TheCable

There is no exciting way to write about inequality in Nigeria. It is a ‘boring’ subject filled with dreary statistics and data, and because Nigerians have become accustomed to the established patterns, we often fail to grasp the true extent and consequences of the growing disparity between the privileged few and the vast majority of the population. But the disparity is a significant problem — one that concerns everyone and has implications for the country’s overall economic performance.

Lately, inequality has been growing in Nigeria, worsened by rising poverty, insecurity, and government policies that fail to address age-old issues of discrimination, as well as cultural and religious practices that hold down significant segments of the population. These, in turn, impact the country’s productivity, with serious consequences for security, quality of life and lifespan.

Nothing illustrates this point better than a personal story. When I was in primary six in public school in Lagos, the military government came up with a policy that required all the children who would take the G2 exit exam of that year to provide a tax clearance certificate. Casimir was my classmate. He was older and much bigger than the rest of the primary six pupils. He was brilliant, an all-round sportsman and was the head boy that year. But he had an albatross: his parents were unregistered Togolese immigrants engaged in petty carpentry work. They had no formal education and it would not be out of place to say that Casimir was the family’s hope.

But the Lagos government policy requiring tax clearance for primary six pupils meant Casimir and many like him would not write the G2 exams and consequently veered off the education path. Many years later, as an undergraduate, I saw Casimir in the neighbourhood of Lagos where I lived with my mother. Like his father before him, he had become an artisan, engaged in petty carpentry work.

There is nothing wrong with being a carpenter, but one can deduce that taking over his family’s unstructured small business was not Casimir’s dream. Even more, his precociousness as a student meant he was clearly cut out for a career more rewarding than being an artisan. Had his education not been aborted by a wrongheaded government policy, he would probably have become a medical doctor, an engineer or a writer, which would have been more rewarding for him and a better use of his potential.

Like Casimir, many are held back by government policies and actions that discriminate and perpetuate the cycle of poverty and inequality. Additionally, some religious and cultural practices invariably hold certain segments of the population down, limiting their opportunities to reach their full potential. The Almajiri school system, predominant in the north, and certain traditional practices in the south that limit women are good examples.

Nigeria is one of the most unequalled societies in the world, with the richest one percent of Nigerians owning more than 70% of the country’s wealth. According to the World Bank, the Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, for Nigeria is 0.351, which is higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa (0.349).

Nigeria’s inequality manifests in the form of income, gender, regional and rural/urban disparity. But whatever form or shape it takes, its most visible –and devastating– feature is the vast income gap and the possibility that the disparity will continue for years, leaving communities and families in extreme poverty for generations.

The most significant impact of inequality is underutilisation or non-development of human capital. When brilliant children who, if they had easy access to quality education, would have as adults become accomplished professionals such as brain surgeons or civil engineers, end up as street sweepers or criminals, it is the society that ultimately bears the loss. When this is amplified at a national scale, when a significant portion of the population has limited access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities, it leads to underutilisation of human capital and a less productive workforce, which, in turn, hinders overall economic growth and performance.

So, it is in our national interest to break the barriers to equality by providing easy access to quality education and healthcare, as well as dismantling the cultural and religious practices that hold down significant segments of our population. This is why the Almajiri culture, prevalent in northern Nigeria should have no place in 21st-century Nigeria.

Characterised by its emphasis on Islamic religious instruction, lack of formal curriculum, and reliance on the begging of students for alms, this system of informal education is essentially a poverty and inequality trap for many of the enrolled children and their families. Some development experts consider it a form of child abuse, as the system does not provide the kids with sufficient knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence, history, and the Quran. Or, even more significantly, provides them with sufficient skills to navigate life as an adult. Yet in 2019, UNICEF estimated that there were over 10 million Almajiri children in northern Nigeria, accounting for the vast number of the country’s out-of-school children.

Nigeria cannot aspire to true greatness when significant portions of its population lack the resources to achieve their full potential and contribute maximally to national growth and development. In the end, as a society, we lose more than we gain in the cheap labour which inequality supplies. When we open up the economy to disadvantaged groups and people, by removing the barriers –whether they be religious, cultural, regulatory, or otherwise– that keep them down, we are not just doing them a favour. Ultimately, we are helping ourselves to build a more peaceful, stable and prosperous country, one in which even the poor carpenter’s son can easily become a doctor.