, perhaps a little bit of background information suffices. The EIU is headquartered in London, UK, with offices in more than 40 cities and a network of some 650 country experts and analysts worldwide. It operates independently as the business-to-business arm of The Economist Group. The EIU is the world's leading resource for economic and business research, forecasting and analysis. It provides accurate and impartial intelligence for companies, government agencies, financial institutions and academic organizations around the globe, inspiring business leaders to act with confidence since 1946.
The EIU’s ‘Where to Be Born’ index was first published in 1988. The one that was just released in 2013 is the second and latest in the series. The index is a measure of which countries provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead. According to the EIU, to undertake the study for the index, it “measures the quality of life based on a unique methodology that links the results of subjective life satisfaction surveys to the objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. The determinants are a mix of fixed factors, such as geography, factors that change only very slowly over time (demography, many social and cultural characteristics), and some economic factors that depend on policies and the state of the world economy.”
To determine the quality of life, 11 key indicators are taken into account and these include but not limited to “GDP per head; life expectancy at birth; the quality of family life; the state of political freedoms; job security; climate; personal physical security; the quality of community life; governance and gender equality.” And to make accurate predictions the EIU does not just rely on a snapshot of today. “Even though many of the drivers of the quality of life are slow-changing, some variables such as income per head need to be forecast. For this, use is made of the EIU's long-term economic forecasts to 2030, the year that children born in 2013 will approximately reach adulthood.” Now as far I know, every Economist worth their name globally, respects the EIU and its reports.
Back to Nigeria. In a country where anyone in the public and private sector, at local, state and national level with access to loot the treasury and commonwealth of the people is affectionately referred to as a 'great leader', I wonder if any of these ‘great leaders’ are giving thought to this dismal piece of data? I wonder if we as citizens are asking the difficult questions and facing up to the painful but truthful facts that confront us as a nation?
Truth is, our leaders can beautify the books as much as they please, serve us with curious and contrived economic data that paints Nigeria as a thriving economy, talk up how well living standards is improving in Nigeria and for better effect, spice up the rhetoric with all that mumbo jumbo about GDP growth, positive micro and macro indicators and growing FDI but the reality is that, in the highly interconnected global economic community that we live in today, no country can escape the rigorous scrutiny of global institutions which will ultimately unveil the seamy facts as they are. Indeed, our ‘great leaders’ are entitled to their opinions but certainly not to their own facts and figures.
If Nigeria is the country with the highest number of privately owned jets in the world; the country where a Senator earns far more than the US President; the country with the largest economy in Africa, the African country with the highest FDI, the country with the happiest people in the world, pray, how did we also end up being the worst country in the world for a child to be born? Is it just me or is there something that doesn’t sound quite right here? How did we come to this sorry pass? Has complacency, cowardice, fear, ignorance and the easy money of politics and oil wells made us so numb that we can no longer see, feel and respond to the festering contradictions of our national life?
But really, with the kind of alarming data on Nigeria coming out of most globally recognized institutions, should anyone really be surprised at the EIU’s report? Consider for instance that with about 70% of Nigerians living below the poverty line, the World Bank ranks Nigeria number 3 on its world Poverty Index; and with approximately 10.5 million school age children out of school in Nigeria, UNESCO ranks Nigeria number 1 in its index of countries with the highest number of young people out of school in the world. In fact, it is so bad that Nigeria accounts for 47 percent of the global out-of-school population. These numbers tell a dark tale of how poorly we have performed in nation building since 1960 and gives unassailable impetus to the disturbing EIU report.
About half a century ago, the British colonialists retreated from our shores and we assumed leadership of our affairs. 50 years on, the legacy of independence is that we have collectively, in our actions and inactions, compromised the integrity of our today and unabashedly mortgaged the future of our children so much so that the world now points accusingly at us as the worst place on earth for a child to be born. Can it get any worse? Can we plunder Nigeria any further than this? Do we need anything more shocking than this to drive home to us the reality of how much we have failed as a people and as a nation? This EIU report forcefully reminds us how we have misled and mismanaged this beautiful land of promise into a near failed state. Indeed, no matter how well intentioned and patriotic we are, reports like the EIU Index on where to be born makes it difficult to disagree with Professor Wole Soyinka's erstwhile painful thesis that ours is a 'wasted generation'
The worrisome EIU report is the kind of solemn issue that should engage the minds and thoughts of citizens and civil society. It is equally the type of important issue that politicians and their political parties should be focusing on with a view to explaining to us what went wrong and how they intend to fix it. Could all those who are seeking our votes in the various political parties to be President, Governors, national and state legislators engage us with their ideas as to how they intend to govern differently to ensure that by the time the next EIU index on Where To Be Born is published in 2038, our children would be faring so much better such that Nigeria would have moved up significantly up the ladder of the index?
Methinks that with the enormity of challenges facing Nigeria today, the chronic and indeed endemic nature of the pathologies plaguing the system, we can ill afford some of the banal and comical commentaries emanating from our politicians – Mr. A has ‘mouth odour’, Nay, Mr. B drinks ‘expensive champagnes’, etc. what nonsense! Can our political parties, their candidates and foot soldiers rise above the cheap allure of pettiness and engage Nigerians in serious debates/discourse on what durable solutions they have to proffer to the plethora of compelling issues that affect the wellbeing and safety of citizens?
It is not only violence and fraud that can compromise the integrity of elections. An election in which no big ideas or issues are being debated in the public space; bitter bickering and mundane matters manacle public conversations; threats of litigations and counter ligations pervade the polity; no natural connections are being established with citizens; campaigns on both sides of the aisle are poorly and thoughtlessly choreographed, it is my view that such an election has, to some extent, already being fundamentally violated. Nigerians need informed platforms to premise their vote. That such a consequential report like the EIU Index which speaks boldly to the dire plight of our children, the so-called leaders of tomorrow, is out there in the public domain (amongst many other serious issues) and neither citizens nor civil society are vigorously engaging those who seek to govern us, at all levels, for answers, is further proof of a lack of the kind of rigorous scrutiny that can provide the electorate a rational basis for informed choice. Indeed, that is why, it is said that people will always end up with the kind of leaders and leadership they deserve.
We must individually and collectively rise beyond petty and partisan considerations and begin to engage in the kind of sober but deep and thoughtful conversations that properly locate the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians as the heart of the matter. The Nigerian media has to work harder to ensure that it is not sucked and seduced into distraction by the so-called war of words between political gladiators on both sides of the divide. What is required at this critical juncture in the electioneering campaign is a solemn battle of ideas, values and platforms, certainly not of tasteless wits, blackmail and inanities.
The time for puerile platitudes, political grandstanding, voodoo economics and self-serving excuses have passed. The world is moving on and will not wait for Nigeria to rise from her slumber. We must rouse this sleeping giant to take her rightful place in the comity of civilized nations and begin to provide the kind of inspiring leadership that is fitting. We must awaken the latent productive and creative energies of our people and march bravely into a future of limitless possibilities and opportunities with hope and confidence. We must reclaim the lost years of promise and reverse the vast devastation of locusts, caterpillars and wormwoods in our country. Nigerians demand it. Africa expects it. The world desires it.
Anthony Ubani, a Leadership Development Expert, writes from Abuja.
Tags
Anthony Ubani