The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Most Rev. Daniel Chukwudumebi Okoh, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar III, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Chairman of Economic Growth and Development Center, Prof. Magnus Kpakol and other global leaders on Thursday the 12th of October 2023 in Abuja insisted that the development and unity of Nigeria is a priority.
Speaking at the 80th birthday lecture and book launch of His Majesty, King Edmund Daukoru, Mingi XII, Amanyanabo of Nembe Kingdom, Bayelsa State, Prof. Magnus Kpakol, a former Chief Economic Adviser to the President delivered a keynote address titled “The Imperative of Energy Security for Accelerated Rural Development: A Special Case of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria”.
Prof. Magnus Kpakol in his remarks said that there is no other thing that a nation or community possesses that is greater than its people, and that to have victory in the human development struggle, we must conquer ignorance and achieve much goodness by stretching the value of our education and experience through a healthy and long life and with the broadening of social skills and a widening of opportunities and choices for people. This means that to achieve human development and a high level of living we need human capital growth.
Prof. Kpakol indicated that although the Niger Delta is the economic backbone of Nigeria due to its vast reserves of oil and gas, the region is poor and in darkness like most other parts of the nation and Africa because of its grave deficiency in human capital. He said it has to be a national imperative to light up the Niger Delta if the nation is to be sustainably lit up. The economic development of especially the rural areas of the Niger Delta is foundational for any national economic development, he concluded.
“As we all see, rich countries are not rich just because of their mineral wealth. Always and everywhere rich countries are those that invest in their people to create much human capital. The stock of human capital, however, it is acquired represents the wealth of a nation. “You can have as many mineral resources as you want, if you don’t have the leadership, technical, and management skills to harness and deploy them, altogether, it isn’t nothing to you”, Prof. Magnus Kpakol
He pleaded with the traditional leaders to help make human capital development a convention and a norm in all our communities. He described “economic development as a process that involves the accumulation of human capital stock and therefore improvements in the stock or quality of factors of production”. By ensuring energy security in the Niger Delta, we can unlock the region’s economic potential and foster sustainable rural development, he remarked.
Concluding that there can be no sustainable energy security without economic development and poverty eradication, Prof. Kpakol called for the institutionalization of human capital development throughout the nation.