By Emmanuel Elebeke

Renowned professor in humanities and Director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies in the humanities, Binghamton University, USA, Professor Ali Mazrui, has blamed the delay in the Nigerian democratization process on the pre-democratic petro-wealth of the nation.

Mazrui was speaking at the second ARC Goddy Jidenma public lecture held, yesterday, at Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos.

He said that the pre-democratic petro-wealth of Nigeria which preceded stable democratization had created impediments to the nation’s democratic progress because of poor management of the proceeds by the successive leaderships.

To him, the pain of Biafra was more fruitful than the accumulated wealth of the nation as an OPEC member, even as he described as unfortunate the failure of Nigeria wealth to result to wealth of the people.

According to him, this was evidenced in the technological ingenuity displayed by the Biafran people, whose inventions, he said, were unprecedented in the post-colonial Africa.

He wondered how Nigeria that became independent within three huge provinces of a federation had remained unstable and underdeveloped, even with enormous oil wealth the country is endowed with.

Mazrui, who is also Albert Luthuli professor-at-large at the University of Jos, argued that oil wealth would have helped stabilize Nigerian democracy, if the natural resources are properly utilized, saying that what Nigerian experienced had shown that a new wealth could delay the democratizing process of a nation if the mineral wealth comes before democratization.