NATIONAL ECONOMICS 101! They want to create employment; they say. They want to create the enabling environment for businesses to thrive, and with it, presage unprecedented economic growth. They have made endless foreign trips, and signed untold number of bilateral and multilateral treaties in a bid to kick-start the Nigerian economy and put it on the path of growth. They have pursued the production of cassava bread as though it was the elixir of life that holds the key to Nigeria’s transformation. They courted and got Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy – the de facto Prime Minister – from the IMF/World Bank family. They brought in Olusegun Aganga from Goldman-Sachs, a company facing some leadership challenge at the time, still in the pursuit of economic Eldorado for Nigeria. They floated a “YouWin” programme to foster a supposed entrepreneurial ingenuity among the rising army of the young and unemployed. They didn’t stop at that. They have created the “YouWin 2” to cater specifically for the womenfolk. The foregoing is amidst several other government initiatives geared; it is said, towards fixing the economy. In all of these, so much money has been spent. So little is available, to show for it. The problem of a mono-product economy, still stares us in the face. We are still a wholly consumerist economy; the unprecedented import/tariff waivers and sundry concessions granted to a select number of corporations, run by the “friends of government”, notwithstanding. Power is still epileptic. Unemployment is rife. Capital flight by multinational corporations, who are the present drivers of international capitalism, is the order of the day, and there is no sign of its abatement. There is so much action around; but very little concomitant progress on the ground, if any. Like is said of a busybody football team: ninety minutes of action, no results. There is motion all over the land, but no progress. Ask for verifiable indices of economic growth and development, and they are quick to churn out figures that bare no direct reflection of the actual situation on the ground. But why does our economic quagmire appear intractable? Why does it appear that growing the economy is rocket science? Even rocket science is no longer in the realm of scientific esoterica, for anyone or government that has the will to pursue it, is sure to meet with success. Why is it that with the number of elite economists from Harvard and other Ivy League institutions in the government’s economic team, we are still where we are? Why is it that our subscription to the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank is yet to bring that elusive development? Why is it that having a Coordinating Minister of the Economy with an unparalleled resume, has not proven to be enough to propel us out of the woods? The answers to these questions are very simple. No foreign government, institution, or technical partner, would go out of its way to pursue Nigeria’s economic growth. They cannot be more patriotic than a Nigerian people who are fired up with patriotism to see their nation survive. As far as the foreign interests are concerned, Nigeria is only relevant to the extent that it features in the realization of their own exclusive interests. Like it was at the time of the Slave Trade; so it is today. We are a means to an end. We only matter as long as we serve their interests. So, National Economics 101 would teach the discerning government not to go to Sokoto to search for what is readily in her sokoto. We must look inward, if progress must be made. In the Good Book, the sluggard is asked to observe the ways of the ant, and learn from it; as even without the complications of the drama of power and inflated egos, the ant does not go hungry. In the same fashion, I ask the Nigerian government to observe the ways of the Chinese, and as they say in military drills, take dressing from them. They have shown that you can look inwards and make the most of what you have; and better still, engage with the outside world in your own terms. Didn’t they only open up their economy to the World Trade Organization, when they had built sufficient capacity to compete in the zero-sum atmosphere of international trade? Did they just open their books to be subjected to the whims and caprices of the IMF/World Bank? Apart from the Chinese, the Nigerian Government would do well to also study the actions of the United States Government when the developed world was faced with the so-called global financial crises, that saw businesses, manufacturing and financial, crumble under the weight of corporate greed and poor regulation by the institutions of government; which, despite being the self acclaimed haven of capitalism, churned out an array of socialist policies to keep its economy afloat. They didn’t need the World Bank and the IMF to dictate a path for them. In the past few years, the Federal Reserve of the United States, the equivalent of our own five-thousand-naira-note-introducing Central Bank, has undertaken quantitative easing to hitherto, unimagined proportions. Literally, as would be said of a judge in the legal parlance to have descended into the arena, what the Feds did was to deliberately play God, in printing hundreds of millions of dollars, and infusing same into strategic employment-inducing areas of the American economy. In other to bring some specificity to this gospel, I ask the government and its agents, or is it handlers, to, as they say in mathematics, show working. They can start by leveraging on our population and our debilitating craze for all things foreign, and our untold consumerist tendencies. For illustration: let’s beam our spotlight on Toyota, the largest automaker in the world. We are not unaware that Nigeria is one of the largest consumers of Toyota vehicles, yet we have no qualms about the company citing a factory in South Africa, from where vehicles are shipped to our shores. What would it take for our government to constructively engage the Japanese Government and Toyota, through guided persuasion, to set up a proper factory in Nigeria? Can we begin to imagine the multiplier effect this could have in the economy? What about the possibility of technology transfer and its implications for national growth? But no! Some people in the corridors of power would rather have Toyota make some customized vehicles and ship to them as corporate gifts. Herein is a fitting example of placing individual, greedy and misguided interests over and above the national interests. Further, is there anything stopping the government from, either by itself with Nigerian resource persons or in conjunction with foreign technical partners, setting up world-class industries and mechanized farms across the geopolitical zones, taking into cognizance the peculiarity of the environment and comparative advantage, targeted to meeting specific national needs? Some would say government has no business being in business; but that is utter gibberish and meaningless claptrap spewn by the capitalist world in order to hold the beggarly third world in perpetual subjugation. Government has every reason to be in business, where and when national interest is concerned; even if only to get the industries running and subsequently privatizing and commercializing them. Is it not said that, desperate times, required desperate measures? Didn’t President Jonathan get to office by the instrumentality of the doctrine of necessity, invoked by the National Assembly? Who says we haven’t a plethora of reasons for invoking that same doctrine of necessity in our bid to develop our economy? For those who genuinely have reservations about government descending into the arena, on the premise that the government has a bad record in managing business; we must note that these businesses are deliberately run aground and made non-profitable by the government, only for them to be sold to those in government through proxy companies. Also, note that the example of the Chinese and the United States remain relevant. We must make an informed choice between getting constructively engaged in business as a government, and selling public institutions to private enterprise which is solely driven by profits, or private concerns which controlling shares are held by foreign interests who would do everything in their power to keep Nigeria perpetually underdeveloped. Is it any wonder that our steel factories in Ajaokuta and Alaja, are still comatose several years after they were gifted to foreign concerns? It should be trite knowledge that if our economy gets out of the woods; if we stop being heavily dependent on imports; that the economies from which we hitherto got our needs, would be negatively affected. The people in Aso Rock must know this, and no amount of textbook liberal and globalization economic jargon, would change it. There are reasons to call the patriotism of those who lead us, and who have led us, to question. For, how can they lead us to boxing bouts with intimidating opponents who have all the training and apparatchik to have an edge over others, without boxing gloves, teeth guard, and even the boxer’s briefs? You would find that, ab initio, we were already shortchanged by default and a subject of ridicule in the boxing ring, for whilst our opponents concentrate on pummeling us with Tyson-like punches, we would be struggling to cover our nudity. If we must rise above the morass of economic dependency and a perpetual and needless search for foreign direct investments, FDIs; we must get government to be peopled by only those whose patriotism is not in doubt. We must not just mouth our anti-corruption disposition, but must actually be intolerant to corruption in public office. You cannot be patriotic and yet preside over an empire of corruption, patronage, and criminal impunity. I had previously held that corruption was the single most important factor militating against our progress as a people. While not jettisoning that position, it suffices to add that, corruption is fueled by a manifest lack of an understanding of what patriotism entails. Clearly, the quality of the resume of the President and those in his economic team, rightly or wrongly acquired, is not what leads to national economic growth and development. What has been missing in our national life is the right dose of patriotism. Not that semblance of patriotism that seeks the approbation of those who pilot the ship of other nations; but that which is anchored and rooted in an unshakable desire to better the lot of Nigeria, for the sake of Nigerians, no matter whose ox is gored.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 11:56:01 +0000