|
WHY NIGERIA’S ECONOMY
HAS BEEN AT A STANDSTIL SINCE 1999
By Jide Ayobolu <jideayobolu@yahoo.co.uk>
Sept 22, 2006
As Nigeria’s geo-political sections
jostle to produce the next president, the Work Bank has promised not
to support any candidate whose mission is to plunder the treasury
and impoverish the citizenry. And should such a person emerge as
president, the bank will not hesitate to review its relationship
with Nigeria as well as all its on-going projects financing in the
country put at $2billion. And, there are about 20 projects spread
across the federation covering infrastructural development,
education financing, healthcare support, poverty reduction based on
the economic reforms and good governance being supported by the bank
in Nigeria at the moment. According to the World Bank Country
Director for Nigeria, Dr Hafez Ghanem, he said, “you can see what is
happening to the economy in terms of growth, in terms of
macro-economic stability, and in terms of Nigeria’s ratings in the
world. I am sure that these good policies will be maintained and
continued. Good policies meaning fiscal responsibility, fighting
corruption, and ensuring transparency. The bank has been working
with the economic team in the past and will continue working with
the term”. The World Bank Chief further said that, “I have walked
around Nigeria overtime and I talked to people like yourself and
students, the feelings I have is that Nigerians are sick and tired
of corruption and so they want to fight corruption. Nigerians want
to have better education for their children, better health care,
improved power supply, clean and drinkable water and better
infrastructure. On the economy front, on one hand, the government
has to fight corruption and be responsible in the way it uses public
money, and on the other hand, it has to ensure improved social
service delivery for the population and improve infrastructure. This
is the message I get as what Nigerians want. By the way, this
actually is what is needed to get the Nigerian economy moving. But,
there is need for good governance, better infrastructure and better
public service delivery”. He continued, “For power and other
infrastructure, about $1 billion has been invested. The sum of $300
million has gone into power and the balance is mainly for clean and
drinkable water and transport. Water supply is one of the millennium
development goals. It is really important for fighting poverty and
ensuring that children do not get diseases etc. This is our mission,
fighting poverty. We are financing as much clean water as we can and
also transport. The sum of $120million is going to transport”.
The World Bank does not have any
business telling Nigerians what kind of leader it should elect come
2007, this because Nigeria is an independent sovereign state that is
governed by the constitution and the rule of law, secondly, the
economic interest of the world bank is not in tandem with the
national interest of the Nigerian state. The world bank and other
multilateral institutions were set up after the second war world to
prevent European countries that participated in the war, and
suffered far-reaching destructions as well as losses from the ruins
of war, in deed the world bank was set up to save capitalism from
imminent collapse, it stands to reason that its presence in Nigeria
is to make her economy perpetually subservient to the international
finance capital, and there is no way of implementing the world
programmes in any country that they will not bring suffering and
untold hardship, as the policies of the world bank encourages,
drastic reduction in public expenditure as it affects social and
welfare services, it enhances massive retrenchments, it deepens
poverty and socio-economic underdevelopment, it causes social
disaffection, rural suffering and urban dislocation, it wipes out
the middle class, it engenders the unbridled devaluation of the
naira and mindless deregulation of the economy, it imposes
misanthropic policies on any social formation, it promotes the
importation of foreign goods, thereby enhancing the value of foreign
currencies, and equally reduces the internal capacity of local
industries to produce at optimal capacity. And, there no way this
will happen in any milieu that any kind of development can take.
This is the point Professor Sam Aluko
made when he said, “During my own time for example, we fought the
central bank and the ministry of finance to a stand still because we
felt that those two institutions were inhibiting the development of
the economy. They are more pro World Bank, IMF than even the country
and we said no. There is no country where IMF, World Bank dig their
feet that ever made it. They are now entrenched. Not only are they
now pro IMF, IMF presently runs both the central Bank and the
ministry of finance, That is why you find all these consolidations”.
He went on to say that, “How does a poor country say that the
minimum you have to establish a bank is N25 billion, the minimum you
can have in insurance is N15billion. It does not make sense. We are
a poor country and we say we want to develop small, medium and large
scale industry. There ought to be small, medium and large scale
banks All should not be mega bank. There ought to be small, medium
and large scale insurance companies. If a bank wants to develop only
Ondo State or a local government, it has a right to do that. Why
must it have $25billion? But these are things imposed by the
developed countries. When you are talking of consolidation, merger,
but since 1999, they have stopped that merger because they know it
is a forced marriage”. Therefore any reform programme which is not
predicated on the needs and the aspirations of the people will just
amount to a waste of time as it will not be able to stand the true
test of time. The so-called reforms have not had any positive and
appreciable impact on Nigeria’s political economy, instead it has
gradually, but steadily promoted the systematic development of
underdevelopment, since 1999 poverty and unemployment has multiplied
by 100 per cent and government has not been able to effectively
tackle the nagging problems. Similarly, many small, medium and large
businesses have closed shop because of the high cost of doing
business in Nigeria, the businesses always have to sink there own
boreholes to have water supply, as well as buy there own generators
and transforms to get power supply, this apart from the huge amount
expended on diesel, every now and then. Hence, the cost of
production is not only high; the products for several reasons cannot
compete favourably at the international market.
Also, in spite of the media hype about
the fight against corruption, corruption still writs large in very
high places in government, and there are a number of graft cases
that have been swept under the carpet, for instance, the purchase of
a tokunbo presidential plane which was presented as new, the illegal
Israeli arms deal that was inflated with about $100million, the
illegitimate one-per cent commission that was paid during the debt
forgiveness saga, the NNPC has not been able to account for
N310billion that should go into the federation, the NNPC and the
presidency are operating three illegal accounts against the dictates
of the constitution with impunity and bravado, the lack of
transparency in the establishment of Transcorp, and the purchase of
public utility, especially NITEL and the list is long and seemingly
endless, so what is the world bank chief talking about, it is either
he does not know what he Is talking about at all since he is not in
close touch with the mass of the Nigerian people and the reality of
the Nigerian situation, or he is just being economical with the
truth, in any case, it is Nigerians that truly know what they are
passing through because they directly feel the impact of government
misanthropic economic policies. For example, the increment in the
prices of petroleum products, that has been done 11 times since
1999. The reforms have made Nigeria worse economically and there is
no silver lining in the horizon. And, by the way, the so-called
reforms are policies as dictated by the World Bank, IMF and other
such organizations, and there is no way of carrying out these
programmmes any where in the world that, there it will not bring
about general disaffection and pervasive discontent, which is
exactly what is happening in the country presently. What needs to be
done therefore, is to put in place a home grown economic programme
that will focus on the needs and aspirations of the people and the
manifold domestic problems of the country, however, the attempt
must be genuine and pragmatic, instead of un-necessary pandering to
the desires of external influence all the time. Therefore, Nigeria
has the capacity to confront its numerous challenges and take charge
of its future.
By Jide Ayobolu,
No 19 Gongola Street,
Garki 2, Abuja,
Nigeria.
|
