World Bank Adviser Tells Buhari To Steal If He Must To Develop Nigeria

Ajakaiye, who doubles as president of the Nigeria Economic Society, made the pronouncement during his keynote address at the 2017 edition of The Bullion Lecture in Lagos, Nigeria.

The consultant said that the President Buhari-led administration must go all the way to develop the country as “many first world nations have stolen their way to development.

“Let us therefore not be under any illusion and say the market will do it. They have to make sure they provide the market, whatever it takes, including stealing from other countries.

“The developed systems that we have now were as a result of resources taken from here, and they are ahead. Their government didn’t say we would be nice guys, we would not go and steal.

“They carried our people, young people, valuable people, and they now established the first world,” Ajakaiye said.

Speaking on the country’s perceived growth between 2010 and 2014, Ajakaiye said: “When the economy was growing in a fictitious way — I regarded the growth of 2010 to 2014 as fictitious. Why is it fictitious, it is growth that is driven by government just deploying oil revenue into the economy.

“The structure remained dis-articulated and we are actually deceiving ourselves in a very interesting way by saying the economy leaped-frog, we have now got to a stage where we are arrived, because in advanced countries, service sector is now dominant.

“They call it tertiarisation of the economy. Our economy was prematurely tertiarised, and this was the harbinger of poverty.

“I always tell people, when you go to Europe where their economy is already tertiarised, do you see anybody running after you in traffic to sell you recharge card? Do you see anybody hanging pure water in front of you? Do you see people running 140? That is our tertiarised service sector,” he said.