Stakeholders in Abuja have raised grave concerns over the growing rate of inequality in Nigeria, insisting the mismanagement of natural resource wealth is fuelling the development.
They stated that the development is more alarming as over $20 trillion has been robbed from the nation’s treasury between 1960 and 2005.
According to the statistics from Nigeria’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the country earned $418.544 billion in terms of oil and gas revenue from the years 2010-2019.
While speaking at a pre-conference on a West African high-level policy conference on inequalities and natural resource management, authorities decried the depleting rate of the country’s Excess Crude Account, which has crumbled to less than $400,000.
The central argument is that while the wealth held by individuals as of 2017 in Nigeria exceeded $250 billion as that of Ghana exceeded $60bn, a large part of this wealth was derived from natural resources.
Insisting that development is a critical obstacle to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they noted that there are severe inequities in the distribution of a nation’s wealth.
The various stakeholders, including Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Global Rights, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NGRI), and Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) from the West African region, are worried that current political, economic and social challenges in Nigeria might worsen in the coming years.
Country Director of Global Rights Nigeria, Abiodun Baiyewu, noted that widening income and wealth gaps drive poverty upwards. He added that it would violate human rights and undermine the ability of governments to fulfil their obligations to citizens.
He also stated that Nigeria’s social cohesion, economic growth, violence and crime and low levels of trust in the society might worsen if necessary actions are not taken to tackle the problem.
“The inequality is so high that the combined wealth of five richest Nigerians is up at $30bn while no less than about five million Nigerians today are way below the poverty line.” He stated.
“Now, the amount of money the richest man in Nigeria earns yearly is sufficient to lift as many as two million people out of poverty while 91 per cent of our population are poor, abysmal,” she stated.
Director of CTA, Faith Nwadishi, stated that the impacts of inequality were more on women, further he noted that the growing level of the depletion of the excess crude account is unacceptable.
