The media’s attention in Nigeria is focused on
its attempt to subdue Boko Haram, an
Islamic jihadist militant terrorist organization that operates in that
country’s Muslim provinces and that has been responsible for massacring
hundreds of Christians and for the burning of schools and churches. However,
the contest for Nigeria’s
presidency is slowly taking shape. The 2015 election is likely to be dominated
by economic issues and persistent poverty as much as concerns over internal security.
In the past, capitalism was a dirty word in much of Africa. Today, many African
countries are liberalizing, and some outspoken leaders, such as Orji Uzor Kalu,
the former governor of Nigeria’s
Abia state, are happy to proclaim the virtues of the free market……. There is a
lot of work to be done. Nigeria
ranked 131st out of 185 countries surveyed by the World Bank’s Doing Business
report in 2013. The country’s byzantine bureaucracy is not only slowing
private-sector growth, it is also one of the main sources of Nigeria’s fabled
corruption. “You cannot make public officials less corrupt by appealing to
their virtue,” Mr.
Kalu argues. “You have to eliminate the source of corruption by drastically
reducing the number of permits and licenses.”….To Read More….
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