Mohammed Ibn Bello writes: Mr. Tayler’’s article is filled with a lot of deliberate or mischievous inaccuracies



"Mr. Tayler claims, for instance, that "more than two thirds of the population (of Nigeria) lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day”. This assertion is a deliberate lie. Two thirds of Nigeria’s estimated population of 115 million people is about 70 million. More than 75 per cent of these 70 million live in the rural areas. The first thing then that is obviously wrong with Mr. Tayler’’s assertion is that it is hinged on the thoroughly discredited 1990 World Bank adopted benchmark for defining the poor as those who cannot subsist on one dollar a day." Jeffrey Tayler served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. He has published numerous articles in Atlantic Monthly, Spin, Harper's and Condé Nast Traveler and is a regular commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered.

Mohammed Ibn Bello writes: Mr. Tayler’’s article is filled with a lot of deliberate or mischievous inaccuracies

Tayler's tales about Nigeria

By Mohammed Ibn Bello
Posted to the Web: Tuesday, June 06, 2006

SADLY, a trend is emerging whereby foreign tourists, freelance journalists and all sorts of doomsday prophets, who have only a nodding acquaintance with Nigeria, proceed to write very authoritatively about the country, predicting all manners of doom for her, including her possible disintegration. Mr. Jeffrey Tayler's article entitled, "Nigeria's Troubles could become America’s" which was published in the American Atlantic Monthly Magazine recently, belongs to this genre of what I will like to christen "doomsday writing".

To be able to reach his apocalyptic conclusion, Mr. Tayler’’s article is filled with a lot of deliberate or mischievous inaccuracies. Mr. Tayler claims, for instance, that "more than two thirds of the population (of Nigeria) lives beneath the poverty line, subsisting on less than a dollar a day”. This assertion is a deliberate lie. Two thirds of Nigeria’s estimated population of 115 million people is about 70 million. More than 75 per cent of these 70 million live in the rural areas. The first thing then that is obviously wrong with Mr. Tayler’’s assertion is that it is hinged on the thoroughly discredited 1990 World Bank adopted benchmark for defining the poor as those who cannot subsist on one dollar a day.

As many knowledgeable scholars have pointed out, the World Bank definition is flawed because most people, especially in Africa, do not use the American dollar to get what they want. At any rate, a dollar’s worth of currency in one part of the world can buy two or three times more than a dollar's worth in another, making nonsense of that universal definition of poverty. As indicated earlier, about 75 per cent of Nigerians live in the rural areas where they grow their own food, live in houses built largely through communal support system, procure their animal protein needs and their fruits from their streams and forests. These people do not use the dollar in procuring these needs. The cost of the things they need to live on everyday when put together in dollar terms exceeds three dollars a day.

However, no one can deny that poverty still exists in Nigeria today. It is debatable whether there is any country in the world today where poverty has been completely eradicated. While there is some poverty in Nigeria, it is certainly not on the exaggerated scale that Mr. Tayler puts it just to fit in with the awful picture he wants to paint of Nigeria. But the leadership of Nigeria has not been intimidated by the problem. Rather, it has courageously been trying to grapple with the development challenges facing her, one of which is poverty. Happily, some of the policy measures the Obasanjo Administration has put in place since 1999 are beginning to yield a lot of dividends and helping to reduce poverty among the population.

The National Directorate of Employment, one of several agencies charged with the responsibility of reducing unemployment, has trained and equipped millions of Nigerian youths with skills and equipment to become not only self-employed, but to also become employers of labour in the bargain. The introduction of the GSM has similarly provided direct and indirect employment to millions of Nigerians, changing their status positively. Tayler also asserts, without any supporting evidence, that, "Nigeria has become the largest failed state on earth". Like other doomsday prophets who make such thoughtless but fashionable prediction about Nigeria, Mr. Tayler will be sorely disappointed. With all the challenges facing her, Nigeria is still one cohesive state, with all the constituent units owing allegiance to the central government in Abuja.

There are some skirmishes here and there among some communities in Nigeria but this does not amount to a state of anarchy. Even the well-known sometime violent agitation by some youths in the Niger Delta region does not mean a desire on the part of the agitators to secede from Nigeria. Rather, it is a plea on their part for better treatment, a plea which the Obasanjo administration admits as legitimate even if their methods are unacceptable. Only a few days ago, a stakeholder meeting was held to find a lasting solution to the several decades of neglect of that region. The standard dictum of journalism is that its practitioners should not peddle rumours as if they were facts. One is therefore surprised about Tayler's claim that, "Rumours are circulating that Obasanjo may seek a third term in next year’’s elections, although he is constitutionally prohibited from doing so”.
•Mr. Bello, a social critic, writes from Abuja.

When this story was posted in July 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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