Economic Advocacy For Eastern Nigeria
Nigeria was born on a tripod. North. East and West. In the glory days of pre-independence Nigeria, stories are told of how the various regions competed to develop themselves . The North built Kaduna/Kano around agriculture. The West built Ibadan on Knowledge and industry. The East Build Enugu and Port Harcourt on Industry.
Lagos was the capital of Nigeria and all zones contributed to developing the capital of the country.
Fast forward to today. Kano is limping after reaching a zenith as an economic hub built around agriculture and manufacturing. Port Harcourt reached its height as a potential oil hub and lost its ways in mindless self destruction in the name of fighting for oil rights.
Ibadan got stifled once Lagos took off.
Kaduna got lost in ethnic and religious wars
Enugu became the victim of the civil war.
In all these , Lagos won. Today, Lagos is the only commercial city for a country approaching 200 million people . There are several dangers in this. The city is over populated and cannot keep pace with the rate of internal migration. It is a security threat for Nigeria that any disruption in Lagos grounds Nigerian’s economy. As an example, Apapa in Lagos , which houses few of the functional seaports in Nigeria has been locked down for years. The effect is that not only is shipping goods in and out of Nigeria a nightmare, the traffic congestion it causes in Lagos is a hemorrhage on the economy. There are several other examples. But Nigeria cannot have a serious economic ambition if Lagos is the only viable city for a country that is projected to become one of the most populated in a few decades.
This is dangerous for the economy. Dangerous for Nigeria. And bad for the other two zones in Nigeria. The East and the North.
But mostly for the East. The North will grow on economic activity around Abuja and Agriculture. If it had a Port, perhaps , the advantage Lagos has would have shifted to Abuja and benefit the North. The geopolitics of Nigeria would have willed it. But a developed North along the Abuja- Kaduna-Kano axis will be good for Nigeria
The East, has been worst hit by the internal migration to Lagos. Nigeria has made most of its wealth in the past 50 years from oil that is pumped from mostly the Eastern Region. Along the corridor that stretched from Delta, River, Bayelsa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Imo and Abia. Add Enugu, Anambra , Edo and Ebonyi and you will have an economic zone that could have been one of the centers of Nigerian’s development. Competing with Lagos/Western Nigeria and Kano/Northern Nigeria.
But government policy, indiscriminate creation of states, lethargy and lack of collaboration has decimated the economy of this block and has led to the massive internal brain drain to Lagos.Even the region’s oil industry has also migrated to Lagos following the militancy that drove away oil companies from Port Harcourt and Warri.
It is an irony that the highest unemployment rate in the country is found in some of the states in this region. And that’s for those who have not migrated from the region. Today, the region exports its best people to Nigeria and the world but in return gets only mostly uneducated migrants .
Worse for the regional block is the lack of will to find common purpose for the good of the region. The two dominant ethnic groups in the region, the Igbos and Ijaws hardly collaborate and are suspicious of each other .
To pull the region back from the brink, there has to be a reality check by the leaders of the region that they can get a better deal in Nigeria for their people by defining an economic objective for the region and creating the right advocacy for it. The current advocacy around getting a better share from the oil proceeds without advocacy for industry will have limited effect. The region gets 13% at the moment from Nigerian oil. It has NDDC that was set up to provide infrastructure. There is the Ministry of Niger Delta. These are meant to build the region’s infrastructure and create employment, industry and wealth.
But only few have benefited as the region’s politicians build white elephant projects, steal the rest and settle the militants and godfathers in the region. In the core South East, brigands have taken over political offices and for a people that fought a war with Nigeria and came out proud, the current generation of leaders are doing to the region what the war could not do: kill the spirit of enterprise and daring that defined the generation before and during the war.
I want to advocate that the regional block defines an economic development policy that will make it one of the biggest economic hubs in Africa, serving over 60 million Nigerians. This economic block will be bigger than most countries in Africa and will give Lagos a run for its money. It has oil and gas. It has manufacturing. It has agriculture. It has other mineral deposits. And it has some of the most educated Nigerians living in Nigeria and abroad.
With a clear vision, its educated citizens can migrate back home and build the regional block. In the 60s this region was famed as one of the fasted growing in the world. This was before oil. With or without , it can repeat this feat. Today, educated people is the new oil. The region has it in abundance.
