Olisa Agbakoba. Human rights activist and former President of Nigerian Bar Association. Remember that the evil genius called IBB wondered why this country is still standing? You know why? Because, the government does nothing for you. So, if the government does nothing for you, what do you do? We have been surviving on our own. We say we are 180 million. 179.9 million people have nothing to do with government. So, if actually we are to disappear in a tsunami, it will not be noticed. So, we are expanding in the informal sector. You know how many people who don’t have bank accounts?. The Central Bank has tried to push a policy of financial inclusion by bringing people into the informal sector. This is what the great development specialist, Hernando De Soto called the dispossessed informal sector driving the economy. The Nigerian economy is driven by an informal poor sector, that when you aggregate their resources, they are very rich. And that is why Samsung, L.G, China Electric, Unilever are here. Not because, they see any structure, but because we can consume. Everybody in my house – drivers, cooks etc they all have phones, and they are somehow able to afford it. There’s market. In this massive confusion called Apapa, there’s L.G, Samsung, Shoprite. The miasma of confusion we find does not mean that you are not shopping. So, we survive not based on any effective government policy, but because we are on our own. In my house, I am my own government. I have security guard, I have to provide my own water, although in fairness to Governor Fashola, they have now connected us to the mains. But generally, in a compound, you do everything for yourself. So you don’t need any government. So, that’s how we survive.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 05:53:42 +0000
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