UN report misses the point, but...

Areport released under the United Nations Common Country Analysis (CCA) has painted a gloomy picture of Nigeria with respect to the prevailing social conditions in the country. The report which was read during a consultative meeting on the formulation of the UN Development Assistance Framework IV (UNDAF IV) in Awka, capital of Anambra State recently, highlighted a tragic state of affairs in disturbing graphic details.

UNDAF is a programme document that outlines the relationship between a government and the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) which describes the collective actions and strategies of the United Nations pursuant to the achievement of national development. CCA is therefore intended to guide the UNDAF template. That is why the contents of CCA remain significant especially when they feature a mixture of incontestable conditions and a swathe of inaccuracies; engendering a situation that leads to unhelpful, hasty generalisations about the country.

For instance the report said, “Nigeria is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world. Over 80 million or 64% of its present population of 175 million live below poverty line. With the population growing to 200 million in just four years from now in 2020 and 400 million by 2050, the country’s condition will be worse except urgent remedial measures are deployed.” The report also mentioned that several constituent units of the country have been engaged in a sustained advocacy to pull out of the country, thereby placing its future as a united country in doubt.

On the economic front, the report captured the present recession into which the country has fallen even in the face of a national revenue drop of as much as 33%, with youth unemployment hitting 42% in 2016, leading to the present state of deepening hunger, helplessness, despair and escalating crime rate nationwide. In conclusion the report added that “the vulnerable macroeconomic environment in Nigeria is affecting investors’ confidence in the domestic economy.”

There has not been any official response from the Nigerian government on the scathing report, but hardly are its contents strange to keen observers of the country. Even before the report was made public much of the indices have been public knowledge, especially with respect to its reference to past administrations for leading the country into its present travails with serially bad governance.

The report however missed the point by seemingly writing the country off, even as it has helped to identify areas of concern for remedial action. For an economy that is ranked as a leading powerhouse in Africa, some of the report’s deductions lend themselves to suspicion as outcomes of prejudiced analysis. Hence it falls short of expectations as the final word on the Nigerian situation. Yet the graphic details in the report qualify for more than a passing attention by the government, given its agenda to take Nigeria to the next level. The government needs to edify itself by adopting a critical look at the report in order to adjust its remediation programmes and projects where necessary. For instance, the linkage between the state of recession which features a contraction of the economy and high youth unemployment rate should enjoy priority attention.

Much as the government has expressed its desire to move the country out of the recession, not much remedial action has been sensed by the public. Meanwhile the government is yet to address itself adequately to the issue of huge domestic debts to its contractors and sundry creditors for which it allocated N1.3 trillion in the 2016 budget. This situation places doubt on the ability of the domestic economy to spring back into traction. In the final analysis the CCA report is a wake-up call to the present administration to act now in order to avoid a bad situation getting worse.