Fareed Zakaria: Messenger of Political Economy Speaks to Nigeria’s Future – By Emeka Chiakwelu

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, Emeka Chiakwelu, NNP Columnists Friday, December 21st, 2012

Fareed Zakari

By Emeka Chiakwelu| NNP | Dec. 21, 2012 – Fareed Zakaria belongs to a class

of public figures that needs no introduction in this increasingly smaller global village. But for those
who are hiding under a rock and in caves, Fareed Zakaria is the United
States television personality and newspaper columnist. Zakaria is the host
of CNN worldwide programme, Fareed Zakaria GPS. Zakaria is an Indian
immigrant to United States with a PH.D from Harvard University. He is
astute and intelligent commentator on political economy.

Zakaria was in Nigeria on a invitation from Airte, a Nigerian based
business entity to speak on the companys so called Night of influence.
Zakaria presentation was on Africas political economy with concentrated
emphasis on Nigeria, the country of his host. Say anything about Fareed
Zakaria but you cannot accuse him of being timid or beat around the bush,
he does not hold back because he is intellectually honest and calls it the
way he sees it. Zakaria does Nigeria good when he told Nigerians that
time has come to embark on developing a new economy based on human capital
and not on natural resources. Now he is talking about the economy of 21st
century.

Zakaria without a doubt is a brilliant man and his writings are superb
especially in his understanding of global political economy. But when he
was accused of plagiarism, I knew that Zakaria would survive because he is
real and does not suffer foolish pride. But sometimes I do pathway from
his logic; for example during the United States 2012 super bowl, he
mentioned most of the countries that their citizens were playing in the
bowl, but for some reason he skipped Nigeria. Was it intentional or maybe
I am reading too much meaning to that?

Again in one of his numerous commentaries, Zakaria was thrilled that
Eurozone Central Banker Mario Draghi, who is President of Europe Central
Bank was mimicking his American counterpart Ben Bernakes monetary policy
with over flowing liquidity to the credit crunch European capital market,
without putting into account that such a sudden flood of liquidity may
induce inflation, even double dip recession.

Well enough of the interlude, lets return to Zakaria paper presentation
in Nigeria.

In his presentation in Nigeria, Zakaria spoke with vim and intellectual
clarity that he was accustomed to with these words: There is so much
human talent in Africa and in Nigeria. These talents need to be unlocked
through education. It is an irony that countries experiencing high GDP
growth are countries without natural resources. Look at Taiwan. What they
have is typhoon they do not have any natural resources; yet, they have
managed to emerge as one of the countries with the highest GDP growth
rate.

These words are loaded because he did his home work very well on Nigeria
and understood quite well that Nigeria shaky economic foundation is rooted
on soft blocks of impaired vision and misappropriation of priorities. The
country that was endowed with doyen human capital more than its natural
resources has failed to take advantage of her human capital: invest,
develop and leverage it to create wealth and uplift herself with a bigger
national cake and larger GDP. Instead Nigeria has bucked down on export of
crude oil and squandered its returns on depreciating materials. Zakaria
reminded Nigeria what she ought to be doing, particularly in education of
her masses and getting them ready and intellectually equipped to compete
in the economy of 21st century.

The economy of 21st century will not be powered by natural resources
rather by human capital that is sufficiently and effective trained to
create wealth and attract capital. The understanding of modern technology
and its application is the bedrock of economic development in 21st
century. When a nation educates her people, she has progressively lifted
her people from ignorance and apathy that are antithetical to freedom and
enlightenment that are needed for massive wealth creation. The
investments in public and social infrastructures are major pillars of
progress in the match to win the future. Construction of modern roads and
bridges, provision of security infrastructure are basis for protection of
life and property which in return create the conducive environment for
attraction of capital and sustainable of the created wealth.

Many has called Nigeria problem an oil curse but Nigeria is more or less
can be liken to a spoiled brat that frivolously throw away his seed money,
and without planting any seed, there will be no harvest. Nigeria suppose
to leverage her revenue from oil to develop her country but she chooses to
party away her resources and time, due to paucity of vision, intellectual
laziness and overriding corruption.

The greatest path to a countrys greatness is through education. By
investing in your people, training and educating them in the jobs and
technology of 21st century, a future can be won. When a country
understands that creation of sustainable wealth starts by investing and
developing its human resources into a marketable and superior human
capital that enable creation of wealth to be leveraged and sustainable.
Instead Nigeria has a distain for educating her people and making
investment on her people secondary while making the exploitation of her
natural resources primary. This buttressed that Nigeria has her priority
upside down.

Nigerian leadership is quick to give excuse by saying that the country is
a young nation and its democracy is still in the incubation, therefore
Nigeria must not be compared to developed nations like USA, Japan or
Germany. But take a look at South Korea, Malaysia, Tawian – these are
nations that Fareed Zakaria rightly reminded Nigerians that without
quantifiable natural resources these nations have become the center of
action with massive wealth creation and soaring GDP. These nations without
natural resources but with well developed human resources are gradually
creeping into the first world with their intimidating GDPs and high export
orientated economies.

What are lessons for Nigeria to learn? Nigeria must be willing to do the
right thing. Build an educated work force that can compete with any part
of the world. Nigeria must work on the provision of reliable energy
principally electricity and petrol. With developed human resources and
available natural resources, Nigeria will stand up and be counted.

Dr. Fareed Zakaria was right on the money with his counsel to Nigeria. But
are they willing to listen? The continuous relying on oil export is
quickly becoming outdated, and with United States about to join the league
of oil exporting nations as the largest oil producer even more than Saudi
Arabia, it is time for Nigeria to choose the path to a victorious future.
A word is enough for a wise.

Emeka Chiakwelu, Principal Policy Strategist at Afripol. Africa
Political & Economic Strategic Center (AFRIPOL) is foremost a public
policy center whose fundamental objective is to broaden the parameters
of public policy debates in Africa. To advocate, promote and encourage
free enterprise, democracy, sustainable green environment, human rights,
conflict resolutions, transparency and probity in Africa.
www.afripol.org [email protected]_posts