![Why Nigeria Is Poor! [Video]](https://tkcdn.tekedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/28084451/poor-768x432.png "Why Nigeria Is Poor! [Video]")
Since Adam Smith wrote his classic, in 1776, the Wealth of Nations, to upend the mercantilist system and set forward the basic foundations for modern classical economics, the world has changed. The core pillars of productivity and division of labour have remained the tenets of firms which thrive. A free market system has provided the cement mortars in states, seeding the pillars for the massive translation from invention to innovation.
The simple difference between a nation like the United States and another like Nigeria is that one is an innovation society while the other is an invention society. There are so many ideas in the latter but hardly enough products and services.
Until nations transmute from being inventive to innovative, they will remain poor. No nation has become rich without that translation. Yes, always remember that most of the pioneers of the most fundamental aspects of physics, mathematics and chemistry died poor. They were bright people – but they ended up poor. Why? They lived in societies of ideas with no products because there was no transduction from invention to innovation.
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Nigeria has built a massive arsenal of idea-creators but it has struggled to find ways to deploy those ideas. From universities to mechanic garages, ideas everywhere but NOT a single solution to problems. So, you have a nation with legions of engineers but no water, roads, and electricity.
But this is fixable and it comes down to building the anchors: the anchor is productivity driven by competition. It would be hard for Nigeria to rise if the states are not incentivized to compete. The law of comparative advantages must work in Nigeria for it to rise, and fiscal federalism is the gunpowder that will WIN poverty for Nigeria.
Without that productivity, unlocked through fiscal federalism, Nigeria will remain poor and keep getting poorer!
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The great divide/stark difference between Northern and Southern Nigeria is the major stumbling block to Nigeria’s advancement. We have done enough of intellectual acrobatics and rhetorical gymnastics, so it’s about time we get down to specifics and start calling out those holding this country down.
Is there any part of Southern Nigeria that is not advocating for fiscal federalism? So why is the North so behind and always resisting change and evolution? Religion cannot be blamed because the guys from UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are ahead in many things, so the problem lies somewhere else.
All the talks about innovation and tech revolution, how many are emerging from the North? The cement business they dominate has its market largely in the south, same goes for the archaic cow business. How do we get people from the north to understand that if Nigeria advances, it favours them too? They are poorer, they have more illiterates than any other region, yet these don’t bother them, the only music that plays well in their ears is political dominance.
It’s time to put pressure on any group or zone resisting change, all these pitiful and weak yammerings on traditional and social media won’t get anyone to sit up. Time to turn on the heat.
Why is Nigeria Poor?
Funny question to which I shall reply by describing a single event I personally witnessed in Nigeria, several years ago.
I was living, at the time, in Lagos and I happened to watch machines opening a new road in the bush, A band of watchers was following the machines and bending to collect some stones that were left behind them. Later I happened to see some of the watchers going to a postal office and sending several small one kilogram parcels abroad. This was “Nigeria;s wealth” being smuggled out. Do you get my point, readers.?
The day such dishonest dealings stop, Nigeria will become “great” again. But how can that happen, will you ask me? Well the answer is a long story that can be summarized in two words: “AFFORDABLE HOUSING”. Yes, my friends. Everything starts by housing, followed by education, health protection, and moral incentives. Sure, it is a long process. But it is also the only viable and solid process to BUILD A NATION. You don’t build a NATION by making a revolution. You build a NATION by building communities over the 37 States of the Nigerian Republic. But, guess what? The Result will be that instead of a billion uneducated Nigerians in 2086, you will have less “individuals” but more educated Nigerian “patriots”.