Following
the United Nations millennium declaration adopted at the millennium summit held
between 6 - 8th September 2000 in New York. Nigeria has been committed to the
realization of the millennium development goals MDGS) by 2015. The millennium
development goals summarized the development goal agreed on at international
conference and world summits during the 1990s, which includes eight goals,
eighteen (18) targets and over forty (40) indicators.
Millennium
development goals have of today, taken a centre stage in most governmental
activities in the countries at federal; state and local government level. It
has been argued that Nigeria being the most populous country in African; with a
vast array of natural and human resources has the potential which is enough for
it to compete favourably with other countries of the G.7 (ie United state,
Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Germany and United Kingdom). This view has been
supported by the report of Soludo (2007), Sachs (2007) NEEDS (2004) and host of
other studies on this content.
In a study, NEEDS (2004) noted that, Nigeria has
the potential to become Africa’s largest economy and a major player in the
global economy by virtue of its rich human and material resource endowment,
while Goldman Sachs (2007a) argued that in the whole African continent only two
countries have the potentials to be among the G-20 by 2020 and these counties
is Egypt and Nigeria. Yet, Nigeria is having the least performance in terms of
human and social indications. A report by Noko (2012) reveal that Nigeria
projected to be the most favourable country to attain the G-20 in 2015 has
remarkably not fared well in a good number of the MDGS goals such goals as;
eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, reduce child mortality, combating of
HIV/AID, malaria and other disease. Infact, statistics reveal that Egypt has
reduced poverty rate from 4.5% in 1991 to 2.6 in 2007 and underweight children
from 10.4% in 1990 to 7.5% in 2008 while Nigeria’s poverty rate increased from
49.2% in 1993 to 64.4% in 2004 underweight children reduced from 35.7% in 1990
to 28.7% in 2003 (United Nation, 2009).
These
report from Noko (2012) and United Nation (2009) shows that Nigeria, however
projected to have eminent potential of development are not faring well in
reducing poverty and child mortality in the country. Hence, instead of reducing
poverty rate in the country it is rather increasing at an increasing rate.
Thus, the slow pace at which Nigeria is moving towards
achieving millennium development goals MDGS) led to one doubting the potential
of these various studies earlier carried on the MDGS in Nigeria. Previous
empirical studies such as Goldman Sachs (2007a; 2007b), Soludo (2007),
NEEDS(2004) and host of others predicted more generally Nigeria’s economics
potentials, but fall short of human and social indicators, which is the bedrock
of financial and indeed economic development. Furthermore, studies which focus
on MDGS forecasting relied heavily on baseline or naive projection of mostly,
unweighted geometrical average such as Agenor. Etal(2005; 2006), White and
Blondal (2011). In all this studies only one method is used in their analysis
of MDGS creating vacuum in their methodology which require to be filled.
Agenor.
etal (2005; 2006) used baseline projections on the basis of unweighted
geometric average of forecasting Nigeria, in applying her macroeconomic
framework. Thus, a serious drawback of unweighted geometric average is that, it
fails to capture data trends which lead to very poor forecast. If our minds is
rekindled, the problem facing Nigeria and many African countries is strategic
development planning, making choice between alternatives development path,
confronted with competitive global economic.
Moreover,
human and capital resources have become the core on which to build strategies
for future economic growth. The basis of any strategic development plans rest
on social, health, environment, human and technological indicator which the new
development paradigm contain (MDGS).
However,
Ebonyi state Nigeria has ventured into millennium development goals, its
prospect for achieving millennium development goals has been questioned given
the state of underdevelopment of a good number of the rural areas. This
underdevelopment state is manifested in the presence of extreme poverty &
hunger in the state, increasing rate of child mortality and mal-nourished, high
rate of infant death, compounding nature of malaria and other diseases on the
various citizens of the state. All this mal-functioning, nature of millennium
development goals in Nigeria especially Ebonyi state, warrant this study, on
the empirical analysis of the prospect of Nigeria in becoming among the G-20 in
2015.