The NEEDS Versus Our Needs: What an Encounter!

By

Mohmmed A. Adamu

mainaelkainawy@yahoo.com

 

 

Economic buoyancy and sustainability are the bedrock of every nation’s survival. Hence there is no overemphasis on the imperativeness of a nation to conceive, plan and carefully implement any strategy aimed at keeping the economic lifejacket of that nation afloat. Therefore, governments at all levels must tirelessly toil towards keeping the natural and socio–cultural forces that invariably determine the economic status of a nation or state in harmonious unison with one another in other to achieve economic viability and sustainability.

       

Nigeria as a nation with a population of well over one hundred million people with numerous ethnic groups is indeed poised to reap the dividends of her unity in diversity ceteris paribus. Just like India, a nation of sub–continental size with a population society to about a billion people of so numerous ethnicities, religious and cultures. Particularly at present, India the comely Sikh septuagenarian an d economic “guru” president (Manmohan Singh) at the helm of her affairs is more determine to sustain her economy’s strength. If your memory is sharper than mine that you could recall that India, hit by the Tsunami disaster of December 26 valiantly turned down offers made by the United States and the United Nations Organization to extend humanitarian aids to her affected areas. What did India do instead? Those of us who were opportune to watch some of the international television stations, like the CNN, must have seen how the government of the country where the worldly “hauris” are self-reliantly catered for her Tsunami disaster survivors well by her self.

       

Now the pertinent questions to ask here is does India have any economy sustaining strategy like the Nigeria’s NEEDS – National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy that despite her huge size and continental population is able to relatively achieve economic sturdiness? Of course she may have. But, as the adage goes the proof the pudding is in the eating. So is the case here, the achievement is not just in having an economic strategy on the ground but most importantly also in implementation and determination of the citizenry to support and work towards its success. And, Based on commonsense fac ts you and I as Nigerians know that in our country we remorsefully lack this culture. Is it in our blood? May be you may have known it better than I. Or is it that Nigerians are created from a different stuff that they exhibit unearthly characters: Nigeria is the most religious nation in the world and at the same time she is the most corrupt nation in the world. What an irony! Perhaps with the Otta Farm owner at the helm of affairs of Nigeria, she may wear epaulettes with the same rank, and insignia with the same medals as India.

       

When someone overheard me whispering this few lines, he whispered “Na lie” I surprisingly and confidently turned to him and asked, “why na lie?” he grimed and replied, scratching his head, “Bribery and corruption will never allow this country prosper like some of her peers.” I said, “but we have the EFCC and ICPC.” He said “yes, but the ICPC is just there for name”. People know very little and hear nothing or little about it. As for the EFCC, Mr. Ribadu is a hero indeed. But his tentacles are too tiny to spread over the length and breadth of Nigeria, it is just like the case of a mason building a mansion and a hundred people are busy bringing the mansion down with their axes and diggers. This is the kind of perception many Nigeri ans have about their fatherland, and it is real. If you and I are corrupt and we refuse to wash our hands off the matter, who do we blame, If we found ourselves in torturous condition, other than ourselves?

       

At forty-five Nigeria has well come of age to conceive, plan, implement, sustain and serve a long-term economic development strategy. The national economic development strategy, NEEDS or National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy conceived by Obasanjo administration is a right step in the right direction. For NEEDS to be able to reach all the nooks and crannies of this country and have positive impact on the people it must be envisaged as a locally conceived National Millennium Development Goals (NMDGs).

Nigeria must be national in this direction. National economy must be evaluated holistically–the way it is from within the country and the manner it is mirrored from outside the country. Both perspectives must tally, how the Would Bank or the United Nation Organization, or United States, or South Africa sees Nigeria’s economy must relatively be in unison with how Nigerians themselves see the economy of their country.

According to Civil Society Coalition For Poverty Eradication (CISCOPE) unless this is achieved complacency will continue to prick our eyes with the straw deceitfulness to the extent that we would no longer be able to appreciate our inabilities and determine our shortcomings, let alone correcting them.

       

To be a development plan or strategy, NEEDS should be converted to a long-term plan that is proactive. NEEDS can also be used as an effective strategy in the fight against Nigeria’s endemic poverty by isolating and addressing the constitutive and causative elements of poverty. NEEDS should identifying the poor and who they are including the reasons for their poverty and work out modalities on how to lessen poverty and aid the poor fight poverty. For the Chinese have an adage that says teach me how to fish rather than give me fish everyday. NEEDS can miraculously be used to provide a vision for the management of the Nigerian economy by reworking it to benefit from a deeper and comprehensive analysis of the problems of Nigeria in consideration of our state and stage of development.

       

NEEDS can also be effectively used to address the tension between the Nigerian constitution and the policy framework of NEEDS which emphasizes private-sector-led growth by reworking the NEEDS to reflect the constitutional position of a mixed economy, a developmental state and in cases of urgent national importance, a state that intervenes in favour of development is envisaged. NEEDS is so potentially versatile that it can be used in the areas of strengthening democracy by linking it up to formal electoral reform and by adopting an inclusive approach to decision-making, and allowing the people to determine the social, economic and cultural trajectories of a development framework.

       

NEEDS should canvass a right-based approach to poverty reduction which will mainstream basic education, access to water, health and social security as claimable rights which have duty bearers, rights holders and an accountability dimension.

       

As a poverty reduction strategy, it should mainstream the views of the poor. It should put in place mechanisms to elicit the input of the poor beyond the elitist one of consultation per geopolitical zone of six states. Needs should rate and assign roles to the private sector as it is, without any romanticisation.

       

It is a big slap on her face that Nigeria at 45 cannot boast of providing constant and continuous power supply to homes and industries, no adequate portable water supply for human consumption, rampant deterioration of public education sector, inadequate motorable roads, constant inflation and depreciation of naira value, among other socio–economic ailments bedeviling Nigeria. Needs should be reengineered to fit into a clear and real concept of a development strategy. It should be proactive rather than reactive although it must be informed by the experience and lessons of history and current circumstances.                                             

       

Needs should go beyond the first aid measure in the face of an emergency, which does not prescribe a care but reacts to a shock. It should be a plan in the long term rather than an adhoc strategy for implementation in the medium term. Apart from removing distortions, imbalances and factors impeding economic-growth, simply it is Nigeria’s homegrown NMDGs.

       

This should therefore serve as a clarion call to the Nigerian government to wake up from her hynosis of ethnocentrism, regionalism, selfishness and embezzlement and face the reality. We need physical economic growth and development. We are fed up with dry letters on parchment declarations of economic shifts.

 

We no longer will be satisfied and contented with mere ceremonial declaration by the president himself, his finance minister or the Governor of the Central Bank (CBN) that Naira has appreciated by so and so value whilst as a junior employee your salary can barely buy you a sack of millet or corn; or that inflation has dropped by so and so percent whilst one can hardly buy anything worth mentioning with five Naira let alone one Naira the coin which since I left the city of Kano (in 1999 May) I ceased seeing it in circulation; or that Nigeria’s GDP has risen by so and so figure, etc. let us see the appreciation in value of Naira on the ground, let us experience the reality of the drop in inflation and let us feel the reality of the growth of our country’s GDP and appreciate its texture.

       

The Nigerian economy shall ever remain incapacitated and static if government particularly the CBN does not come to the rescue of the Naira. Few years after the one Naira note was turned into coin most people especially traders and business people stopped accepting it. I am sorry, not only one Naira coin but including all the other coin lower denominations: 25 Kobo, 10 Kobo, 5Kobo coins. Quite amazingly these are the denominations that mostly circulates in the hands of the poor yet have been rejected by people. Then how, with five Naira note as the lowest note now with a purchasing value of, perhaps, less than the then one Naira note could the government expect inflation to fall down.

       

Since we Nigerians have an attitude of following the footmarks of US and Britain in many respects, we should note that these countries use coin money. Yet their economies are among vibrant in the world. We should know that rejection of coin money would not augur our economy well. Rejection of coin money is not civilization. We should believe that our rejection of coins is one of the myriads of factors that perpetuate poverty amongst Nigerians. If you and I would want to contribute toward the growth of the economy of our fatherland you and I should start from our own selves. It is imperative so long as we economic viability of this country to come to stay for you and me to start using all the coin denominations as legal tenders in our day-to-day transactions

       

The duty of the CBN in this respect is to seek legislative backing to promulgate a low that will bring those coin denominations and any coin money that may be minted in this country back into the common market scene. A mutable punishment should be legislated for anyone who robs any coin money of its legal tenderness. The EFCC can have a say in this regard too. Federal Government should note that the spoilt child would be rehabilitated.

       

Finally, I believe that one of the main reasons and causes of the dividing of Nigeria’s economy is the Federal Government’s and some State Government attitude of battering the value of the economy of this country with cancerous loans from the World Bank (WB) and international monetary fund (IMF). Just let us cogitate over the case of the IMF and Burundi. Think of the IBB administration’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) with the resultant devaluation of Naira by the administration. Poverty betook everywhere in this country. I could remember the joke cracked by the late Kalarawi the famous Kano Islamic scholar and preacher. He said, that whoever died during the Babangida administration would not face “hisabi” meaning reckoning on the Judgement Day. According to him because people had experienced all sorts of hardship and poverty during that administration. Now who do you think lured the IBB administration into adopting that impoverishing economic strategy, or more appropriately economic “destrategy” as a policy?

 

 

Mohmmed A. Adamu

Department of Mass Communication,

University of Maiduguri.

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