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ad nauseam By Kevin Etta Jr.
Nigerians should do themselves a favor and strive at all times to be honest to each other and to their conscience. For a government that has made very great play of Nigeria’s near-irredeemable poverty in its campaigns for debt relief (a fact which finally secured for Nigeria $20bn worth of debt relief recently), what has the Obasanjo administration done in six years but institutionalize poverty in Nigeria to the extent that, today, over 70% of the Nigerian population thrive on less than $1 per day?
When I hear Obasanjo give his compelling speeches before our friends in the West and before his friends in the AU about how the West is not doing enough for Africa and how we need not partial debt relief but 100% debt relief to effectively fight poverty in Africa, I feel sick to my stomach because that is simply and patently untrue.
When will Africa stop begging for handouts and do for itself? And what does Obasanjo know about poverty, and when did he know it? This is the same person who embarked on full-scale economic reforms under direct IMF supervision that have visited untold hardship on Nigerians to the extent that Nigerians have today become strangers and nomads in their own land; dismembered, disenfranchised, and disillusioned. I challenge anybody to name one country that embarked on IMF-supervised reforms that is better of today on account of them. So-called privatization and divestment policies have invariably led to more joblessness, deprivation, poverty, and instability in countries of Latin America and the erstwhile Soviet-bloc who have altogether rued the day they embarked on these reforms.
Back home in Africa, Ghana was granted debt relief under Kufuor’s government but the terms are wobbling Ghana’s socio-economic structures because they are unsustainable. Free trade, etc., espoused as a pre-condition for the granting of debt relief to Ghana meant that the West could dump their products freely onto Ghana’s economy without restrictions and this resulted in the closure of swathes of Ghanaian businesses and industries who simply could not compete with their Western counterparts and the cheaper products that flooded Ghanaian markets. The technocrats who promoted the policy argued that Ghanaians would benefit from cheaper, more affordable, products ranging from textiles to poultry, etc. But the fact that has borne out is that while the goods may indeed be cheaper, eventually the average Ghanaian still cannot afford them because he no longer has a job!
How many Nigerians have asked what exactly are the conditions attached to this debt relief? Do we even care? Everywhere people are congratulating Obasanjo, but who is congratulating the Nigerian people? The question is: what actually has Obasanjo done for the Nigerian public? Or has he rather done it for himself and other members of the Nigerian business and political elite?
Obasanjo has asphyxiated Nigeria’s public educational system and in its place erected the era of the mega-private university for which both he and his Vice-president have approved licenses. By so doing he pats himself on the back for doing something for the educational sector.
Through a questionable policy of deregulation, Obasanjo opted for importation of refined fuel through agencies and proxies that have, as yet, not been disclosed to the Nigerian public (i.e., who are the direct beneficiaries of this policy of fuel importation?). By so doing Obasanjo exported Nigerian jobs overseas to those locales where our raw crude is refined. He then brought this fuel back into Nigerian under shadowy auspices and insisted on its being sold to Nigerians at the prevailing international market price. This invasive West-instigated free trade policy invariably impoverished Nigerians who, despite being owners of the land from which the resource is extracted, have received no discernible ancillary benefit or discount accruable but are instead required to enrich government proxies and profiteers (our shadowy fuel importers) and the foreign interests responsible for refining our crude from their unmitigated poverty.
And it doesn’t stop there. Nigerians have had to endure the insult-added-to-injury of fuel price increase upon fuel price increase in order to sustain a price margin that would be attractive to those shadowy agents responsible for the mass importation of refined fuel – despite the fact local industries have suffered irreparable losses and been closed down as a result.
How many times have we read in the news of Nigeria’s manufacturers association advising the government that the prohibitive price of consumable energy in the industrial sector is detrimental to the sustenance of local industry in Nigeria? How many times have we read of the National Economic Intelligence Committee advising the government that the present policy of fuel importation is engendering inflationary levels that are unsustainable in a modern and progressive economy? How many times has said NEIC advised government that the policy of deregulation is pricing foodstuffs out of the reach of many Nigerians?
Despite these indices, warnings, and the mass poverty, social dislocation and disruption occasioned upon the nation it was still necessary for Obasanjo to pursue doggedly his ‘reforms’ because the IMF required them to sustain the possibility of debt relief and Obasanjo’s vision of ‘eradicating’ poverty in Nigeria and Africa upon said debt relief.
Back to my original question: what are the conditions attached to this debt relief? Has Obasanjo effectively sold the Nigerian economy to the West in a manner that will ultimately prove to be unsustainable for the Nigerian public? Nigerians should ask questions and probe deeper into the activities of this administration.
The truth of the matter is that although debt relief may be a good thing for any nation mired in debt, Nigeria does not require debt relief to build the blocks for a solid homegrown economy that will engender confidence among investors and attract the needed inflow of foreign capital. What Nigeria requires is a political culture that, above all else, respects the rule of law and eschews corruption and waste.
Even the murderous policeman that prowls the streets of Abuja burdened by the weight of his one rancid brain cell can comprehend that when you eliminate ‘big’ government with its endless stream of advisers and junior ministers of every shade and hue you eliminate a significant drag on the public purse and free up funds that can be channeled into educational and other social programs. When you eliminate a policy of direct importation of refined fuel products from overseas you shore up the strength of your local currency against the dollar and provide greater stability in the financial market.
When we make it a matter of state policy that no government official may travel overseas for medical treatment it serves to insure against capital flight and strengthens our local currency. But more importantly, it ensures that local infrastructure and amenities like hospitals and clinics are well equipped, funded, and administered. It also ensures that power supply is reliable and regular, that safe water supply is available, and that the economy is generally up and running. Until our government stops running overseas for a solution to every Nigerian problem – be it our debt profile, unemployment, medicare, fuel scarcity, etc. – we will never have a Nigerian solution and the problems will remain.
Nigerians should stop deceiving themselves and being deceived. How can an administration that closed down an entire airline (Slok Air) despite the repercussions to the job market and the credibility problem it creates for other potential investors -- all because, according to our President, its proprietor established said airline while in office -- be serious? Especially given the fact the president himself runs a multi-million dollar farm enterprise and has since established or is a establishing a private university, while in office? Why are we so docile and eager to celebrate our own misfortune?
I align myself with the views of that fine gentleman, Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, and state that until Nigerians refuse to be treated like slaves in their own land and begin to hold their government accountable they will never be free. Obasanjo and his crop of democratic saboteurs need to be strung up by their breeches and made to account for their crimes against humanity in general and Nigeria in particular. We really cannot afford to continue living in a make-believe fantasy world where democracy and good governance are expected to establish themselves by rote and of their own accord whilst at the same time we are doing everything possible to ensure that they are unable to take root in our society.
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