Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) on
Tuesday has projected a gloomy picture on the standard of living in the Nigeria.
It said despite the positive economic growth, poverty and income
inequality remain prevalent among Nigerians.
Speaking on Tuesday at a national
policy dialogue on growth, inequality and poverty in Nigeria, Director General,
NISER, Prof. Isreal Taiwo stated that a study conducted by the institute in 18
out of the 36 states of the federation in 2012 indicated that GDP growth had
not impacted positively on the lives of the people as poverty and the
inequality gap had increased from where it was in previous years.
According to him, “This study covers
the entire country and we sampled 18 states out of 36 and we also sampled two
local governments in each of the states. The study also included a survey of
the Federal Capital Territory.
“From the information collected, we
discovered that although the economy is growing, poverty is not reducing and
income inequality is also not reducing.”
He said: “That is the evidence that
we have and we cannot manipulate the evidence. What we can do is to provide
explanations as to why this is happening and the explanation that we can give
is that the benefit of growth is not spreading sufficiently to the poor
people.”
Taiwo explained that there was need
to make technological advancement in order to reverse the trend, adding “We
have been focusing on improvements in investment both private and public but we
need to develop a technological base in the country, which if developed, will
enhance our ability to produce thus making the country grow much faster.”
Nigeria’s labour force participation
rate, he observed, was the lowest in the world and needed to be enhanced.
“Our labour force participation rate
which is about 50 per cent is one of the lowest in the world needs to be
enhanced by bringing more people into the labour market.
“There are a lot of programmes in the
system such as the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, National
Poverty Eradication Programme, but we don’t have enough information about the
poor people that need the programmes and this should be focused on,” he said.
Its actually economic growth and not economic development. The economic growth we are witnessing and which government propagandists have continually used to distort information about the reality of what we are facing is lacking in quantitative and qualitative changes in the economy. Economic growth simply refers to GDP growth which is mere increase in what we are producing, services plus products (so if we produce more oil as a result of the peace in the Niger Delta or the discovery of more oil fields, it will add to GDP growth, etc). So what we have is economic growth without economic development.
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