A one-time Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi has advocated the adoption of Chinese model of electing their leaders, based on their past performances at lower levels of government, for Nigeria.
Obi opined this at the weekend during an international conference on the theme of Philosophy, Law and Politics, at the Claretian Institute of Philosophy (CIP), Maryland, Nekede, saying that “since leadership was the fundamental problem of Nigeria, all hands must be on deck in the efforts to devise better ways of electing the leaders of the country.”
Speaking on Human Development Index, he argued that Nigeria and the World said that its improvement was directly proportional to the level of each country’s investment on education.
Affirming Norway as ranking highest in the world HDI indicator with almost $80,000 per capita income and life expectancy of over 80 years, he said it was due to their heavy investment on education where they had virtually literacy level of virtually 100 per cent with HDI of 0.95.
Obi who compared Nigeria with those countries which had the same developmental trajectory with her in the eighties, regretted that they had all done better than Nigeria.
His words “Indonesia with a population of 260 million people has a GDP of $1.0 trillion and per capita income of $3,800. Her life expectancy is 69 years while her literacy level is 93 per cent. Her HDI is 0.689 and ranked 113 in the world. She is classified as medium.
“Turkey, with a population of 80 million people, has a GDP of $880 billion and per capita income of $10,800. Her life expectancy is 76 years and literacy level of 97 per cent. Her HDI is 0.767 and ranked 71 in the world. She is classified as high.
“Now, our dear country Nigeria, has a population of about 190 million people. We have a GDP of $420 billion and per capita income $2,100. Our life expectancy is 53 years with literacy level of 55 per cent. Our HDI is 0.527 and ranked 152 in the world. We are classified as low!’’
Concluding, he said the reason for our low HDI was simply because Nigeria had not made the right investment on education and human resource development thus reaping poor governance – leaders and followers in return.
Other notable speakers who participated in the three-day event are Prof. Pat Utomi, Rev Father Prof. Izu Marcel Onyeocha, Prof Uchukwumaeze and Prof. Obasi Igwe.
