Nigeria’s population tripled without economic expansion since Shagari era — Duke

…Links hardship, social unrest to failure of productivity Former Cross River State governor and presidential candidate of Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, Donald Duke, said yesterday Nigeria’s economy has effectively shrunk since the Second Republic because government spending and productive capacity have failed to grow in line with the country’s population.Duke said Nigeria was still operating around the same dollar-denominated budget recorded under former President Shehu Shagari more than four decades ago, despite its population increasing from about 76 million to an estimated 230 million.Speaking to journalists in Abuja yesterday, he blamed the country’s worsening cost-of-living crisis on decades of neglect of productivity.“I think we got it wrong from independence, but as the years go by, the effects become stark. We have not addressed the issue of productivity,” he said.Duke said Shagari’s administration operated an average annual budget of about $25 billion between 1979 and 1983, when Nigeria’s population was approximately one-third of its present size.He said: “Today, our population, they say, is about 230 million people. We are still spending the same $25 billion that Shagari spent 46 years ago.“All these trillions and trillions, by the time you convert them, you come down to the same thing.

In essence, the economy has not grown. In fact, it has shrunk because $25 billion in 1979 or 1980 is not the same as $25 billion today.”He said the consequences could be seen in widespread poverty, unemployment, insecurity and the desperation of millions of Nigerians struggling to survive.He added that the primary responsibility of government was to create conditions that allowed citizens to be productive within a secure and orderly society.“The essence of government is to ensure the utmost productivity of citizens within a safe and orderly environment. That is why you have the judiciary.

If Nigeria were to be safe and orderly and the people were productive, nobody would care whether you came from Sokoto, Calabar or somewhere else,” Duke said.The former governor also questioned the economic justification and timing of the Lagos–Calabar coastal highway, saying the government should have considered more urgent social and infrastructure needs.“We woke up one morning and said we wanted to build a road from Lagos to Calabar.