NIGERIA, NOW AFRICA'S ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE?

Icheoku says to many a Nigerian, the news coming out of the world's financial headquarters about their newly minted bragging right status as Africa's number one economy, must be very balmy indeed? However before you start spending that your life's savings hoping to make many more in a now new "buoyant economy", please pause and ponder what it is exactly that occurred. The gist of the matter is that Nigeria's productivity ratio (Gross Domestic Product) has now surpassed that of South Africa; BUT remember that no one ever said that the purchasing power or standard of living (Per Capita Income) of Nigerians ever saw the finish line before that of South Africans? This is very important since it is very possible for a country to produce more while the expectant income or return on labor does not percolate or trickle down the populace. Sometimes it is hijacked or cornered by the top 1% elites, living the general 99% populace holding the plate. That corruption, nepotism and cronyism help in maintaining this societal disequilibrium is also without a doubt. 

Therefore for Nigeria to be truly atop of the pyramid or literally cross the poverty index in the strict sense of it, the policy makers must devise a more equitable way of distributing the country's resources in such a way that it percolates down to the masses or what redneck Americans call the "policy of redistribution of the Obama government."  That way more purchasing power can be handed to the people who really do the purchasing because their needs are many and vast. These Joeys and Janes of Nigeria need literally everything but have no bargaining power because they are cashless or cash-strapped. This economic silver-bullet has been tested and proved to be very decisive:- a very rich man can buy a $600,000 Rolls Royce but thousands if not millions of ordinary (not so rich) men can each buy a $25,000 Prius and you do the math and see who impacted the economy more? Whose purchase kept more hands busy in the factory and it translates from there into more mortgages, more refinancing, more investments, more savings etc. Real economy is all about earning and purchasing (spending) powers, period. When the masses are financially empowered, it becomes a real boost to the economy and more people can buy more things while sellers and producers(importers) can now produce and sell more things. Conversely, the society's standards of living will improve resulting in overall health of the economy which translates to high Per Capita Income ratio. 

Moreover, Nigeria's population far exceeds that of South Africa and with so much mouth to feed, it is going to take a lot of economic and social re-engineering to bring millions of Nigerians out of the poverty index hounding them. The street-level example is:- take a case of two families herein referred to as Family A and Family B. Assuming that Family A is making 100,000Naira monthly and is married with ten kids thus leaving twelve mouths mulching on the 100K. Then Family B is making a modest 65,000Naira a month and is married BUT instead has only two kids. So query:- whose standards of living is better at 10,000Naira per mouth and 15,000Naira per mouth respectively, despite Family A earning more than Family B? This is also the reason India is one of the poorest countries in the world with over 700 million of their 1.3billion humans living below poverty level. China has also come around and is beginning to address this problem by trying to empower its exponential population of 1.6 billion humans trying to arm them with purchasing power. This is what has kept Western countries' standards of living higher than most other geographies - low birthrate and planning and distribution. 

Icheoku posits that the United Nations and other agencies are right when they say that Nigeria is a poor country, notwithstanding the 20,000 plus heavy hitters (Nigerian millionaires and people doing well ) therein, 138 of who own private jets and 26 who own private yachts. So ask yourself at about .025% of the 160,000,000 humans that call Nigeria home doing extremely well, what fate befell those remaining 99.075%? Statistics do not lie and if in doubt, check how many people you are directly responsible for or personally supporting in one way or another and then configure the rest. So what the latest GDP index recalculation did to Nigeria, if they will imbibe the message, is to encourage them to do more. It is just like cheering a marathoner on the sidelines to urge him/her to push the extra mile for the finish line. 

Like one commentator chided, "possibly it is because the West wants something from Nigeria that they did the sudden recognition?" Icheoku says YES, the West wants new markets for their products and Capitalism runs on MONEY; so if there is money to be made from anywhere including Nigeria, why not. Finally, Nigerians must demand from their leaders to do more for and by them - translation, invest more in the goose that produce the golden eggs and let the gander not be too greedy BUT learn to share what belongs to all. Meanwhile Icheoku congratulates all those hands in the tiller that made this milestone possible; what a welcome relief from all these Boko Haram infested stories that Nigeria has become about. More grease to those elbows that engineered the feat. Congratulations.