A failed portion of a Nigerian road, an indication of a failing state.
NIGERIA
now ranks among the top 10 failed states in Africa and 14th in the
world, a global body, the Fund For Peace (FFP) declared in its 2012
annual Index Data released on Friday.
The war-torn Somalia tops the global list, which comprised 177
countries with Congo Democratic Republic and Sudan ranked second and
third respectively.
Afghanistan, which had for several years, interchangeably dominated
the number one spot, dropped to number six, after Chad and Zimbabwe
which placed fourth and fifth in that order.
FFP is an independent, non-partisan non-profit research and
educational organisation that works to prevent violent conflict and
promote sustainable security.
Going by the latest index data, Nigeria has gained two points having
been ranked eight failed state in the continent, while she retained the
14th in the world.
The country trails behind Pakistan, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Iraq, Yemen and Haiti.
According to the FFP, a total of 12 criteria were applied in arriving
at the ranking that showed a relative better rating for such other
African countries like Madagascar, Comoros Island, Djibouti, Libya,
Zambia, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mauritania, Malawi and Rwanda than Nigeria
among the list of the failed states.
Some of the core criteria included security apparatus, factionalised
elite, legitimacy of the state, external intervention, poverty and
economic decline, uneven development, group grievance and demographic
pressures, human flight and public services.
Some of these factors, which had become pronounced in the country in
the last couple of years, have culminated in restiveness among the
citizens and triggered calls for a national conference to enable the
country chart a new course.
But the establishment has consistently toed the path of
constitutional amendment, ostensibly because of the demand in many
quarters for a conference with sovereign powers.
Besides, the nation has been contending with security challenges
across the country, some of which include the menace of banditry and
kidnapping in some states in the southern part of the country.
However, the greatest security challenge had been the activities of
the Boko Haram sect, whose members have persistently engaged in serial
bombings with the accompany deaths of hundreds of innocent cities and
destruction of invaluable property.
The frightening dimension of the mindless killings had led to some
senior citizens warning against what they described as the
Somalialisation of the country in apparent reference to Somalia, which
has been remained ungovernable owing to the endless activities of
factional groups trying to control the North African country.
It neither has a central government nor any regional government that could claim to be in charge of its sovereignty.
Nigeria has remained in the top bracket of countries categorized as failed nations in the last three years.
Soyinka’s Warning Of Somalia, Boko Haram Menace, Economic Crises.
According to the domentary, some countries fail spectacularly, with a
total collapse of all state institutions, as in Afghanistan after the
Soviet withdrawal and the hanging of President Mohammad Najibullah from a
lamppost, or during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, where
the government ceased to exist altogether.
Most countries that fall apart, however, do so not with a bang but
with a whimper. They fail not in an explosion of war and violence but by
being utterly unable to take advantage of their society’s huge
potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of
poverty. This type of slow, grinding failure leaves many cou
ntries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America with living standards far, far below those in the West.
What’s tragic is that this failure is by design. These states
collapse because they are ruled by what is called “extractive” economic
institutions, which destroy incentives, discourage innovation, and sap
the talent of their citizens by creating a tilted playing field and
robbing them of opportunities. These institutions are not in place by
mistake but on purpose. They’re there for the benefit of elites who gain
much from the extraction — whether in the form of valuable minerals,
forced labour, or protected monopolies — at the expense of society. Of
course, such elites benefit from rigged political institutions too,
wielding their power to tilt the system for their benefit.
But states built on exploitation inevitably fail, taking an entire
corrupt system down with them and often leading to immense suffering.
North Korea: Lack of Property RightsNorth
Korea's economic institutions make it almost impossible for people to
own property; the state owns everything, including nearly all land and
capital. Agriculture is organized via collective farms. People work for
the ruling Korean Workers' Party, not themselves, which destroys their
incentive to succeed.
North Korea could be much wealthier. In 1998, a U.N. mission found
that many of the country's tractors, trucks, and other farm machinery
were simply unused or not maintained. Beginning in the 1980s, farmers
were allowed to have their own small plots of land and sell what they
grew. But even this hasn't created much incentive, given the country's
endemic lack of property rights. In 2009, the government introduced a
revalued currency and allowed people to convert only 100,000 to 150,000
won of the old currency into the new one (equivalent to about $35 to $40
at the black-market exchange rate). People who had worked and saved up
stocks of the old currency found it to be worthless.
Not only has North Korea failed to grow economically -- while South
Korea has grown rapidly -- but its people have literally failed to
flourish. Trapped in this debilitating cycle, North Koreans are not only
much poorer than South Koreans but also as much as 3 inches shorter on
average than the neighbors from whom they have been cut off for the last
six decades.
Uzbekistan: Forced labourCoercion is a surefire
way to fail. Yet, until recently, at least in the scope of human
history, most economies were based on the coercion of workers -- think
slavery, serfdom, and other forms of forced labor. In fact, the list of
strategies for getting people to do what they don't want to do is as
long as the list of societies that relied on them. Forced labor is also
responsible for the lack of innovation and technological progress in
most of these societies, ranging from ancient Rome to the U.S. South.
Modern Uzbekistan is a perfect example of what that tragic past
looked like. Cotton is among Uzbekistan's biggest exports. In September,
as the cotton bolls ripen, the schools empty of children, who are
forced to pick the crop. Instead of educators, teachers become labor
recruiters. Children are given daily quotas from between 20 to 60
kilograms, depending on their age.
The main beneficiaries of this system are President Islam Karimov and
his cronies, who control the production and sale of the cotton. The
losers are not only the 2.7 million children coerced to work under harsh
conditions in the cotton fields instead of going to school, but also
Uzbek society at large, which has failed to break out of poverty. Its
per capita income today is not far from its low level when the Soviet
Union collapsed -- except for the income of Karimov's family, which,
with its dominance of domestic oil and gas exploration, is doing quite
well.
Egypt: The big men get greedyWhen elites control
an economy, they often use their power to create monopolies and block
the entry of new people and firms. This was exactly how Egypt worked for
three decades under Hosni Mubarak. The government and military owned
vast swaths of the economy -- by some estimates, as much as 40 percent.
Even when they did "liberalize," they privatised large parts of the
economy right into the hands of Mubarak's friends and those of his son,
Gamal. Big businessmen close to the regime, such as Ahmed Ezz (iron and
steel), the Sawiris family (multimedia, beverages, and
telecommunications), and Mohamed Nosseir (beverages and
telecommunications) received not only protection from the state but also
government contracts and large bank loans without needing to put up
collateral.
Together, these big businessmen were known as the "whales." Their
stranglehold on the economy created fabulous profits for regime
insiders, but blocked opportunities for the vast mass of Egyptians to
move out of poverty. Meanwhile, the Mubarak family accumulated a vast
fortune estimated as high as $70 billion.
Somalia: No law and orderOne must-have for
successful economies is an effective centralised state. Without this,
there is no hope of providing order, an effective system of laws,
mechanisms for resolving disputes, or basic public goods.
Yet large parts of the world today are still dominated by stateless
societies. Although countries like Somalia or the new country of South
Sudan do have internationally recognized governments, they exercise
little power outside their capitals, and maybe not even there. Both
countries have been built atop societies that historically never created
a centralized state but were divided into clans where decisions were
made by consensus among adult males. No clan was ever able to dominate
or create a set of nationally respected laws or rules. There were no
political positions, no administrators, no taxes, no government
expenditures, no police, no lawyers -- in other words, no government.
This situation persisted during the colonial period in Somalia, when
the British were unable even to collect poll taxes, the usual fiscal
basis for their African colonies. Since independence in 1960, attempts
have been made to create an effective central state, for example, during
the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre, but after more than five
decades it's fair and even obvious to say they have failed. Call it
Somalia's law: Without a central state, there can be no law and order;
without law and order, there can be no real economy; and without a real
economy, a country is doomed to fail.
Colombia: A weak central governmentColombia
isn't Somalia. All the same, its central government is unable or
unwilling to exert control over probably half the country, which is
dominated by left-wing guerrillas, most famously the FARC, and,
increasingly, right-wing paramilitaries. The drug lords may be on the
run, but the state's absence from much of the country leads not only to
lack of public services such as roads and health care, but also to lack
of well-defined, institutionalized property rights.
Thousands of rural Colombians have only informal titles or titles
lacking any legal validity. Although this does not stop people from
buying and selling land, it undermines their incentives to invest -- and
the uncertainty often leads to violence. During the 1990s and early
2000s, for example, an estimated 5 million hectares of land were
expropriated in Colombia, typically at gunpoint. The situation got so
bad that in 1997, the central government allowed local authorities to
ban land transactions in rural areas. The result? Many parts of Colombia
essentially fail to take part in modern economic activities, instead
languishing in poverty, not to mention proving to be fertile havens for
armed insurgents and paramilitary forces of both the left and right.
Calca and nearby Acomayo are two Peruvian provinces. Both are high in
the mountains, and both are inhabited by the Quechua-speaking
descendants of the Incas. Both grow the same crops, yet Acomayo is much
poorer, with its inhabitants consuming about one-third less than those
in Calca. The people know this. In Acomayo, they ask intrepid
foreigners, "Don't you know that the people here are poorer than the
people over there in Calca? Why would you ever want to come here?"
Indeed, it is much harder to get to Acomayo from the regional capital
of Cusco, the ancient center of the Inca Empire, than it is to get to
Calca. The road to Calca is paved, while the one to Acomayo is in
terrible disrepair. To get beyond Acomayo you need a horse or a mule --
not due to any differences in topography, but because there are no paved
roads. In Calca, they sell their corn and beans on the market for
money, while in Acomayo they grow the same crops for their own
subsistence.
Acomayo's people are one-third poorer than Calca's as a result. Infrastructure matters.
Peru: Bad public servicesCalca and nearby
Acomayo are two Peruvian provinces. Both are high in the mountains, and
both are inhabited by the Quechua-speaking descendants of the Incas.
Both grow the same crops, yet Acomayo is much poorer, with its
inhabitants consuming about one-third less than those in Calca. The
people know this. In Acomayo, they ask intrepid foreigners, "Don't you
know that the people here are poorer than the people over there in
Calca? Why would you ever want to come here?"
Indeed, it is much harder to get to Acomayo from the regional capital
of Cusco, the ancient center of the Inca Empire, than it is to get to
Calca. The road to Calca is paved, while the one to Acomayo is in
terrible disrepair. To get beyond Acomayo you need a horse or a mule --
not due to any differences in topography, but because there are no paved
roads. In Calca, they sell their corn and beans on the market for
money, while in Acomayo they grow the same crops for their own
subsistence.
Acomayo's people are one-third poorer than Calca's as a a result. Infrastructure matters.
Sierra Leone: Fighting over the spoilsIntense
extraction breeds instability and failure because, consistent with the
iron law of oligarchy, it creates incentives for others to depose the
existing elites and take over.
This is exactly what happened in Sierra Leone. Siaka Stevens and his
All People's Congress (APC) party ran the country from 1967 until 1985
as their personal fiefdom. Little changed when Stevens stepped aside,
passing the baton to his protégé, Joseph Momoh, who just continued the
plunder.
The trouble is that this sort of extraction creates deep-seated
grievances and invites contests for power from would-be strongmen hoping
to get their hands on the loot. In March 1991, Foday Sankoh's
Revolutionary United Front, with the support and most likely the command
of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, crossed into Sierra Leone and
plunged the country into a vicious, decade-long civil war. Sankoh and
Taylor were interested in only one thing: power, which they could use,
among other things, to steal diamonds, and they could do so because of
the regime that Stevens and his APC had created. The country soon
descended into chaos, with the civil war taking the lives of about 1
percent of the population and maiming countless others. Sierra Leone's
state and institutions totally collapsed. Government revenues went from
15 percent of national income to practically zero by 1991. The state, in
other words, didn't so much fail as disappear entirely.
