Nigeria’s Arrested Development And Bill Gates Wake-Up Call

By Magnus Onyibe

By now, most Nigerians would be familiar with Bill Gate’s incisive perspective on Nigeria’s development because his speech to the National Economic Council has gone viral. So there is no need repeating the fact that he identified health and education as sectors that Nigerian policy makers have to rejig in the Economic Recovery Growth Plan, ERGP to enable the full realization of our country’s potentials. This is because he noticed that even if the ERGP boasts of being focused on Nigerian people via investment in healthcare and education which are the critical elements of human development, attention seem to be skewed in favor of physical infrastructure to the detriment of sustainable human development from birth.

*Bill Gates

According to Gates, for real development that would make reasonable impact on the polity to take place, both human and physical infrastructure have to be developed pari pasu.

To me, Gates’ perspective is a pretty straight forward analogy of the prospects and impediments to Nigeria’s much anticipated lift off from the poverty trap. But such positive optics of Gates presentation is not shared by Nasir El Rufai who was part of the audience at the forum. He faulted Gates’ presentation and offered a counter view which is that the ERGP is a great document as it is. He is of the view that it only needs to be adopted at the state level for the vision behind it to be accomplished.