Mo Ibrahim Index and Nigeria’s poor ranking

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Headlines Tuesday, October 13th, 2015

ONE year after it scored Nigeria high in the sub-categories of education, economic stability as well as free and credible elections, the annual Mo Ibrahim Index of Governance in Africa has rated the country’s education sector very low. Its 2015 index released recently in London, United Kingdom, showed that Nigeria’s performance in education and rural development has dipped significantly. It also called on Nigeria to urgently reverse the deterioration of these sectors if it is to be competitive and fulfill its potentials.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation was established by the Sudanese/British telecommunications billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, to rate, reward and promote good governance in Africa. Its latest report revealed that Nigeria has a high percentage of youths who need quality education, and an even higher percentage of its rural population in dire need of government investment for development.
A summary of the report showed that Nigeria scored below the average for Africa and West Africa in the four key categories of safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainability and economic opportunity and human development. It, however, said that hope was rising in the area of national security, which is one of the key indicators used in its good governance rankings.
A total of 54 African countries were ranked by the Foundation. Nigeria emerged 39th in overall governance on account of improvement in the business environment in the country at a time that this was said to have declined significantly in many other countries. The 2015 scorecard showed that half of the top ten countries in the last ranking recorded a sharp decline in performance.
Everything considered, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has since its inception 15 years ago provided a reliable and unbiased assessment of good governance and leadership in Africa. We, therefore, urge the Federal Government to dispassionately consider those areas in which Nigeria scored low.
We agree with the report that a lot of investments need to be chanelled into education and rural development. Other reports have, in recent times, arrived at the same conclusion that the Mo Ibrahim Foundation did. They found that the standard of education in Nigeria has dipped, while a higher percentage of our youths that constitute the population living in rural areas need to be empowered. The Nigerian government will do well to take this admonition seriously as failure to do so can make our youths vulnerable to criminality.
Neglecting to fix education, create jobs and develop the rural areas will amount to living in denial of the ticking unemployment time bomb in the country. The future powerhouses of the continent are the countries that take adequate care of their youths, provide social infrastructure and pay prime attention to safety and security, rule of law and human rights, as well as sustainable economic opportunity and human development.
It is, indeed, disheartening that the overall indicators of governance such as health, infrastructure, safety and rule of law, and enabling business environment, are declining in the country. It is even sadder still that Nigeria trails far behind less endowed nations. The top five performers on the index are Mauritius, Cape Verde, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia. Mauritius and Cape Verde have maintained the first and second positions for two successive years now.
With 2015 described as a “milestone” year for Africa, the future of the continent will be defined by the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) scheme which is meant to guide developing countries like Nigeria for the next 15 years after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) initiative would have run its full course this year.
The government should speed up efforts in those areas that Nigeria recorded poor performance. Government should not lose sight of the fact that the essence of the ranking is good governance. Good governance itself is an outcome of good leadership. In that regard, government should improve public infrastructure, power supply, job creation, business environment and ease of doing business.
It is unacceptable and embarrassing that year after year, Nigeria continues to sit on the bottom rungs of the continent’s development indexes. Rather than denying or bemoaning Nigeria’s lacklustre rankings, we urge government at all levels to see the Mo Ibrahim index report as a wakeup call to address critical areas that could stimulate socio-economic growth.
Nigeria’s constant poor scorecard is a reflection of lack of good governance and failure of successive governments in the country to see governance as a human enterprise that should focus primarily on the needs of the people.
Government should come out with a blueprint to improve the country’s performance in the sectors that it is currently deficient.

-Sunwp_posts