CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
Nigeria is a blessed country. With a current estimated population of 184,234,806 inhabitants (National Population Commission, 2018), Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and the eleventh in the world. Many of her citizens, engaged in business and the professions, are amongst the best in the world. She has a vast mass of fertile land used for agriculture which, according to the Vision 2010 Report (1997), “offers employment to over 65 percent of the working population and accounts for over 70 percent of non-oil exports….” Natural calamities such as earthquakes, thunderstorms, floods, monsoons and heat waves, which are common occurrences in some nations of the world, are not experienced in the country. To crown it all, Nigeria is the sixth highest petroleum-producing country in the world with 37.45 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, 5.48 trillion cubic meters of proven natural gas reserves, 1.43 million barrels of crude oil production per day, 42.56 trillion cubic meters of marketed production of natural gas, 1.74 barrels of crude oil exports per day, and 25.15 billion cubic meters of natural gas exports (OPEC, 2017). Considering all these human and natural wealth of the country, one would be tempted to say of Nigeria as John Smith said of America in 1607, “Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation” (Cincotta: 2018).
Unfortunately, while such countries as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and even the recent additional African countries egg Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, which are similarly endowed with oil and gas, have used these resources prudentially for the development of their people, infrastructure and economy, the story is not the same in Nigeria. Here, instead of being a blessing, her wealth has become a curse to the people. Instead of development, her citizens see deprivation, depression, dissatisfaction and disillusionment. The country’s infrastructure in the educational, health, transportation, sports, agricultural, security and other sectors are in despicable state of disrepair and begging loudly for attention. Some of the citizens, especially the professionals, have abandoned their country in search of “greener pastures” in foreign lands, while some youths, who belong to the productive sector of the economy, have been forced into such unwholesome and dangerous pastimes as cultism, militancy, armed robbery, kidnapping and other forms of violent criminal activities, largely because of the prevalent high rate of unemployment.
The economy has been in tatters, resulting in a deep recession, heavy national domestic and foreign debts, low GDP, high inflation, weak currency, unfavorable balance of payment index, and completely dislocated macro and micro-economic environment. The World Bank Group in 2017 has also included these on the list of her woes: insufficient infrastructure, weak and ineffective institutions, challenges of governance, public financial management systems and human development, high living conditions and poverty levels of the population, growing inequality of income and opportunities, widened North-South.