A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Kingsley Moghalu, has warned that African governments are not thinking strategically enough about extreme wealth inequality.
This is even as he noted that “just four African
billionaires own more wealth than 50% of Africa’s population.”
In a post on X, Moghalu said political leaders and citizens
are “busy celebrating the billionaires” instead of designing policy
environments that help ordinary Africans create sustainable livelihoods and
wealth.
He argued that while capitalism aligns with human nature and
has proved more successful than communism, efficient markets “can’t exist
without effective public and regulatory policy.”
According to him, “there’s nothing like a perfectly free
market,” adding that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” requires competent state
action to function well.
He cautioned that without such policy competence, African
countries risk entrenching “crony capitalist societies in which a few are
extremely wealthy while the vast majority are poor.”
Moghalu pointed to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan
as examples of economies where the state played a critical role in creating and
shaping markets to drive national prosperity.
He said Nigeria has the potential to become “the first
example of a truly successful African capitalist country,” if a competent state
creates opportunities and regulates markets properly. “The welfare and security
of citizens is the foundational duty of government,” he added.
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