The Nigeria economy from a lay man’s point of view can be appropriately described as a single primary commodity (crude oil) export economy. With this development, the economy shows consistent stunted development due to excessive capital flight resulting’ from demand-pull on foreign exchange for importation which translates to systematic devaluation of the local currency and run down of home industries. Besides, the economy had been characterized by unstable macro-economic environment. From the agriculture economy of the 60’s to the oil boom of 70’s and its collapse in the 80’s, policy formulation and unfaithful implementation of budgets and programmes such as austerity measure, Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) Vision 2010, Poverty Alleviation and National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). In all of these economic blue prints of successive governments, only the Vision 2010 document had an infusion of all stakeholders in the economy from the bottom to the top. But most unfortunately, the Vision 2010 programme never saw the light of the day after the demise of its initiator.
However, with the implementation of the poverty alleviation policy in the first term of this government, Nigerians expressed outmost disgust with the way and manner N10 billion per annum was recklessly pumped into the care of Chief Tony Anenih (former minister of works) without any articulated coherent programme. And hence, the targeted beneficiaries who are the army of employed youths were schemed out, while those who defalcated were rewarded with bigger political appointments for sabotaging the projects.
In a new twist of the continuity of Mr. President in office agents of the World Bank were wooed to constitute the economic team. This scenario cannot be divorced from the fact that Mr. President tooth, nail and claw wanted to gain political redemption after bagging for the country, a denigrating and embarrassing silver medal for corruption awarded by Transparency International. And also to further front the economic team to convince government of respective countries where looted funds have been traced to repatriate such monies into the country. But with glaring abysmal corruption and money laundry which had cast a shadow on the credibility and image of this government, more cumbersome judicial process have attached as the only determinant to authorize such repatriation.
The second coming of Mr. President gave birth to the NEEDS document which is a brain child of the immediate past Chief Economic Adviser to Mr. President (Prof. Charles Soludo). Obviously, the NEEDS document is an amalgam of economic blue prints dubbed from two tiny countries known as Namibia and Malaysia and imposed on Nigerians. In view of the exclusionist, undemocratised and imperialistic nature of the NEEDS document, Nigerians evidently developed high level of cynicism and prosaic posture towards the policy due to experience of past gross failures. What is important to the common man is how well does this policy translates into food on his table? To have answers to this heavily loaded question, it is paramount to dissect some of the NEEDS. Economic reform prog-rammes and implementation. First, without any atom of controversy, it is crystal clear that the NEEDS policy on strategic inflation reduction has been a colossal failure as published data from the Federal Office of Statistics have shown steady rise in inflation rate as determined by the consumer price index. This trend shall continue for so long as the government persistently review upwards the prices of petroleum products and vice versa. Secondly, Nigeria remains the only economy in the world with self deception of claim to practicing deregulation (free competitive market) which countries like USA and Japan are role models with their robust policy of high indigenous content, subsidy on massive local production of goods for exports, total protection of home industries against undue foreign competition and ensuring maximum satisfaction of the! common people. And this sound development management strategy has been improved upon by the Asian Tigers through the provision of low cost production technology as in China, Korea, India etc. Thirdly, privatisation had been a major condition for IMF loan recipient countries beside currency devaluation and SAP. In as much as the government has obligatory social responsibility to its people as enshrined in chapter II of the constitution under fundamental objectives of state policy, it accentuates and epitomizes unconstitutionality and promotion of capitalist colonization of the economy to completely dispose off public enterprises under the guise of ensuring efficiency reduction would remain elusive in situation where the real sector such as manufacturing shutdown operations due to economically unsustainable cost of production and fear of eventual loss on investments. The textile industry is a good example where hundreds of thousand of workers have been rendered jobless. Also the creation of seven million jobs as contained in the NEEDS document is a fallacy of the 21st century, It is a well-known fact that the first infrastructure needed to develop any’ economy is low cost sufficient energy, Without that, production of goods and services cannot take place efficiently and jobs cannot be created. It is sad that government has been lackadaisical in developing alternative energy source from abundant Gas and Coal despite the inability of the hydroelectric source (NEPA) to meet the energy requirements of the nation after gulping about $2 billion. In the same vein, the government has been window dressing the provision of cheap and efficient transport system through construction of standard gauge rail lines linking various parts of the country. The success story of small and medium scale enterprises in Asia as a major employer of labour and engine of economic growth is as a result of government unshakable commitment to the provision of these basic infrastructures among other things.
More frankly, this government has been unnece-ssarily staging shows and playing to the gallery about the cassava project and the development of the tourism industry as an alternative foreign exchange earner without putting on ground the indfrastructure and machinery to actualize this vision. The Egypt pyramids and the tourist heaven of South Africa and Kenya were not built by drumming and blowing trumpets. Throwing sentiment aside, the high level of pessimism about the NEEDS success is not peculiar to the common man alone. Even the director general of Debt Management Office (DMO) Dr. Mansur Muktar on NTA. Programme One-on-One had declined the affirmative response of yes there is light at the end of the tunnel because of the existing dilapidated infrastructures. To crown it all, the human development index as reported by UN agencies like UNDP, UNIDO etc. and the decry by the Speaker of the House of Representative Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari in Katsina have all affirmed to the visible realities that poverty level has grown from alarm to disaster with 80% of Nigerians now living below the UN poverty bench mark of one dollar per day in spite of the nation’s huge revenue earnings in recent times. This degree of decadence, despair and degeneration according to Christian faithful is in fulfillment of the Bible prophecy in the book of Eccl 4:14 which says “from prison he shall rule and those in his kingdom shall suffer”. It would be recalled that this government inherited an exchange rate of N84 to 1$ but today, it is a calamitous and staggering N140 to the dollar. How well, can the PDP led government reverse this miserably dismal situation before 2007? Let’s watch and see the miracle.
Abubakar is a political
economy researcher in Abuja.
