Many see Nigeria as a classic victim of the “resource curse” where oil or mineral wealth leads to the neglect of other economic sectors, exposes the country to volatile price swings, and fuels corruption and strife.
Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer, but the number of Nigerians living on less than a dollar a day rose to 61.2 per cent in 2010 from 51.6 percent in 2004, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a report last week.
The figures marked a regression for Africa’s most populous nation - where the poverty rate had declined between 1996 and 2004 - and showed Nigeria has not shared in the progress made elsewhere on the continent.
“It remains a paradox ... that despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year,” said Yemi Kale, the head of the statistics bureau.
Nigeria’s economy grew at an average 7.6 per cent between 2003 and 2010, according to the World Bank.
Analysts said while the lucrative oil industry has fuelled growth since crude was discovered some 50 years ago, the sector’s dominance has been a curse for the poor, causing neglect in areas like agriculture.
“What we need is the opportunity for sectors involved with non-oil exports to provide jobs,” said Olufemi Deru, former head of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, a key private sector grouping.
He said Nigeria has failed to come up with an effective agriculture policy.
“We should not be importing so much rice. This is a staple food for both the rich and the poor,” he said and suggested Nigeria restrict imports on basic foodstuffs to force a rise in agricultural production.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said in a 2010 report that, across Africa, extreme poverty declined from 1990 to 2008 but that progress was halted by the onset of the global economic crisis.
Some dispute those figures, and the UNDP has said its 2005 to 2008 assessments were based on projections, not hard data.
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