Ezekwesili: Nigeria Would Have Progressed If 40% of Politicians Understood Basic Economics
The majority of Nigerian politicians, according to former World Bank Vice President for the African Region Obiageli Ezekwesili, lack even rudimentary economic expertise.
Mrs. Ezekwesili reportedly stated that the economic problem in the nation was caused by the politicians’ bad economic policies.
The former vice president of the World Bank’s African Region claimed in an interview with News Central that political leaders fail to consider the consequences of their policies before enacting them.
Nigerian politicians spend more time preparing for the next election than putting economic plans into action to improve the lives of their constituents, according to Ezekwesili, an expert in economic policy.
“Hey, I’d be shocked if some 40 percent of our politicians knew the fundamentals of economics. There would be none of the things we have witnessed in this nation if they did. When you observe a scenario, people just say, “Let’s do this,” and scratch their heads. It’ll succeed. No. What economic data support your policy decision? I took a look at a few of our notable misses.
“I hear people say things like, ‘We’re going to deal with the fuel subsidy issue, for instance. But they don’t understand that raising a product’s price in an industry that prevents the fundamental laws of supply and demand from operating without being hampered by various regulatory blowbacks is just insane,” she said.
If Nigerian officials had permitted transparency in the oil and gas industry, the former Minister of Solid Minerals pointed out, the industry could have revolutionized the nation’s economy.
She emphasized how the political elite has taken over the oil and gas industry and how the majority of Nigerian officials saw it as a cash cow. She claimed that the same reforms that were implemented in the telecoms industry were needed in the oil and gas industry.
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Therefore, you examine our nation’s petroleum and oil and gas industry. Do you see anything? A political takeover of that area is occurring. If the political elite did not consider that industry to be one that the leader wishes to be particularly involved in, the opportunities in that industry would be very different. According to her, it is preventing the type of enormous chances, cleverness, and innovation that are conceivable in that industry when it is going through a similar situation to what the telecom sector went through.
