Nigeria growth not meeting needs of poor Okonjo-Iweala says, challenges Dangote others
Nigeria’s finance minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has offered a sobering view of the country’s economy, saying growth has mostly benefited the rich and failed to generate enough jobs to ease unemployment.
Okonjo-Iweala told delegates an estimated 1.2 million jobs were generated in the past 12 months but this was inadequate in the country of about 170 million people.
“I think we need to grow at least nine to 10 per cent (a year) to drive the job growth the way we want,” she said.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a forum of business leaders the country’s economy likely grew at 6.7 per cent in 2013, in line with the seven per cent average over the past decade.
“It is clear that the top five to 10 per cent is capturing most of whatever growth there is and people at the bottom are being left behind,” the former World Bank managing director said.
Speaking to a audience of executives including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote. The Minister said “People in this room: if we don’t put our minds to this problem, that we need to create jobs and not just create wealth, you’ll find that the whole economy may be in danger.”
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, is widely expected to surpass South Africa in the coming years as Africa’s largest economy.
The rise in GDP coincides with sweeping reforms following the end of military rule in 1999.
But the finance minister and others have warned against taking too much comfort in a GDP figure that fails to tell the real story of Nigeria’s economy.
Official statistics released last year said the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty had gone up since 2004, a discouraging trend in a resource-rich nation that produces about two million barrels of oil a day.