With the zeal demonstrated by the Obasanjo administration to the implementation of its reform policies, and the fast pace at which it is proceeding, questions are being asked whether focusing on economic reforms alone would provide answers to the many issues confronting the Nigerian polity. Especially, when it seems the government has shown very little enthusiasm to pursue political reforms, which observers see as the platform that would sustain the reform initiatives on the economic front. As it stands, President Obasanjo seems to think what he is putting in place would lead the country out of the woods, but this report takes a different perspective.
It looks at government reforms since 1999, and argues that rather than Obasanjo reforming Nigeria, it is indeed the Nigerian people that would have to decide how they should and would be reformed, and when that is done, then it would be easy for government policies to have meaningful impact. This review also discusses how the Nigerian people can become unified in pursuing a common goal of national development and cohesion.
Since President Obasanjo’s reelection in 2003, in an election which was the subject of high-wire disputation, the administration’s image has been built on the mantra of reforms and more reforms. The word reform has been used to describe every conceivable policy initiative of the government, whether it is merely routine government action, or in some cases innovative policy thrust.
As a propaganda tool, it has helped the government explain away various decisions it has taken since 2003, whether benign or draconian. As a word, reform has a positive connotation. The new Webster's dictionary definition of reform is: “ To improve by removing faults and weaknesses or by strengthening good qualities.” By donning the garb of a reformist government, the Obasanjo administration could claim it is removing faults and strengthening good qualities.
By this posture the administration could easily escape the charge in some quarters that it is an incompetent government.
In the first term the word reform was hardly used and it was easy for critics to say Obasanjo’s administration was a do-nothing government. Today, even if the style and substance of the administration have not changed, it can claim every decision made, and thereafter, any success, as part of the reform agenda’s result.
Failure is described as a shortcoming of the reform agenda, and a plea for patience is usually asked from the Nigerian people. In 1999, when Obasanjo came into office he promised to make Nigeria work, by first fighting corruption and instituting transparency in government activities. His associates campaigned for him on the platform of the ‘leader we can trust’. Obasanjo had won himself international applause when as a former military ruler, in 1979, he handed over power to a civilian government, a rarity on the African continent, where leaders would rather sit tight than leave. He went on after leaving office to consolidate his reputation by cultivating leading international statesmen, becoming one himself by his global engagements.
Obasanjo on returning to office as a civilian leader exuded confidence if not a can-do posture. By his actions and reflexes, he was in those early days a man in a hurry to correct what was wrong with Nigeria. He tackled the military, which he rightly believed should be brought under civilian control.
He purged the army of political generals and used Americans as consultants to help reorganise the army. The coming in of the Americans was a rather sensitive affair, almost a classified government initiative. Not many people knew what they were here to do other than that they were brought in to reorganise the army. Whether the idea has succeeded is a matter of conjecture. However, there are obvious dangers in asking the Americans to come in and reorganise the military. One particular problem is that it places the security of any government at the mercy of American interest.
Nevertheless, unlike in the past, the military has so far stayed away from staging a return to power. Perhaps, because the reorganisation of the army has succeeded in weeding out elements who are considered as anti-government. Or it could be because the army unsure of its standing with the people on account of the way it left power with its reputation in tatters could not possibly venture back so soon to take over political power.
Obasanjo’s gaze was not focused on the army alone. He setup all kinds of commissions and committees, suggesting that he was prepared to act with dispatch as soon as the reports of those commissions reached his desk There were, among others, the Christopher Kolade Commission, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Panel, Brigadier Oluwole Rotimi Commission that investigated the state of federal government properties. There is the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission ( ICPC) headed by Justice Mustapha Akanbi. There was the Allison Ayida Committee to review the civil service. Worried about the neglect of the Niger Delta region, which was the hot bed of revolt against military after long years of poverty and deprivation, Obasanjo promised succour and worked hard after long blood letting with the National Assembly to setup the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) with Chief Onyema Ugochukwu as chairman.
Disturbed by the level of poverty in the country especially amongst the school leavers and semi-skilled, the Federal Government set up the National Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) which was re-christened after much controversy over the failings of the programme to National Poverty Eradication Programme ( NAPEP) now managed by Dr Magnus Kpakol, former economic adviser to the president. These in the main were some of the major thrusts of the Obasanjo administration in his first term to help him correct past errors, reorganise the machinery of government towards better performance and deliver better service to the people.
Buoyed by initial popular support, the president gave assurances that his government within the first four years would deliver ‘democracy dividends. Just like the word reform is now the latest fad in government circles, the phrase ‘democracy dividend’ was the mantra of the administration in the first term.
Clearly, from the caliber of men appointed to head the various commissions, hope was rekindled that a re-branded Obasanjo, working with distinguished Nigerians, positive results might yet come out of the incipient democratic rule.
But even as he was making these pronouncements, there were early signs of some contradictions. The first was that Obasanjo came out with a jumbo size cabinet of 49, and countless personal aides. His explanation that it was a constitutional requirement impressed only a few. Within the first term, the Obasanjo administration initiated the building of an ultra modern Abuja stadium at an indeterminate cost; and further, other costs were to enburden the economy with the hosting of the All-African Games
(COJA), and the hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM), both within the first year of his second coming. These projects were considered white elephant and misdirected. Furthermore, the president was criticised for his international trips to woo foreign investment, which was seen as excessive and counter- productive. By the last count, he had made over 360 such trips with very little to show by way of foreign investments. A recent figure published by Nigerian Investment Promotion Council
(NIPC) shows that the President’s effort yielded 1.5 billion dollars in direct foreign investment inflow and 30,000 jobs. At some point in 2002, Obasanjo, embarrassed by poor inflow of foreign investors, grumbled that he had made so many trips abroad, but with only promises to show for his efforts. Perhaps, the only notable exception is the oil and gas sub-sector where significant foreign inflow came, but by the nature of this resource, investment in oil does not lead to mass employment, and it takes time even before the benefits trickle in. It is therefore no surprise that five years after, the level of frustration and poverty has deepened across the land.
Winning office again in 2003, Obasanjo knew he had to change the perception of his administration as nothing more than inept. If there was constant carping about the administration not having a clear agenda, the second term promised to be different, Obasanjo must have resolved - see box for more insight.
NEEDS and the triumph of Neo-liberals...
If the political firmament was constantly in turmoil, many of Obasanjo’s advisers thought the President could make a difference if he paid more attention to, and deployed more professionals to take charge of the economy.
However, if the thinking then was that the government did not do enough to have the right mix of skilled people to run things on the economic front, Obasanjo was to change that. He brought in new hands and retained some other old hands. On the whole, the following entered the administration: Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, (Minister of Finance), Prof Charles Soludo, (New CBN governor), Dr Bode Augusto, (Director of Budget), Mallam Nasir El Rufai, (elevated from BPE to Minister of FCT), Mrs Esther Usman, (Minister of State for Finance), Dr Oby Ezekwesili ( an old Obasanjo hand, remained as Senior Special Assistant; she is in charge of Due Diligence).
These people are essentially the economic team of the President, and for a while, his public standing rose based on his appointments, which people found more solace in than the first term team. The President also brought in the likes of Fola Adeola, former Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) to help him put together the pension reform scheme, which has now been signed into law after a protracted battle with labour. A look at Obasanjo’s team shows a preponderance of neo-liberal thinkers: a bunch of ideologues who believe in free market, privatisation, deregulation, stable exchange rate etc. It is with this group with such bent and clout that has helped turn the President into a free market guerrilla, in the imitable phrase of Francis Fukuyama, author of End of history and the last man. Since taking over power, the President has moved to implement some of the policies this group has put together.
It includes: deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry, placing of ban on certain category of imports (about 40 items are on this list), introduction of Dutch style exchange system, purge of the civil service, monetisation of official perks for civil servants, setting up of pension reforms, reform of the banking sector. The administration has in the pipeline, the following bills to help implement its economic agenda: Fiscal Responsibility bill, Competition and Antitrust bill, Energy/Electricity reform bill, Finance bill, Tax reform bill, local government reform bill and the public procurement bill.
In all, the Obasanjo administration seems determined to make a difference in the economic sphere. Taking it at its surface level, there is nothing wrong reforming a system, except that in this case, it does seem that the President is putting the cart before the horse.
To begin with, the President’s implementation of his policy ideas in his first term was hardly first rate. As of today, nothing has come out of Kolade’s report, Oputa panel’s report and Brigadier Rotimi’s panel; NDDC performance in the Niger-Delta has come with some mixed blessings. Some say it has been disappointing; but there are those who can also swear that with the coming of NDDC, their lives have been giving a new lease. NAPEP, even by some government officials’ account, has failed. At the moment, it seems Kpakol, D-G of NAPEP, is presiding over a carcass, as no one knows what that organisation is doing.
ICPC seems to be losing legitimacy. The lowest point of the anti-corruption war was when it discontinued the prosecution of Julius Makanjuola, former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence. Now maybe, except for Obasanjo, no one takes the rhetoric of anti-corruption serious.
The important question therefore to ask is, why all these failings despite the intentions behind them? The answer is pretty simple: The President has neglected the far more crucial item of political reforms through the vehicle of a national conference, or better still, a restructuring of the polity by whatever vehicle.
Except there is a consensus on a political system, whatever is done today would endure for a while and shortly afterwards, collapse. Whether it is NEEDS, due process, anti-corruption or whatever. One redeeming feature though, for the administration, is in the telecommunication sector, even though at present, some aspects in the implementation of that policy is raising serious concerns. For instance, the quality of services provided leaves a lot to be desired, as well as the level of capital flight this policy has triggered.
In other words, the President is wrong to believe that he can reform Nigeria. Yes, because his efforts will end in nullity if he persists with such thinking. Rather, it is the Nigerian people that have to reform themselves. Indeed, Obasanjo and his neo-liberal advisers should take a cue from the insight of Fukuyama, who noted: “ Liberal democracy may be functional for a society that has already achieved a high degree of social equality and consensus concerning certain basic values. But for societies that are polarised along the lines of social class, nationality, or religion, democracy can be a formula for stalemate and stagnation.
Democracy is not particularly good at resolving disputes between ethnic or national groups.” There are so many issues that are yet to be resolved, which is why advocates of national conference say the forum remains the best way to deal with these questions.
Questions of inequality, ethnic strife, crimes and criminalities, true federalism, et al.
Free market and National security...
Even in dealing with economic issues, there is yet no consensus about what to do. Part of the problem is that some of these issues were not debated before the general election in 2003. Therefore, Obasanjo in forging ahead in implementing his ideas, cannot possibly claim that he cleared them with the people before the election. It is thus not difficult to see too much trouble coming in the way of the deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry. Each time Labour had mobilised and called for a general strike, the Nigerian people obliged with total support. For a government with overwhelming mandate, this is a slap on the face; because election time is usually time to present policy ideas and obtain the endorsement of the people for your programmes; but because such programmes and policies are never really discussed, public protest is a sign of disapproval and indicative of the illegitimacy of government policy aims.
Furthermore, even though at the moment, the administration’s economic policy is under the spell of neo-liberal ideologues, it will be fallacious to claim that these ideas on developing Nigeria, represent the best possible part to economic success and prosperity. It does not matter if Fukuyama argues that “the Asians, repeating the experiences of Germany and Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have proven that economic liberalism allows late modernisers to catch up and overtake the early ones, and that this goal can be accomplished within the space of a generation or two. And while this was not exactly a cost- free process, the kinds of privations and hardship suffered by the working classes in countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong looked positively benign when compared to the whole social terror unleashed on the populations of the Soviet Union and China ” . However, there is a point of disagreement between Fukuyama and Prof Noam Chomsky, who offers a different perspective on how third world governments can develop.
He says in his book Understanding Power that “these Asian countries aren’t pretty; I can’t stand them myself - they’re extremely authoritarian, the role of women, you can’t even talk about, and so on. But they have been able to pursue economic development measures that are successful: the state coordinates industrial policy, capital export is strictly constrained, import levels are kept low. In South Korea, they have death penalty for capital export. But the point is, the Japanese and Asian style development model works - in fact, it’s how every country in the world that has developed has done it: by imposing high levels of protectionism, and extricating its economy from free market discipline. And that’s precisely what western powers have been preventing the rest of the third world from doing, right up to this moment. It’s been known since the great depression that anything like free-market capitalism is a total disaster: it can’t work. I mean capitalism is fine for the third world - we love them to be inefficient. There is not a single economy in history that developed without extensive state intervention like high protectionist tariffs and subsidies.”
The fallout from this debate is that there are two sides to a coin. But because of prevalent ignorance, the administration’s economic policy options did not have the benefit of rigorous debate, and as such, the Fukuyama school appears to have won the day with its attendant consequences. It is for the same reason that the decision to recruit American consultants to re-organise the Army might have left land mines for the future. Returning to Chomsky he says of this: "When you want to overthrow a government, you (train) arm its military. If you read American secret documents, this is all stated very openly, actually. For example, there is now declassified Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defence: Kenndy/Johnson) to McGeorge Bundy (Special Assistant to the President for National security affairs: Kenndy/Johnson) intercommunication from 1965 with a detailed discussion of Latin America, in which they talked about how the role of the military in Latin American societies is to overthrow civilian governments, if, in the judgement of the military, the governments are not pursuing the “welfare of the nation”, which turns out to be the welfare of American multinational corporations.”
Clearly, the very day Nigeria gets a government that is independent and that does not wish to continue on the path of dependency, the mines laid in the re-organisation of the army would explode.
In summary, the issues are very clear, no one person, and certainly not the president, has all the answers. What is worse, there is no consensus on what to do with Nigeria. It is perhaps for this reason that Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu’s intervention as guest lecturer at Prof Wole Soyinka’s 70th birthday recently, is instructive, he says: “It is obvious that all of Nigeria’s problems stem from our non-return to the right road. These problems have led to the erosion of patriotism, and includes corruption (whose greatest impetus are unitarism and resource accumulation at the center), the energy dissipation of Executive-Legislative contention, economic rigmarole, policy instability, real-terms retrogression, societal hopelessness, violence in varying degrees, crime multiplication, insecurity, general lawlessness, infrastructural degradation, etc.”
