Privatization, liberalization and national development are concepts that cannot be treated in isolation. Privatization and liberalization therefore are more or less development strategies imbibed by nation-states to enhance the growth, stability and progress of their home countries. As earlier mentioned in the preceeding chapters, to privatize means to reduce government involvement in the management of socio-economic affairs of a nation-state. By extension therefore, the implication of this is to free up resources for private ownership while government serve as regular or watch-dog. Liberalization therefore appears to have the same connotation with privatization as the former is aimed at opening barriers to foreign investors who may be willing to invest (Olewe, 1995).
From the foregoing, there appears to be a linkage between privatization, liberalization and national development because the effective administration of privatization could in some respect bring about change, progress, development and sustainability in the overall socio-economic spheres of lives. Privatization and liberalization and its policy directions therefore must be people-oriented, guided by sound moral judgement and ethical conduct, good political will, transparency and accountability, responsiveness, participation and democratization. All these variables have the capacity and potentials of kick-starting an oiling economy like those of Third World countries (Nigeria inclusive) (NEEDS Document, 2004).
By any standard, to privatize therefore means to try to avoid economic waste, corruption and mismanagement creation of job opportunities, encouraging foreign investors, among others (Okigbo, 1986). This researcher if of the humble opinion that the Nigerian privatization process may not yield the desired expected results in terms of national development. This is owing to the fact that the managers and actors of the state seem to lack focus and direction in the privatization policies in the country. The staggering revelations in the Obasanjo’s Fourth Republic where billions of tax payer’s money have been cornered to families and friends in political business; sumptuous contracts offered to bidders without proper inspection, among others as is being revealed in the current and on-going investigations by the National Assembly of Nigeria. All these are major set-back on Nigeria’s path to greatness. All these are artificial creations that may hinder the realization of Nigeria’s vision 2020 as being conceived by the Yar’ Adua’s administration.
Consequently, the concept of national development according to Arvinal and Everett (1989) is a widely participatory process of directed social change in any given society intended to bring about both social and material advancement including greater equality, freedom and other valued qualities for the majority of the people through active participation and greater controls over their environment in all its ramifications. With specific references to the emerging economies of Third World, Olewe (1995) has documented that development-centered programmes and policies designed in these economies are aimed at achieving higher incomes and living standards through industrialization and modernization, expansion of social services and cultural activities, full exploitation of human and material resources among others.
Like privatization and liberalization, national development plans are more or less aimed at achieving qualitative transformation from a particular level to a more desirable one. Thus the transformation should be rooted in such a manner that the expenditure on national resources should be able to improve upon the living standards of the citizenry (Waldo, 1984). As a encompassing project, national development plan represents a demonstrated commitment of the state leadership to deploy national resources, human and capital to secure a better living standard of the people. These is therefore the tendency to reduce national development plan to or equate same with economic development. The former however has a larger scope spanning all aspects of a country’s national lives be they political, cultural or economic.
Okigbo (1986) wrote that since Nigeria’s first National Development Plans of 1962, all other plans have largely remained the same including the latest NEEDS initiatives. However, the process of preparing national development plan entails the setting of goals and targets expected to be attained within a specific period of time. The process also involves the formulation of appropriate policies aimed at facilitating the accomplishment of stated goals and targets. To this researcher, one very crucial factor that must be taken into cognizance during any planning process of development plan in the objective assessment of resources to be expended on the plan. This is very important against the backdrop of the fact that insufficient resource base constitutes a major constraints to the overall realization and achievement of development goals or set targets. National Development in Nigeria should therefore be pursued with the desired vigour, coloration and determination as well as sound political will. This is certainly a way forward in Nigeria’s bid to become the world’s 20th most industrialized nation-state.