Leadership and public policy expert Dr Dakuku Peterside has blamed Nigeria’s inability to translate its vast natural and human resources into broad-based prosperity on weak institutions, poor management, and inconsistent policy implementation.
Peterside said Nigeria’s fundamental development challenge was not a lack of resources but the quality of the institutions and systems that manage them.
He spoke on Monday at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, while delivering the keynote address at the 65th Annual National Management Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM).
The former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said Nigeria must urgently move ‘from resource wealth to institutional wealth’ if it hopes to achieve sustainable economic transformation.
In a statement he made available to journalists in Abuja, Peterside said revenues from the country’s natural resources, particularly oil, should be deliberately converted into productive assets, including education, infrastructure, technology, research, manufacturing, agricultural value chains, logistics, and human capital.
‘Development occurs when natural wealth is converted into institutional wealth,’ Peterside said.
He described institutional wealth as the combination of capable people, credible systems, reliable laws, efficient agencies, transparent processes and productive enterprises necessary to drive sustainable development.
Peterside said the contrasting experiences of Nigeria, Botswana and South Korea showed that abundant natural resources were not, by themselves, a guarantee of national prosperity.
He noted that Botswana had successfully leveraged its diamond wealth through strong institutions, political stability, secure property rights and prudent public financial management.
South Korea, on the other hand, he said, achieved remarkable economic transformation through capable institutions, industrial coordination, infrastructure development, export-oriented policies and sustained investment in education.
Peterside also drew attention to historical per-capita income comparisons involving Nigeria, China and Malaysia, noting that although Nigeria was once ahead on the cited measure, the two Asian countries subsequently overtook it through faster and more consistent growth.
‘Potential is not destiny. History does not reward potential; it rewards organised potential’, he said.
The public policy expert warned that Nigeria’s excessive dependence on oil could continue to encourage rent-seeking, fiscal instability and distorted economic incentives unless revenues from the resource were deployed to finance long-term development.
He said the critical question before the country was whether oil wealth would be used to finance national transformation or merely sustain consumption.
Peterside also challenged Nigerian managers and policymakers to place greater emphasis on merit, accountability, measurable performance, institutional memory and professional public management.
‘Institutions become strong not because they occupy impressive buildings, but because they deliver predictable outcomes,’ he said.
He stressed that Nigeria’s transformation would ultimately depend on ‘capable institutions led by competent people’ with the discipline and commitment to translate policies into measurable results.
Also speaking at the conference, the Alara of Ilara Kingdom, Oba Dr Olufolarin Olukayode Ogunsanwo, said Nigeria’s development shortcomings were fundamentally linked to its failure to build strong institutions.
The monarch said the country must deliberately cultivate competent leaders with integrity, stressing that sustained leadership development was indispensable to achieving national transformation
In his remarks, the President and Chairman of Council of NIM, Commodore Abimbola Ayuba, said Nigeria could not make meaningful progress without breaking away from practices that had held the country back.
‘The operating environment must be conducive and peaceful for the nation to excel,’ Ayuba said.
He urged professional managers to become leading lights and agents of change in their respective fields, charging them to contribute actively towards strengthening the country’s institutions, systems and management practices.