It is incontrovertible that Nigeria suffers from a resource curse as we have little or nothing to show of as a country despite several years of oil exploration. Most of the proceed of our oil wealth has ended in the pockets of our leaders (gulf oil windfall and looting of the nation’s treasury by the late despotic ruler General Abacha).

Resource curse is the economic notion that countries with large endowment of natural resources perform worse than countries that are less endowed. Yet some countries with abundant natural resources do perform better than others, and some have done well. Why is the spell of the resource curse cast so unequally?

Nigeria is a heart rendering paradox. A rich country with desperately poor people. Despite its massive earning from oil, 70% of its estimated 140 million people live below the poverty line. Attempts to explain this contradiction have repeatedly identified the resource curse as the major cause of the disconnection between the country’s wealth and people’s well being. More than 80 million Nigerians live on less than US$1 a day, with Nigeria being ranked 144 out of 146 by Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2004. From the rear, Nigeria came third, an improvement over the nation’s first and second position in 2000 and 2002 respectively.


Yet Section 17(2) D of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria clearly states that "exploitation of human or natural resources in any form whatsoever for reasons, other than the good of the community, shall be prevented." This is clear in meaning, clear in understanding, clear in intention. This section of the constitution would have been a lee way for litigation by public interest lawyers in Nigeria but for the non justifiability of the chapter two of the constitution.

A high level of corruption is prevalent in the country along with weak system of public governance. Negotiations between governmental officials and multinational companies are susceptible to bribes, special favors and other instruments of corruption. The multinational companies themselves encourage non transparent relationship. Nobody knows the exact barrel of crude oil lifted per day in Nigeria. Yet extracted resources such as oil and gas are non renewable. Every barrel of oil or meter of gas pumped out of the ground pushes the country one step closer to the time when the resources and the revenue it generates will be a thing of the past. Self promoting statements about economic growth in oil producing countries disguise the fact that the country is getting poorer and not richer unless it can convert its foreign exchange earning into a renewable source of wealth. Unless new reserves are found, our oil wealth is expected to taper very soon.

Nigerians have not adequately benefited from the exploitation of its resources. Almost all the revenue from oil goes into the pocket of its rulers. The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) and other agencies set up to alleviate the suffering of the people in the Niger Delta who are most hit by the oil exploration itself, has all been a failure. The head of the agencies end up siphoning allocated funds into their personal pockets. The state governors of the south states are not left out, at the recently concluded NPRC, the delegates from the northern part of the country laid strong accusation on their door step that the 13 percent derivation fund being received by them has not been properly accounted for nor can they show any tangible project the fund has been used for. A governor of a state was accused of building a hospital in South Africa and another is currently held in the United Kingdom on money laundering charges.

The government has set up various programmes to combat corruption brought about as a result of our resource wealth. They include the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU) among others. The Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is aimed at following due process and achieving transparency in payment by extractive industry of governments and government linked entities. This is patterned after the global initiatives set up by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. For there to be real transparency, the industry and government need to actually match their words with what they do. Policy pronouncement is one thing and its actual implementation is another.

It is only in Nigeria that governors and other public service holders receive allocation and such is diverted to their personal account. Projects are not approved on the basis of suitability, but on returns it will yield to decision makers. I wonder if the state bears it in mind that the natural resources are held in trust for its citizen thus there is a need for accountability

Our oil wealth has been more of a curse than a blessing. A perilous path with perverse negative outcomes.


By Idayat Hassan
Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA)

This is a letter from some key Affiliator....


Hello,
Your email to the Global Youth Coalition on AIDS on the above subject has been forwarded to me and I wanted to verify a few issues before it gets posted on the forum. We need to get this cleared up as my colleagues in New York have suspected it could be a scam and I want to make sure from here that it is ok to get it posted.

My phone is 0805 518 2526, so you can call me so we can talk and then assist you in ways we can especially with publicising your event. Interestingly, we too had the first Nigerian Youth Leadership Summit this september in Port Harcourt and it is interesting to see how many have been organised by young people over this period. I am glad that the spirit of oneness is engolfing the Nigerian youth and we are begining to make steps to take our future into our hands.

I look forward to talking with or reading from you.

NB. I will be away for two weeks to New York from Friday, so you may not be able to reach me on the phone after Friady.

--
Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima
www.dabesaki.freeservers.com
Director, Development Partnership International
9-11 Emenike Street Mile II Diobu Port Harcourt
www.developmentpartnership.org
Mobile: 234 805 518 2526

I believe that youth participation is key to the attainment of any meaningful goal and are key to all developments in Africa. As a youth based in Nigeria, I find that most youth are not aware of the ICT impacts, meanwhile they are the ones expected to benefit from the outcome of Telecommunications and ICT programmes.

Nigeria is also facing same problems, as like other African countries. After I read the results of my arranged survey in May 2005, I was shocked and understood the scenario of Nigeria. 70% of Nigerians do not know the relevance of ICT to national development. I did this survey among 18 selected persons including students, civil society members, villagers, development leaders and government officials. Out of eighteen, thirteen people just smiled for their lack of knowledge. All students could not understand my questions. When I explained, they said that nobody talked about this. However the people who know < ICT leaders >, all have stereotypic and strange concepts. "Oh, ICT, this is matter of computer experts!" or "Oh, ICT this is the matter of ICT professionals, government's policy makers."

My realization was this is the time to give the message to people about the goals, rights and power of participation. The society is very reluctant about this important matter, They become self-centered, have no clear concept about the situation. They believe nothing will be changed.
People are not conscious and educated about their participation and human development. Even though Nigeria has great examples of participation and success, there are only few.

But the second generation is now heading in a direction without a target or destination. National leaders are failing to show the right and successful ways. Strangely enough, without contribution and participation, people want to develop the country to a higher place; they want to enjoy high quality life. Because of too much focusing on personal matters and benefits, the extreme individualism, selfishness, corruption, dogmatism, and violence (both visible and invisible) are increasing tremendously in Nigeria as well as in this lovely world. People are becoming separated to separate, divided to divide. The Government should do some etching about it, and also including in the school curriculum in all sector of education.

In this situation, the powerful new media can play a most important role to establish Community Technology Centers and the Knowledge Society by giving the ownership of modern technology and knowledge to the majority. My understanding, the Internet opens enormous potentiality by exposing the knowledge, information and sources. By exploring the cyber world, I have the personal and practical experience and success. One person can easily be global citizen by using the digital opportunity and can contribute in development processes worldwide without a "gate pass." Proper information can easily breakdown all kinds of borders and boundaries

With the lack of social commitment, accountability and long-term vision -- as like as other developing countries -- Nigerians are also facing the problem of being hopeless, and concentrating monotonously on personal success! We should not forget, we are part of whole, we are social being. We should not look only to pick, we have to whole. Very low percentage is getting chance in decision-making system. The powerful are controlling what they like. Average people are busy managing their livelihoods in poverty and struggle.

The time is now, we have to inform, inspire and involve each other around goals, rights and communal spirit of participation for success with the Millennium Development Goals target of 2015. It is needed to increase the sense of communal spirit and brotherly love by shaping self-help and self-reliance. To inspire the people horizontally and vertically, I would like to be more active in "One Village, one world, One Info Center "advocacy programme. Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency and Nigeria communication commission are now making plans to establish the model "Taking Info Center" to the remote village of Nigeria (www.enigeria.org). But without sustainability and financial support of government and the community, it is impossible to establish "Information Centers" in all villages.

The positives are that the UN system has declared the master plan of rights to information society and MDGs for its work in economic and social development to all people. Governments also have agreed and Nigeria and its fellow African countries are not left out in this regard. But are the majorities prepared? Children, young people, and women are neglected! Without all people's participation, it is impossible to make desired success and reach the goals. We must equally understand and make efforts to achieve this, for in the war front, the youths take the lead and also in Information and Communications Technologies development, the youths should be the leaders. Let your voices and actions be heard!
THE acronym ICT (Information and Communications Technology) is fast becoming a popular one in the country today. In fact, one of the greatest achievements of the present government which has been repeatedly touted at many a symposium, press conference and party convention is the remarkable in-road made in the telecommunications sector in form of the Global System of Mobile (GSM) communication revolution. Recently the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) announced that it would commission its Mobile Internet Units (MIUs) for greater access to the Internet by Nigerians on the 10th of February 2003. All these I must say are very commendable but much still needs to be done in terms of meaningful ICT growth in our country.
A while ago the president talked about the Computer-In-Schools-Initiative (CISI) which was a programme that was also very commendable as it was meant to serve as a platform for leapfrogging Nigerian youth into the ICT age but now it is either nothing worthwhile is being done by the government concerning the programme or the press does not find the programme newsworthy enough to monitor the progress or otherwise of the programme and intimate the Nigerian populace of happenings. Rather what we see everyday in our newspapers, save for a few ICT-friendly papers like the Guardian (Tuesdays), the Punch (Tuesdays), This Day (Thursdays), the Comet (Mondays) and Financial Standard (Mondays), is the continual celebration of rogues and their ill-gotten wealth or reports on the political misadventures of one jobber or the other. Considering the role of the media as an information-dissemination tool in the society, I must say, from my observations that the media has failed us in the area of ICT growth. At this point in time when more and more nations are reverting to economic development through mental exertions, it is disheartening to discover that Nigerians are still unrepentantly stuck to the misconception that we can achieve outstanding economic growth solely through the exploitation of our oil resources. To borrow a statement from Professor Pat Utomi, "the wealth in our heads is more than the oil in our lands". With the plethora of brilliant people who have come out of this country; the likes of Professor Bart Nnaji, Wole Soyinka, Emeagwali and Utomi just to mention a few and those that still abound in our country, it is indeed quite a shame to discover that Nigeria is still finding it hard to tap into the enormous potentials for economic growth that ICT has to offer.
We have all heard the histories of India and Ireland concerning their tremendous growth through the use of ICT. We are all living witnesses to their status' today and how much income is being generated through ICT by way of export of both finished products and personnel and foreign investment by other technologically advanced countries not for the purpose of opening sales outlets as is the case with our country but for actual manufacture of both software and hardware. Even the school fees of Indian schools for ICT courses have risen astronomically as a result of the great importance attached to ICT!
(Source: Delhi Institute of Technology, India fees review for the years 1999 and 2002).
ICT holds a lot of potential for economic growth and Nigeria being the "giant" of Africa needs to wake up and take the initiative of empowering her youths for the challenges ahead; more investment has to be made in the ICT sector, subsidies have to introduced to reduce the exorbitant cost of acquisition of ICT education in our country today; a state of emergency should be declared in the ICT sector of the economy and incentives provided to encourage more youths to pursue careers in the ICT industry. We should stop paying lip service to ICT development and consolidate the efforts of individuals like Leo Stan Ekeh who in his capacity as the "Nigerian IT Identity" initiated the "Computerize Nigeria" project and also signed deals with Microsoft and Hewlett Packard to provide cheaper Personal Computers (PCs), software and printers to the Nigerian populace. Cheaper PCs mean more PCs in circulation, which translates to greater access by a greater portion of the populace, which unmistakably are the youth.
In the opening speech of Vigdis Finnbo Gadottir, Chairperson of the UNESCO-organized INFO ethics 2000 Conference held in November 2000, he said and I quote that "We do not want our children to be info-poor or info-depraved. We surely want them to be info-rich....... .....in a word, we want them to be info-empowered".
In order for the youths of Nigeria to be info-empowered, there has to be greater access to ICT tools, there has to be an unobstructed free flow of information. This unfortunately is not the case as at this time present in Nigeria. Public Internet access, especially in schools is an important public good deserving political and financial support, if not the status of a universal service (Levine, 2000). I am yet to see the public school -nursery, primary and secondary-where the government at any level has provided Internet access. Whatever happened to the theory of catch-them-young in Nigeria? Recently, there was a referendum on whether the government has a deliberate policy of sidelining the youths of this country in decision-making processes, even those decisions that have to do with the youth themselves.
In September, 2002, on the 26th and 27th to be exact, there was a conference at the Goethe Institute in Lagos organized by the Goethe Institute and the Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN) with the theme "IT and the Nigerian Youth: A Window to the World". This conference surprisingly, was by invitation only and the proceedings of the conference were never made public. The only thing that was made public was the advert announcing the conference. When a conference with a theme apparently concerning youths is organized and made "strictly by invitation", is anybody expecting the youths to be appropriately represented at such a gathering? Of course not!
Youth empowerment as we are made to believe going by the constant reiterations of the federal government, is on the A-list of government priorities as can be seen in the general objectives of the Nigerian National IT Policy where it is stated clearly that the policy is "to empower the youth with IT skills and prepare them for global competitiveness".
The government of the day has clearly not started on this mission as it prefers rather unfortunately to spend taxpayers' money on "hosting beauty queens", building unnecessary stadium, mansions for visiting dignitaries and bidding for hosting of sports events which we will ultimately lose on our home soil because of lack of preparedness. All these, though possessing great opportunities for the tourism industry in Nigeria do not really translate into significant financial returns for our dear country in the long run.
The government is however not only to blame in this quagmire of poor ICT development in which we find ourselves. The Nigerian youth themselves are also to blame. Our youths nowadays are sadly characterized by a rapidly diminishing mental and intellectual capacity and increased dependence on physical affectations, violence, lust and cheap discarded pleasures of the western world. Just visit any secondary school sporting event to get a feel of what I am talking about. All these including cultism, armed robbery, prostitution, mass failures in examinations due to laziness and other vices on our own part surely would have contributed to the lethargic attitude of the government at the center towards youth development especially in ICT because ICT requires massive funds injection and if the government keep seeing the kind of Makossa-obsessed youths that we are continually breeding in this country, it can seek to justify its lethargy towards empowerment of the youth as it could be seen as bad investment. From experience I have discovered that as much as 70% of our university and polytechnic graduates do not know how to use a computer! Even in cases where the opportunities abound. Another one of the objectives of the Nigerian national IT Policy is "to build a mass pool of IT-literate manpower using the NYSC, NDE and other platforms as "Train the Teacher" scheme (TTT) for capacity building". Sadly speaking, this is not in effect. I should know because I finished my NYSC programme recently and all through the orientation period and the service year, there was nothing like IT training! It would be a very good idea if this part of the IT policy and in fact, all other objectives are vigorously pursued without further recourse to lip service. The youths of this country deserve better.
In concluding this write up, I must say that while the IT policy of Nigeria is wonderful on paper, much needs to be done concerning the actualization of the objectives and pursuance of the vision in practical terms. Also, for any meaningful empowerment to come the way of Nigerian youths in ICT, the youths must have a say in the IT affairs of this country as it concerns us. The youth too are also strongly advised to focus more on intellectual development instead of chasing after bodily pleasures. I know that if we can demonstrate total commitment to the vision statement of the Nigerian IT policy and work assiduously towards the attainment of its objectives, only then can Nigeria dream of moving from the league of developing nations to that of developed nation

Chibuzo Governor Nwachukwu
ADNET/DPI/GYCA
NIGERIA
WEST AFRICA