Amb. (Dr.) Yemi Farounbi has linked Nigeria’s difficulty in properly managing its natural resources to the country’s political structure, particularly the centralisation that followed prolonged military rule.
Farounbi made the argument while responding to criticism that Nigeria’s older generation had failed to properly manage the country’s enormous natural resources in an interview with PrimeStar News Online.
According to him, Nigeria’s political structure was significantly altered by military intervention, which he said weakened the arrangement that existed at independence.
Farounbi said the military’s long period in power introduced a centralised structure that changed the way resources were managed and revenues were distributed.
He contrasted this with the earlier regional system, under which agricultural and mineral-producing areas retained a significant portion of the proceeds from their resources.
“Because of the circumstances of our political history since independence, particularly the incursion of the military, which lasted for 28 years, we found that the structure we all negotiated when we became independent … was destroyed by the military,” he said.
Farounbi argued that the earlier system encouraged regions to develop their productive resources because they had a greater stake in the revenue generated from them.
He cited cocoa, groundnuts, tin and coal as examples, arguing that producers under the earlier arrangement would retain a significant proportion of the proceeds.
He said the discovery of oil subsequently changed the country’s economic incentives.
According to Farounbi, easy oil revenue reduced the incentive to work and develop other productive sectors of the economy.
He also argued that Nigeria’s current structure makes it difficult for resource-producing communities to see sufficient direct benefits from the resources found in their areas.
Farounbi cited mineral resources including lithium, gemstones and gold, saying some deposits remain poorly developed or are illegally exploited.
He specifically mentioned lithium deposits in Nasarawa and Oyo National Park, gemstones in Oke-Ogun and gold in Osun and Zamfara.
He alleged that foreign interests were benefiting from illegal mining operations and claimed that bandits were sometimes used to drive communities away from resource-rich land.
Farounbi said the absence of sufficient local economic benefits from resource exploitation can weaken the incentive for communities to protect those resources.
He argued that greater resource ownership and revenue retention by producing areas could encourage communities to protect their resources and invest the proceeds in development.
“If Osun State knows that whatever gold it sells will generate money that will remain in the state for its development, people will protect their resources and resist external bandits,” he said.
Farounbi therefore linked resource management to the broader question of restructuring Nigeria’s political and economic system.
He said the country’s history and political structure had contributed to its current difficulties but maintained that Nigeria still possesses enormous potential.
He also rejected the idea that his generation had simply failed younger Nigerians, saying many members of his generation worked hard to achieve their positions.
However, he acknowledged that the country had, in his view, abandoned some of the work ethic associated with earlier generations in favour of dependence on oil wealth.
Farounbi said Nigeria was beginning to recognise the importance of multiple sources of income and self-reliance.
His central argument is that Nigeria’s natural resources can contribute more substantially to national development if the country’s political and revenue-allocation structures give resource-producing communities a stronger stake in their management
