Nigeria in MINT: Time for a new swagger?

the Super Eagles under Keshi have been doing so well (despite their drop in FIFA ranking) that many Nigerians believe that Nigeria winning the World Cup in Brazil this year is not just a pipe or malaria-induced dream.  There was equally the 2013 class of the Golden Eaglets under Manu Garba, (regarded by many Nigerians […]

the Super Eagles under Keshi have been doing so well (despite their drop in FIFA ranking) that many Nigerians believe that Nigeria winning the World Cup in Brazil this year is not just a pipe or malaria-induced dream.  There was equally the 2013 class of the Golden Eaglets under Manu Garba, (regarded by many Nigerians as the best ever in that category from Nigeria), which won the Under-17 World Cup Competition in the United Arab Emirates last year. The come-back victory against Morocco by the home-based Eagles at the ongoing African Nations Championships, CHAN, in South Africa, has been attributed to that resilience of the Nigerian spirit. The Team B Super Eagles were down 3-0 in the first half of the game only to come from behind to win 4-3.
On the economy, though most Nigerians do not seem to feel it, if the plethora of foreign endorsements is anything to go by, the economy is growing well, if not doing well. The most celebrated of these external endorsements in recent times is the inclusion of the country in the MINT emerging economies.
MINT is a neologism referring to the economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. The term was originally coined by the Boston-based asset management firm Fidelity and popularized by the British economist Jim O’Neil, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, who had in 2011, coined the acronym BRIC to refer to the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. BRIC was later turned to BRICS when South Africa was bracketed into the group.
What is instructive about the four countries listed in the MINT club is that they are all members of the Next Eleven (also known as the N-11). The N-11 are  eleven countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, and Vietnam – identified by Jim O’Neill in a research paper on December 12 2005 as having a high potential of becoming, along with the BRICs, the world’s largest economies in the 21st century. At the end of 2011, the top four countries in the N-11 – Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey (also known as MIKT) made up 73 percent of all Next Eleven GDP.  The combined GDP of the BRIC economies is $13.5 trillion compared to MIKT’s $3.9 trillion. MINT simply means that Nigeria has taken over South Korea’s spot in MIKT.
To add to the current wave of Naija-optimism, Filipino billionaire, Enrique Razon, was recently quoted by Daily Newswatch as declaring during the closing activities at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Nigeria is the best place to invest in 2014. Razon, who controls a $4.7 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has reportedly signed a deal to develop and operate a port in Lagos, Nigeria, by 2016, investing $225 million in the venture. He is walking the talk. In recent years, Nigeria has been the darling of frontier investors due to attractive yields and a steady currency.
What can we make of this unprecedented wave of Naija-optimism, especially the recent inclusion of the country in the MINT emerging economies? There are a number of observations:
One, the countries aggregated in the club share certain features in common. For instance all are populous countries, with a preponderance of young people. The average age of the population in Nigeria for instance is 18 and 27 in Mexico compared for instance to the United Kingdom where the average age is 40. Members of MINT are also strategically located: Indonesia is the heart of Southeast Asia, Mexico benefits from proximity to the USA, Turkey is located at the intersection between the Middle East and the West and has attributes from both divides while Nigeria is probably the most buoyant illustration of a rising African continent. Economically, three members of the MINT Club – Mexico, Indonesia and Nigeria – are commodity producers and only Turkey isn’t. This contrasts with the BRIC countries where two – Brazil and Russia – are commodity producers and the other two – China and India – aren’t.
Two, MINT countries are also very different in several respects:  In terms of wealth, Mexico and Turkey are at about the same level, earning annually about $10,000 (£6,100) per head. This compares with $3,500 (£2,100) per head in Indonesia and $1,500 (£900) per head in Nigeria. They also differ widely in the quality of education in their countries, the level of development in infrastructure and social services, the life expectancy and the ease of doing business in the countries – among others.
Three, MINT countries face varying political and economic challenges. For instance as woeful as the country’s economic condition may appear, Nigeria is the only MINT economy running a current account surplus — US$5,016 million in the second quarter of 2013. There are leadership and economic challenges in Indonesia and political issues in Turkey. In essence, we shall not just focus on the numerous challenges the country faces to doubt her potential to ‘make it’ or even the wisdom of including the country in such a club. Challenges and opportunities often sit side by side. In other words, we shall look beyond the debate of whether we deserve being in MINT to assessing the opportunities and threats that come with such inclusion.
I see a number of opportunities and challenges from such inclusion:
On the positive side, the MINT acronym might induce the members to develop their own economic-political club – just as the BRIC countries did. There will be obvious benefits from such networking, including the self-fulfilling prophecy bit of it. If the MINT countries start working collaboratively and conspiratorially as the next big economic powerhouses as they are tipped to be, they will be seen by the rest of the world as such. Perception could be everything.
Also the inclusion of Nigeria among the MINT economies could spur the country   to struggle to become a member of the G20 – as other MINT economies are already. In fact Nigeria’s inclusion in the MINT economies increases the chances that it will be accepted into the G20 because, as mentioned earlier, perception is everything.
The inclusion of the country in MINT may also affect the character of the country’s domestic politics. Largely because people instinctively want to identify with success, the inclusion may temper the pull of the centrifugal forces and pacify irredentist pressures as separatist tendencies may have to contend with the fear of leaving at a time the country is being tipped as among the likely future economic power houses of the world.   
The flipside to the above, however, is that the country’s inclusion in MINT could also intensify the crisis of relative deprivation in the country. In other words, it could deepen the current frustration among many people in the country. The thinking for some could be:  ‘if Nigeria is doing this well, and the benefits are not trickling down to me, then it is either the government or a few individuals or ethnic group are cornering the benefits at my expense’.  Simply put, Nigeria’s inclusion in MINT also embeds a probability of an intensification of the ‘scape-goating’ of others.   
The inclusion of the country in MINT could equally deepen the current anti-Nigerianism among many Africans. Already, our unilateral declaration of our country as the ‘Giant of Africa’ and reflecting same in the swagger in which we walk as well as the condescending manner in which we talk to other Africans, has not made us the darling of fellow Africans.  The fear is that the inclusion of Nigeria in MINT could increase the swagger in our walks even more and make some of us even louder and more condescending towards others than previously, fuelling in the process anti-Nigerian sentiments.  True, Nigerians’ self-confidence, which often wrongly manifests in superiority complex towards other Africans, has been identified as one of the reasons why they are among the most successful minority groups in such countries as USA and the UK.   However we cannot get very far if other Africans do not think much of us largely because of our arrogance and over-bearing attitude.
But just before we develop that extra swagger, it may be germane to give ourselves some doses of reality check:  With MINT, O’Neill, was merely painting an economic picture that will take shape over decades and generations. His observations should therefore be seen in that very long-term light and with a recognition that such analytical prognoses are usually predicated on a crucial caveat – ‘all things being equal’ (i.e. if the current trends continue unchanged). As we all know from experience, things are rarely equal.