Yar

Yar’Adua and His New Team

Zayyad I. Muhammad

Now that President Yar’Adua has finally put behind him the legitimacy issue that has trailed his government since its inception. And has brought on board his best choices as new Ministers, thus asserting full authority and put a strong personal stamp on his government, but has Mr. President made the right selection that would make a difference? This question was certainly borne out of the fact that, this time around, the President would take full responsibility of any action or inaction of his government; as the doors of complain of imposition individuals on him as Ministers are completely closed.

President Yar’Adua found himself in the saddle of responsibilities at a period that Nigerians’ quests for change on how things are done are strong, and their expectations from the leaders are very high. This was because Nigeria has witnessed the near breakdown of most of her systems- high level of poverty, corruption, energy crisis, insecurity and the pitiable miss-rule. Therefore, the remaining years President Yar’Adua has in office are very critical for him, if he is truly determined to make any difference. For Yar’Adua to make any difference, he has to move with speed of the expectations of Nigerians. The first thing Mr. President has to make sure is that; his team is not just a team, but a collection of great thinkers- silicon-valley-thinkers; men and women who can move the government with the speed of the imagination of most Nigerians, and their sense of judgment must centered on the challenges of un-locking the future for ordinary Nigerians. And also bring new thinking and synergy to the public sector’s role in providing the need of all Nigerians.

Mr. President’s new team has to be the engine room for greater equality of opportunities for all Nigerians. They must be able to build a system that will swing the government away from the traditional methodology of concentrating on only ‘off-the-shelves’ ways of improving our society- each Minister must see himself/herself not only saddled with the responsibility within his/her portfolio; but a team player that would bring new feasible ideas that would trigger development in all sphere of the Nigerian economy- putting in place systems that would eradicate poverty by uplifting individuals, fight crimes with employments and opportunities rather than guns, axes, bows and arrows and fight official corruption the ways it ought to be.

This is the time for Nigeria to leapfrog the ladder development by strongly leveraging from the Public Private Partnership- sourcing of funds from both local and global capital markets- especially the issuance of sovereign bonds- to provide broad variety of services to the people, ranging from health and social programs, to defence, fire, police protection, maintaining a legal system, and the provision of physical infrastructure including the reinvigoration of the education system, building of small scale industries and farms, roads construction and Human capital development.

Mr. President’s new team should and have to do-away with the burden of ‘carrying the camel and the loads’ so to speak, in the education system- the situation where the government is the financier, the administrator of the fund, and the assessor of how the funds were utilised in the Nigerian education, is one of the main problem that has plagued the system. Government should gradually restrict itself to only provision of funds, while private sector, civil societies, communities etc should manage it in a competitive manner, and then other NGOs including Parent-Teacher Associations should serve as watchdogs.

Another area that PPP can work efficiently in Nigeria is in the road sector. The Design Build Operate Maintain (DBOM) Partnerships can help to improve the deplorable situation of the Nigerian roads. Private sector can use the combination of their own debt and equity to finance the construction of roads. They then have the use of the toll income generated by the project for a specified concession period and use those project generated revenues to repay the underlying debt, recuperate their own equity, and earn a fair profit. Though motorists and commuters will have to bear the tolls; however, its effects are negligible when compared with the stress, lost of man-hours and lives, Nigerians witness on the roads due to their terrible conditions.

The shortage of efficient and reliable energy is a key factor that is also perpetuating low level of development in Nigeria. Nigeria is facing electricity crunch not only in the generation, transmission and distribution but also in terms of financing and covering the cost. The main problem of the Nigerian electricity sector was the holistic approach used in its setup from onset; where the old NEPA was given the tasks of generating, transmitting, distributing and marketing of the electricity need of the entire Nigerian State, this led to the official bigheadedness in system which encouraged bizarre corruption and mismanagement. We must admit that, currently there is plan for reforms in the Nigerian electricity sector; but the fear is, the reform planners have in one-way or the other forgotten that the solution to the electricity problem is not merely a matter of generating more power, but adequate reinvigoration and deregulation of the transmission, distribution and marketing sector with enabling environment for strong private sector participation- this is the task that President Yar’Adua’s team has to pursue with vigor. If not, the government may end-up generating the required megawatts the nations needs, but no reliable and efficient medium of its transmission, distribution and marketing to sustain the system.

The real force behind industrial and economic growth is the people. Human capital development must be pursue; with soft loans for small scale industries; or government build industries then lease them to the people; and also develop small scale farming, support for the movie, music, sport industries and artisans.

However, all these mentioned cannot be achieved without true political reform- a political reengineering that would make the leadership to all the times think with the speed of the expectations of Nigerians and gradually institutionalised political, economic and social order in the society.

Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Jimeta, Adamawa State, zaymohd@yahoo.com,