Essay On National Development In Nigeria

Introduction

National development is a state of sustainable growth in socio-economic conditions of a country. It brings about increase in the standard of living of the people. However, Lawal and Oluwatoyin (2011) describe national development as “the ability of a nation to improve the lives of its citizens. This may be achieved through increase in gross domestic product, or socio-economic activities such as literacy rates and availability and access to healthcare services”. Development is the primary goal of every well meaning government, and it is essentially dependent on the level of economic activities in a country. The level of economic activities is in turn enhanced by peaceful coexistence by the people. But Nigeria in the last fifty-five (55) years has been battling with the problems of development in spite of the huge human, material and natural resources in her possession, as a result of conflicts in the country. Boroface (2008) claimed that “conflict generally occurs when two or more people, communities or nations oppose one another as a

According to Aririguzoh (2008) it was reported in the Punch Newspaper of October 17, 2007 that Nigeria lost an estimated $58.3 billion between 1998 and 2007. Insecurity has consumed a large portion of the country’s national resources. Aririguzoh (2008) revealed that “the government is spending a large amount of money maintaining peace-keeping forces; oil companies are spending money to hire security agents; and the armed forces are spending a lot to buy arms”. These resources that would have been used for national development are been spent to maintain peace, which supposed to be a gift from God as stated in the book of John 14:27 “peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be