Nigeria in 2014: Concluding Remarks

Although there are numerous challenges facing Nigeria, there are equally huge opportunities to tap into to accelerate growth and development in the country. It is obvious that the greatest opportunity is in the technology industry being the next frontier. IBM is seen to be leading the way followed by Microsoft, Google, Baidu (China’s response to google) and their affiliate partners (Orange, Hauwei, etc) as they explore investments opportunities in Africa. Like many African countries, Nigeria’s demographic prospects are promising, too. As America, Europe and China age, Africa can expect a bulge of workers in their productive prime. Though skills are in short supply, they are becoming more abundant. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, in 2002 only 32% of Africans had secondary or tertiary education, but by 2020, 48% will have. The continent can call on degree-laden expatriates such as Uyi Stewart, the Nigerian chief scientist of IBM’s Nairobi lab. The ability of government, businesses, financial service providers and the Nigerian people in general to positively respond to rising issues and convert challenges to opportunities will go a long way in shaping the Nigerian economy in 2014. Maintaining peace and security is extremely crucial to reap these benefits as this will create a climate friendly for international partnership, investment and sustainable economic growth. As Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Heckscher-Ohlin identified in their economic postulations, every country should explore in competitive advantage to foster economic growth. Nigeria is blessed with natural resources, competitive distribution system (cutting across Africa and the world in road, airways and seaways network), a cheap workforce (fueled by abundant labour supply), a cultural revolution (with an expanding middle class) and a youth bulginess condition that continue to stimulate domestic demand. 2014 truly holds a lot and it can spell both dividends or doom depending on how we respond to opportunities and challenges as a people.

Read the full article here: 10 Economic Highlights to look out for in Nigeria in 2014. Want to share you thoughts on the Nigerian Economy in 2014? You can drop your comment below or continue the discussion with on twitter Tweet to @seunoyeniran

Nigeria in 2014: Political pressure and ethno-religious bigotry will increase

It’s not reasonable to observe the spate of open letters flying about in Nigeria in 2013 and think such attitude will fall in 2014. In fact, open letters and associated political forces will continue to generate heat as the country draws closer to the 2015 general election. Apart from the five governors of the ruling PDP defecting to the opposition APC on Nov. 26 2013, on Dec. 18, the ruling party lost 37 parliamentary seats to the same opposition party. This is a collection of events some analyst call “things fall apart”. Nigeria’s political history and elections since democracy has generally been characterized with violence and it will take a miracle for such to quiet down going by the situation of things in 2013. The ruling party and the president will continue to face challenges and the greatest-ever will be in 2014. It is not only in Nigeria, similar issues are expected across Africa and we will recollect that even South African’s President Jacob Zuma was booed and jeered by South Africans during Mandel’s burial ceremony – a worrying sign for his African National Congress (ANC) as it heads for polls in about six months. Many Nigerians and also friendly foreigners agree that the country is facing various problems on political stability. Analysts see the major problem as that of national unity in an atmosphere of the rising profile of ethnicity and religious bigotry. The ongoing deadly ethnic-religious clashes in some parts of Nigeria and renewed militancy and oil theft in the southern Niger delta (put at between 100,000 (Chatham House) to 250,000 (Nuhu Ribadu Report) barrels of oil a day) continue to amplify the political divide thereby giving room for more heat in the polity. 2014 will not only be a critical year for INEC (who is expected to receive buoyant support in the 2014 budget), political parties are expected to hold their national conventions to choose their parties presidential candidates in preparation for the 2015 elections. We should be interested and look forward to how the commission will respond to emerging electioneering issues in 2014 with Ekiti and Osun governorship elections serving as a litmus test for the 2015 election. Not to forget to add that 2014 also marks 100years since the country's Northern and Southern protectorate was merged into one Nigeria in 1914 (i.e. the centenary). This will call for renewed global attention on Nigeria to see how the political climate is changing or challenging the history and aspiration of the people.

Read the full article here: 10 Economic Highlights to look out for in Nigeria in 2014. Want to share you thoughts on the Nigerian Economy in 2014? You can drop your comment below or continue the discussion with on twitter Tweet to @seunoyeniran

reference list

Mandela: He Chose The Opposite to Maintain Peace and Unity

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But, my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” -Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: 1918 - 2013

When Mandela was released in February 1990, even the apartheid government didn’t know what could follow. They let him go and prepared for the worse. Even his followers in the ACN expected that violence and forceful revenge will be in order. They were right to think so because even Mandela himself had gone for military training in Algeria in 1961 so that he can develop guerrilla tactics to combat the government of the day. Mandela did opposite of what the whole world expected. As The Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent David Blair reflects, not many people thought that South Africa could peacefully move from racial dictatorship to democracy without a civil war. Nelson Mandela was crucial to making that happen, allowing the black majority rule come in peacefully.

Spending 27 years in prison makes him the only single man who could have achieved peaceful transition to democracy; having spent such long years behind bars, no other black South African could question his commitment to the struggle to end apartheid. At the same time, no white South African could doubt that his gesture of reconciliation were heart felt. Nelson Mandela was the only man that could have carried out the extraordinary act of forgiveness that was required to burry apartheid and to do it with relatively little bloodshed. Living a tempestuous life, spending more than a decade as a hardened campaigner against apartheid, living mostly underground as he led strikes and demonstration of every kind leading to him being put on trial several times. He was part of a core of activist who opposed apartheid with everything they had from the late 1940s onward. "He was the only person who could have accomplished South Africa's transition to majority rule in a peaceful way, because of his own extraordinary life."

 Even till his late 90s and towards his death, South Africa clung to Mandela because he remains the link to their great triumph of a peaceful transition to democracy; seeing him more as a guarantor of their historic moment to democracy.