The presidential candidate of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has described as “a lie” the notion that Nigeria is the wealthiest country in Africa.
The former Governor of Cross River State said Nigeria is, rather, one of the poorest countries on the continent and should not be regarded as Africa’s largest economy based solely on its overall GDP.
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In an interview with selected journalists in Lagos, Duke said Nigeria is a poor country when its per capita income is taken into consideration.
According to him, even countries that Nigeria considers smaller have higher per capita incomes, adding that the country is “living a lie.”
“It is embarrassing that a country that was considered one of the wealthiest in Africa still thinks today that it is the largest economy in Africa. That is not true.
“We are living a lie. It is a nice sound bite, though, to say that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa. No. Nigeria is just one of the poorest when you take per capita income into consideration, and that is what you should measure, not just growth.
“If all we were producing in Nigeria was kulikuli, as we have been advised to do, we would still be a large economy in terms of GDP. But individually, what is our capital base? It is very poor.
“Most of these countries that we laugh at have a higher income per capita than we do.
“So, it all comes down to productivity. The idle mind is the playground of the devil. That was true yesterday, it is true today, and it will be true tomorrow,” Duke said.
On security, Duke said he does not like the phrase “Islamic terrorists” because he does not believe the terrorists are driven by Islam.
He noted that the security challenges facing Nigeria, particularly in the northern part of the country, were aggravated by the collapse of Libya, which led to an influx of arms through Nigeria’s land borders.
He, therefore, suggested that Nigeria needs short-, medium- and long-term approaches to address the rising insecurity holding the country back.
“Right now, you have got to deal with the security problems as they exist today — kidnapping, banditry, terrorism and all that.
“But even beyond that, those things are consequences of other things. They are consequences of a very poor economy and, of course, the failure to properly manage our borders.
“With the collapse of Libya, a lot of arms have been moving south. We call them Islamic terrorists. I don’t like that phrase because I don’t think they are driven by Islam.
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“The Islam I know is different. They just use that connotation to describe them. Rather, I think these are destructive elements. You can see that when they go into communities, they collect taxes and do other things. It is all geared towards collecting or building a resource base for themselves.”
For the medium- and long-term approaches, Duke suggested that the Nigerian government should focus on making citizens more productive.
He noted that as long as people are not productive, they will find their own means of survival.
He advised the government to focus on local production to improve productivity and to deploy modern technology in securing the country’s borders.
On reviving the economy of Northern Nigeria, the PRP presidential hopeful said that, if elected President, he would ensure that mining activities in the region are properly structured.
According to him, the structure should promote inclusive participation in the mining industry, ensuring that local and state governments become stakeholders in the sector.
“The rush to produce oil is not synonymous with wealth. You must have commercial quantities and all that. I sometimes think it is overplayed. The oil in the Chad Basin is not available in such commercial quantities. I think the real wealth of the North, beyond agriculture, is in the mineral deposits there.
“There must be a structured way of mining. Today, it is artisanal, and the broader community, the border communities, society and the nation itself do not adequately benefit from those resources.
“Take, for instance, the gold in Zamfara. It probably has — I don’t know — perhaps as much gold as all of Ghana does. Ghana was once called the Gold Coast, so that tells you how much gold there could be in Zamfara. But mining has also attracted banditry because Nigeria is largely an unpoliced state.
“So, I would make each state an economic entity. I think it would encourage states and their governments to focus on the minerals they have.
“If I were in charge, alongside the states, we would carry out an evaluation. I know some of this has already been done. We would evaluate what is available in each state and go further to determine the proven reserves.
“So, for instance, if you are looking for columbite or any other mineral and you know columbite exists in a particular place, let us go further and determine the proven reserves of columbite, lithium or whatever mineral we want to develop.
“Once you have developed it to that level, you make it more attractive for investors to come in. This should be a joint venture between the state and federal governments because the revenues from those resources will be shared by both levels of government.
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“But nobody is going to invest if there is no security. We saw what happened in the South, in the Niger Delta region, when security broke down, which was also a function of increasing poverty in those areas.
“The investors there — the oil companies and international companies — moved out, and they now prefer producing oil from the deep sea, which is considered safer,” he said.