I have a confession to make. My spirit is low. Since early October when James Robinson, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson were announced winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics I have moved around on the verge of despair. This is primarily because of a true statement made by James Robinson when he was interviewed that day on CNN. He said Economic Development is an intensely political process and most people now know how to make it happen but some like Nigeria do not seem to want or know how to do it.
Robinson and Acemoglu wrote the 2016 book Why Nations Fail. Ten years before I wrote Why Nation’s are Poor on the same premise of Institutions and economic performance. So understanding how economic prospects diverge for countries is an advanced science.
That statement from Robinson was almost verbatim quote of what Dr Christopher Kolade wrote in the Foreword to my latest book: Power Politics Policy and Performance. The publishers extracted that line from the Foreword and placed it on the book cover.
If in the face of the shame of Nigeria’s underperformance, poverty and violence everywhere we are so distracted with struggles over who should be VC, whose Mercedes or SUV is bigger, something is wrong with us.
I am increasingly in the mood of just returning to my village or joining a monastery if they will accept a terrible sinner and weakling like me. The Nigerian elite is something else.
Pat Utomi
