For decades, Nigeria’s development trajectory has been based on the export of raw materials and natural resources. The country has abundant natural resources, oil, gas, minerals, metals, agricultural and forest products, and the blue economy.
With her potential wealth, Nigeria’s natural resources are enough to make it one of the wealthiest places on earth, but tragically and ironically, Nigeria’s massive natural resources have not translated into wealth that benefits her citizenry.
The reason for this ranges from the simple to the complex. A dependency on the export of raw commodities, with very little or no value addition, or in more simpler terms, a lack of industrial manufacturing, Nigeria basically exports natural resources and import manufactured products.
It is a race to the bottom for our dear nation, where the only assured commonality, in the face of limited industrial manufacturing, is rising poverty, brain drain, vicissitudes of volatility of commodity prices, and import dependency. Hard earned foreign exchange is used to support a high propensity for imported goods, machinery, equipment and raw materials, to support industries.
The low level of industrial manufacturing is at the core of the slow structural transformation of the Nigerian economy, with dominance of primary sectors. The situation has also been partly perpetuated by the escalation of tariffs on exports of manufactured goods from Africa.
Through the years, Nigeria has formulated diverse policies. However, adequate execution of relevant policies have been almost non-existent. For example, in the agricultural sector, which has consistently been a major contributor to GDP, there have been multiple policies addressing the issue of poverty alleviation.
In recent times, this has not changed as several developmental policies have sprung up addressing the need for economic diversification. In 2020, the “Vision 2020” was developed and while the objectives were not achieved, the National Development Plan was then developed in 2021 with the same developmental agenda.
Several policies addressing a singular issue makes policy execution, which is the most crucial stage in the public policy-making process, very difficult. In Nigeria, most policy issues have potent policy responses, however, these issues are yet to be solved due to weak implementation processes.
The poor execution capacity of Nigeria’s government can be attributed to poor citizens’ engagement and lack of accountability framework for leaders and bureaucrats; weak multi and across-level policy coordination which undermines effective implementation, etc. To combat this, transparency and accountability in the framework of policy setting and execution are important. Transparency is the openness to the public eye, and it facilitates accountability by mitigating information asymmetry.
In addition to openness in policy setting and execution, there is a need for ongoing monitoring and performance evaluation of government actors to ensure the early identification of problems and opportunities. It curbs the problem of abandoned initiatives and programmes which is prevalent in Nigeria and ensures the realization of policy goals.
There is a need also for Nigeria to wake up and take advantage of the 4th industrial revolution. We have to rapidly diversify our economy, and add value to everything that we produce. Exporting raw materials only leads to vulnerabilities and no nation or region has succeeded by simply exporting raw materials.
The 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (#NES28) seeks to identify and find ways that will help Nigeria unlock the constraints that binds our nation by seeking to set a framework that will help facilitate economic growth. The Summit (#NES28) with the theme “2023 and Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity” scheduled to hold on the 14th and 15th of November, 2022 at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja seeks to galvanize stakeholders to deliberate on an actionable framework for transformative political leadership and effective governance, to facilitate economic growth and nation building.
NES #28 presents the best opportunity for stakeholders to agree on a consensus on the national and sub-national imperatives for economic security, social justice, conscientious governance, political stability and environmental sustainability. The summit hopes to discern the imperatives for harnessing Nigeria’s latent human capital wealth as a means of securing our collective future by identifying critical factors for effective policy implementation for sustained economic growth.
#NES28 will also highlight stakeholder actions needed to eliminate barriers to inclusive economic growth and development; Identify pragmatic initiatives to elicit economic leadership at the subnational levels, by adopting a “Bottom Up” approach to economic growth and development and articulate the economic agenda for the incoming leaders in 2023 and beyond.
The public-private dialogue platform Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#1) was held from February 18-20, 1993. Participants at NES#1 concluded that it is imperative for the private sector to continuously dialogue and cooperate with the public sector. Over the past 27 years, national and global policymakers and business leaders have acknowledged that the annual NES is the premier platform for public-private dialogue in Nigeria.
