POLITICAL ELITES AND DEVELOPMENT CRISES IN NIGERIA

POLITICAL ELITES AND DEVELOPMENT CRISES IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Presently, the crisis of development is the most serious problem facing Nigeria and Africa as a whole. This is because the country has remained largely underdeveloped despite the presence of huge mineral and human resources. Several decades after the end of colonialism, most parts of Africa with Nigeria inclusive is still fighting with problems such as high poverty rate, lack of basic infrastructural facilities in all sectors of the economy, unemployment, high mortality rate, political instability and insecurity of lives and property. For example, Nigeria the most populous African country, according to the United Nations human development report (2005), out of 177 countries, ranked 158 in human development index,165 in life expectancy at birth,121 in combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment and 155 in GDP per capital. Recently, Suberu (2007) also had said of Nigeria that “it earned around US$500 billion in oil revenues since the 1970s, yet remains mired in poverty, unemployment, a bourgeoning domestic debt, infrastructural squalor, abysmal health and educational services, and attendant social frustration and unrest’’.

Against the background of Nigeria’s development crisis, emanated the debate on how to solve the crisis of development in Nigeria. The political elites constitute the majority of the stakeholders that can facilitate state development leading to resolution of any crisis of development. According to Wikipedia (2015), the political elite is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power. In general, political elite means the more powerful group of people. It can be otherwise described as a selected part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities or has more privilege than the rest. 

POLITICAL ELITES AND DEVELOPMENT CRISES IN NIGERIA