Confronting the “12 giant evils” by Fola Adeola
Confronting the “12 giant evils”: A responsive national policy alternativef bY Fola Adeola, MCIArb, OFR, mni. Recent public policy debates have put forward the idea that Nigeria’s policy options center around an Economic Growth versus Human Development Index (HDI) dichotomy. I am concerned that this juxtaposition sets up the false premise that the choice can ever, in fact, be binary – that it is possible for a good leader, or even one that aspires to simply average results, to choose either economic growth (usually expressed as GDP growth) OR human development (as represented by HDI) as the basis for a national policy – either because one is sufficient, in itself, or because the other will naturally follow. Fola AdeolaFola Adeola Proponents of an “economic growth” policy thrust put forward the position that if we just focus on growing the economy, human development will naturally follow. They would have us believe that the cure for what ails Nigeria is a leader who wil...