NIGERIA:The Obasanjo government has introduced beneficial reforms, but half the country's population still lives in abject misery, writes Estelle Shirbonin Maraba
A short drive away from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, with its air-conditioned villas and ministers in luxury cars, life for many in the town of Maraba is a daily struggle.
On streets lined with rotting garbage and ramshackle stalls, Aminu Ladan polishes shoes to eke out a living. On a weekday he makes just over $1, but it costs more than that to eat, so sometimes he skips meals.
Ladan follows the news on the radio and knows that Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, has seen its revenues soar over the last four years thanks to high oil prices. The government made more than $40 billion from oil exports last year.
But it's no boom time in Maraba.
"The politicians have stolen all the money. They have their children schooling overseas. I never went to school, because I had to work in the farm with my father," says Ladan (24), who sleeps outdoors and pays a fee to use someone's bucket to wash.
The UN Development Programme estimates that nine out of 10 of Nigeria's 140 million people live on less than $2 a day. Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics uses a relative measure of poverty that sets the breadline as low as 51 cents a day. More than half the population don't make it above that.
The failure to lift the majority of people out of poverty is a major indictment of government in Nigeria, which has been ruled by the army for most of the period since independence in 1960.
The country returned to civilian rule eight years ago under President Olusegun Obasanjo. For the past four, his government has launched reforms aimed at stabilising government spending, reducing poverty, promoting private enterprise and improving the efficiency of ministries crippled by decades of misrule.
There have been undisputed successes in controlling the government's runaway spending and strengthening the banking system, but progress has been slow in other areas.
Nigerians still have to live with power cuts or no power at all, bad roads, poor water supplies and falling standards in schools and hospitals.
One in five Nigerian children do not survive until their fifth birthday, according to Unicef.
In the village of Angwan Jarmai in central Nigeria, Mohammed Salihu (45) tills the soil by hand to grow yams, cassava, maize and millet. His two wives, seven children and extended family depend on these crops to eat.
They sell whatever is left, but the money is not enough to pay school fees, so his children take turns skipping terms. Doctors' bills are a headache.
The family live in low mud-brick houses. There is no electricity in the village so they use a kerosene lamp at night. The men bring firewood for the women to cook. Babies have died of malaria or diarrhoea. Life hasn't changed for generations.
"When I look at how my father lived and how I live, I honestly cannot say anything has got better," says Salihu.
Amina Ibrahim, senior special adviser to President Obasanjo on the Millennium Development Goals, says more progress has been made than people realise, but that it will take time to trickle down.
"Everyone expects us to press fast forward but you can't solve in four years a situation that took 25 years to reach this point," she said.
Ibrahim says Nigeria's development plan contained the right policies to create jobs and improve basic services, but there were many challenges in implementation.
These included corruption, a dearth of skills among civil servants, poor co-ordination between the federal, state and local governments, and resources that are spread too thinly across Africa's most populous nation.
Obasanjo is due to relinquish the presidency after elections in April, and Ibrahim says it is crucial that the next government deepens the reforms and broadens the fight against corruption.
Many economists say economic growth in Nigeria can best be stimulated by the private sector.
They point to telecoms as a shining example. There was one telephone for every 280 Nigerians in 1999 before the industry was liberalised. Now there is one for every five, and millions of Nigerians have benefited.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created. Young men selling top-up cards for mobile phones are everywhere, and more communication means more work for many small businesses.
Suleiman Yahyah launched Rosecom, a small telecoms firm, in 1998 with $15,000. The company is now worth more than $3 million.
"The changing environment compared with before 1999, the regulatory changes introduced by government, have opened up the market and been a major factor in our success," says Yahyah.
Growth, however, he adds, is still limited by power shortages, bad infrastructure and the fact that so many Nigerians are too poor to afford phones. But he sees a bright future for the sector and for the broader economy as long as the reforms are sustained.
"Nigerians have a high appetite for consumption and they will be willing to spend money for the right product . . . Nigeria is the place to be as an investor." - ( Reuters)