Nigeria's Unidentified Problem: A Deficit in Community Self-Renewal Hinders Prosperity

Nigeria's persistent challenges, from forced migration to economic instability, stem from a core issue: a "scientific and institutional knowledge deficit in community self-renewal," according to Victor-Bandele Dada writing in Vanguard.

For over six decades, Nigeria has debated its problems, with economists, political scientists, sociologists, development specialists, and security analysts offering valid observations. However, these are largely seen as descriptions of consequences rather than the underlying cause.

The fundamental question, Dada argues, is why Nigeria cannot transform its vast human, territorial, and material potential into a continuously self-renewing system of prosperity. This goes beyond common explanations like corruption or bad leadership. The nation, he posits, inherited political, administrative, economic, and legal structures but lacked the scientifically articulated knowledge base for its communities to renew themselves.

This deficit has led to governance often becoming an "exercise in the administration of scarcity." When scarcity persists, migration becomes an inevitable outcome. Poverty, often cited as Nigeria's primary problem, is presented as a condition, not the root cause. The deeper issue is the absence of a systemic mechanism that can continuously convert available potential into sustainable prosperity. A community might possess resources but remain poor without the scientific integration into a productive system.

Nigeria has operated on an extractive and distributive logic, generating wealth in narrow sectors and redistributing it. This model creates a "dangerous national illusion" of a functioning economy, masking the reality for large segments of the population who remain excluded.