Nigeria Essay, Research Paper

Nigerian Nation

Nigeria is found near the middle of Africa, its land area is at a total 923,768 square kilometers, 910,768 land and 13,000 water square kilometers. Nigeria is slightly more than twice the size of California. The borders of Nigeria are Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and 853 km of coastal boundaries. The climate in Nigeria varies; it is equatorial in the south, tropical in the center and arid in the northern regions. Nigeria?s terrain varies from southern lowlands that merge into central hills and plateaus; mountains in southeast, and plains in the north. Some of Nigeria?s natural resources are as follows, petroleum, tin, columbite, iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, zinc, natural gas, hydropower, and arable land. One of the most important is its abundance of oil.

One of the natural hazards that plagues Nigeria are periodic droughts. Some of the current important environmental issues are soil degradation; rapid deforestation; desertification; and the droughts these are all playing major havoc on the agriculture activities. Agriculture is usually not a very reliable source of income in Nigeria, while the majority of the labor force is in agriculture.

The main products that this country produces are; crude oil, coal, tin, columbite, palm oil, peanuts, cotton, rubber, wood, hides and skins, textiles, cement and other construction materials, food products, footwear, chemicals, fertilizer, printing, ceramics, and steel. It?s totals in exports is 13.1 billion dollars a year. It?s main export is petroleum and petroleum products at 95% of its exports, and cocoa and rubber are the other two important exports. It?s main exporting partners are; US 35%, Spain 11%, India 9%, France 6%, and Italy. Nigeria imports $10 billion dollars worth of products each year. It?s main imports are machinery, chemicals, transport equipment, manufactured goods, food and live animals. It?s main import trading partners are UK 13%, US 12%, Germany 10%, France 9%, and the Netherlands.

Nigeria is very dependent on it?s oil sector for much of it?s income. The GDP of Nigeria is $110.5 billion dollars, with a growth rate of 2.7%, it?s purchasing power parity is $970. The GDP is broken up like this; agriculture at 33%, industry at 42%, and services at 25%. It has a 34.1% amount of the population below the poverty line and an unemployment rate of 28%. The household consumption by percentage share is the lowest 10% at 1.3% while the highest 10% is at 32.4%. It?s labor force is 42.844 million broken down like this agriculture 54%, industry 6%, and services at 40%. The national debt is at $29 billion dollars, while it?s economic aid is at $39.2 million dollars.

The current population of Nigeria is 123,337,822. A major factor in determining estimates in this category for this country is the decrease of mortality rates due to AIDS, which can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would be expected. The age structure of this country is broken down as; 0-14 years at 44%, 15-64 years at 53%, and 65 and over at only 3%. The population growth rate is 2.67% per year, with a birth rate of 40.16 births/1,000 population and a death rate of 13.72 deaths/1,000 population. The infant mortality rate for this country is 74.18 deaths/1,000 live births with a life expectancy at birth of 51.56 years. The fertility rate of Nigeria is 5.66 child children born/woman.

Some of the current problems plaguing Nigeria are the disputes over the boundaries around Lake Chad, which have plagued Nigeria in the past also. They are disputing with Cameroon, Chad, and Niger over border matters. Also a major problem are illicit drugs and drug trafficking, through Nigeria to Southeast and Southwest Asia to Western Europe and North America; also an increasing transit route for cocaine from South America intended for European, East Asian, and North American Markets.

Military leaders controlled Nigeria?s government from 1966 to 1979. A civilian government took control in 1979, and a constitution was adopted that same year. From 1983 to 1999, however, military leaders again controlled the government. Civilian rule was restored in 1999, and a new constitution adopted. The oil rich Nigeria is undergoing a substantial economic reform under the new civilian administration. Nigeria?s former military rulers failed to diversify the economy away from over dependence on the dominant oil supply and exporting which provides about 20% of the GDP, 95% of foreign trade, and about 65% of budgetary revenues. Nigeria was once a large exporter of food products and has an abundance on non used agriculture friendly land and grazing land, but with it?s current conditions now must import food.

Nigeria is making developments to develop the focus of macroeconomic policies in the program on the maintenance of stability, including low inflation, and ensuring the prudent management of temporarily high oil revenues with the help of the IMF. One of the goals is to avoid a repetition of the excessive and wasteful expansion of spending that characterized previous oil-price booms. At the same time, the program accommodates an increase in spending to address years of neglect of the social and physical infrastructure.

The World Bank has several different projects in the works in Nigeria one is to better the water supply and sanitation in Nigeria it is called the Water Supply and Sanitation Program Pilot Project. They also have a project in the works for the combat of the lack of education in Nigeria, it is called the Primary Education 02 program. One of the most important programs by the World Bank in Nigeria is the National Agricultural Technology Support Project, which uses location specific farm technology to increase farm productivity and production.

I believe that one important policy to implicate which is being pursued is the introduction of technology for agriculture improvement. Like the videos that we watched where foreign students were taught in environments similar to their countries. This would benefit Nigeria greatly because they have a very good base for agriculture; they have very good land for grazing and growing crops and have showed in the past that they can be a major food producer. Not only would this benefit the government, but the small farmers who would be more self-sufficient and would have the money to circulate back into their own economy. The sanitation programs that are in place will be very helpful, because the quality of their water there is terrible and needs assistance. The living conditions there are very poor. There also need to be more clinics there and information given to the general public on the dangers of AIDS and how to prevent AIDS.