How Indonesia overtook Nigeria

Peter Cunliffe-Jones writing in the BBC:

...Both Indonesia and Nigeria, my guidebook told me, are the giants of their region, home to tens of millions of people. Both were formed as one nation by Europeans around 1900. Both were governed by the colonial system of "indirect rule". Both once made money from palm oil, and later discovered oil and gas.At independence, the standards of living in the two countries were comparable on most measures. And since independence, both have suffered three decades of military misrule and corruption.Their first coups were launched within months of each other - in September 1965 in Indonesia and in January 1966 in Nigeria - and their military regimes died within 12 months, in May 1998 and 1999.
It was not only my friend who made the comparisons. But, talking to the editor of an Indonesian magazine the day after I arrived, I was struck by a statistic he mentioned in passing. In Indonesia, he said, the life expectancy of a child at birth had risen from 45 to 70 years since independence.In 1960, Nigeria produced almost half the world's palm oil, now it covers just 7%In Nigeria, life expectancy remains stuck just above 45; today it is around 47.

...in the final analysis, the difference in models of corruption and commercial contracts boils down to a stronger civil society in the archipelago state. In which case, the lesson Nigeria can learn from Indonesia is the importance of building up a healthy civil society, which includes non-governmental organisations, the media and religious organisations. The work is still all ahead..