Nigeria's golden hour of development

Business Standard (India)

22 May 2011

Parvathi Vasudevan: Nigeria's golden hour of development

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party will be sworn in as the President of Nigeria on 29 May following elections that have been generally acclaimed to be fair, free and credible by most observers. Once in, he will have to hit the ground running to tackle the several challenges confronting the country, such as power shortages, development of alternate energy sources, physical infrastructure and socio-economic services, peace in the Niger Delta region, further development of agriculture and promotion of foreign investment.

Are these issues the only ones? Can they be addressed without supporting governance mechanisms? Plans, strategies and laws are all there on paper but implementation is woefully bad and predatory. Institution-building is critical and civil society groups have to catalyse the process.

Domestic politics requires development of not merely physical capital but also, and perhaps more critically, human capital for increasing productivity and promoting an environment for inventiveness.