The Underdevelopment of Nigeria: Who is to Blame - Failure of Leadership or Her Political Economic System?

Abstract

The paper examines the underdevelopment of Nigeria: who is to blame: Failure of leadership or its’ political economy. The paper highlights the features of underdevelopment in Nigeria. These range from, high rate of unemployment, inegalitarian distribution of income and wealth, high level of insecurity, increase level of absolute poverty low level of social and political consciousness, to an increase in illiteracy rate, poor health services, housing condition and government services to mention but a few. It concludes that the underdevelopment of Nigeria is cause by the politico economic system she adopts. This is anchored on the following reasons; first, in Nigeria what determines a person status is the amount of wealth he is able to accumulate. Second, is that in Nigeria it is possible and indeed easy for people to cheat the entire society and get away with it. This is because we don’t ask questions about peoples’ wealth, but we revere them. To salvage the situation the paper recommends, a new politico-economic system characterize by the followings – A people oriented government, respect for the dignity of labour, respect for the rule of law, a well spelt-out and religiously pursued national objectives of self reliance, a social security system to mention but a few.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 8(3),267-279, 2011