Unit 4: Country Analysis Presentation - Nigeria
Running Head: NIGERIA 1
NIGERIA 6
NIGERIA
Name
Institution
Country background
Nigeria has a geographic location of West Africa; it borders Cameroon, Niger, Benin, and Chad. It also connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea. It became an independent country on the 1st of October 1960. The country has significant cities such as Lagos, but its capital city is Abuja; in the effort of escaping crowded and chaotic Lagos city, the government planned and developed Abuja as its modern capital city. The political party which is in power currently is the APC (All Progressives Congress). Nigeria's political leader is Muhammadu Buhari. A recent study by the World Bank shows that Nigeria has a 206.1 million population as of 2020. The country’s GDP per capita is 2300 USD.
Business practices
English is the official language that is utilized in conducting business operations in Nigeria. However, in rural areas, where most people have low-level education, people usually communicate using local languages such as Igbo, Kanuri, Hausa, Ibibio, Yoruba, and Fulfulde. The literacy rate of individuals in this country has had an increase of 10.95% as compared to the last ten years. Around 62.02% of the adult population is literate in the country. Even though the locals communicate in their languages, English is the language that is used to carry out business operations (Ayodele.et.al, 2018). The country's laws allow people to work for eight hours a day which translates to an average of 40 hours per week. Naira is the currency of Nigeria that is used in exchange markets. The country observes a West Africa standard time. The workers are supposed to be given one hour of mealtime breaks throughout the day.
Economic situation
Nigeria's most valuable economic resources are crude oil, columbite, coal, natural gas, and tin. The country has a productive economy that yields a GDP of 423.3 billion USD in the last year. Individuals' living wage has been averaged as 43200 NGN in a month of the previous year. Nigeria acquires a lot of income from its exportation income. In 2019the country recorded a 63.8 billion dollars income from exports. Its primary source of income is the crude oil that it extracts. In addition the country imports products such as machinery,
Competitiveness
Nigeria is recorded to have a competitive average of 48.33 scores out of 100. The score is a lower one as compared to other countries in the world. Even though the government has invested a lot in developing the infrastructure, there is still room for improvement. Moreover, factors such as low innovative capability and dependence on importing most of its machinery have dragged down its competitive advantage (Fafunwa, 2018). Political instability and high cases of terrorism in the region are also a challenge in improving the country's innovative capability. Last year’s report on competitiveness of nations indicated that Nigeria holds number 116 among the 140 nations in the world in 2019.
Some of the factors that have contributed in the country’s poor performance in its competitiveness are narrow trading gaps in certain periods, shrinking activities in the country’s factories, high rates of joblessness among its population, high inflation as well as low GDP. Nigerian government has failed in offering job opportunities to the youths who are mostly affected by the current situation of being unemployed. Moreover, the companies in the country are reducing their operations since the trading markets have limited consumption. As a result, the industries fail to develop innovative strategies to stand a chance of competing in the global markets.
Healthcare
The healthcare sector of the country requires to be improved. Recent studies have shown that most patients pay medical costs from their pocket; about 77% of medical expenses are produced from the patient's pocket. Overcrowded hospitals have been encountered in some of the prominent facilities in the country. The hospitals have recorded cases of holding maximum patients and having hospital beds full with one patient per bed (Arowolo.et.al, 2018). Nigeria’s healthcare sector lacks strategies of integrating the required medical intelligence. As a result, the facilities fail to provide timely and sufficient medical care to the patients. In addition, there is insufficient surveillance intelligence which is useful in tracking, monitoring and controlling outbreak of diseases. The insufficient funds allocated in this industry make it difficult for healthcare organizations to improve the poor conditions of the facilities. Other factors that contribute to the poor healthcare system in the country are shortages of medical practitioners, offering low payments to the workers in the healthcare facilities, and utilization of poor techniques of recording and keeping patients’ data.
Recommendations
The assessment of the country indicates that there is enormous potential regarding natural resources and the business environment. The exportation of products such as oil has helped the country to add to its overall income. However, the government should invest most of the financial resources available in improving the country's infrastructure, healthcare services to ensure that the country can attract more investors into their companies. There is a need to strengthen its competitive advantage to operate well in the international trade markets.
References
Arowolo, A. O., Deng, X., Olatunji, O. A., & Obayelu, A. E. (2018). Assessing changes in the value of ecosystem services in response to land-use/land-cover dynamics in Nigeria. Science of the total Environment, 636, 597-609.
Ayodele, T. R., Ogunjuyigbe, A. S. O., Odigie, O., & Munda, J. L. (2018). A multi-criteria GIS based model for wind farm site selection using interval type-2 fuzzy analytic hierarchy process: The case study of Nigeria. Applied energy, 228, 1853-1869.
Fafunwa, A. B. (2018). History of education in Nigeria. Routledge.