Deregulation, PDP Government And Development In Nigeria

By

Dr. Abayomi Ferreira

abayomiferreira@yahoo.co.uk

The public discussion and showmanship that accompany the inevitable and impending implementation of the deregulation programme of the right wing PDP and other governments in Nigeria are at the verge of a crescendo. The Labour movement naturally is very vocal in its opposition to the imperialist imposed programme in respect of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. On the exploiter side of the contest stand the right wing governments of Nigeria led by the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the politics involved in deregulation in all its ramifications and to propose an enduring solution to the monstrous problem that deregulation constitutes in the needed economic development of Nigeria.

What is deregulation ?

It is necessary to answer this question so that we will understand the issues we are actually discussing or fighting over.

Deregulation is an essential component of the Structural Adjustment Programme SAP that was slapped on Nigeria and other third world unindustrialised economies in 1985 by the IMF and imbibed by the military dictatorship led by Babangida and his cohort. It was introduced into the Nigerian state policy as an invasion by international capitalism in the name of neo liberalism peddled as market reforms or in local political parlance PPP public private partnership whereby public assets are transferred to selected private interests, usually the right wing politicians, their local funders and their foreign promoters. The other two key elements of the programme are privatisation and downsizing. The right wing promoters of the neo liberal policies and their agents try to sell the concept that government has no business in doing business. But they do not highlight the truth that the same people who deliberately make government companies and projects to fail by stealing, fraudulent practices,  project cost bloating, bribery, project splitting, pre arranged after award cost reviews, and other forms of corruption that result in non performance in the face of fee collection and other corrupt practices turn round to be the buyers of the public companies in the privatisation process. They are the same professionals and experts who ran the public institutions aground and move on to buy Nigerian national assets cheaply and thereafter make the privatised companies work and make vast profits for the new owners.

Deregulation goes much beyond the petroleum downstream economy that merely happens to be the one generating heated discussion in the country today. It has been carried out by the military and PDP governments in the telecommunication sector and is on in the transportation and energy sectors. It is indeed being carried out in social services sectors like education and healthcare delivery.

Position of the right wing governments

We must remember that the PDP manifesto that was clearly articulated by el Rufai at a workshop he promoted and led for PDP bigwigs on 8 January 2007 declared the intention of the party to create a class  of entrepreneurs, small business owners and professionals with access to credit. The emergence of Sanusi at the Central Bank in place of  the neo-politician Soludo has demonstrated the methods of access to credit by these new owners of our national commonwealth.

The promoters of the concept and practice of deregulation in the oil sector readily give the following as advantages of the scheme

· Stoppage of cross border smuggling operations that is attributed to low prices in Nigeria as against the neighbouring territories

· Utilisation of erstwhile subsidy by the government to shore up provision of facilities in education, health and transportation

· An illogically cyclical argument that the rise in pump prices will stabilise the product prices to the consumers

· The removal of artificial pegging of prices  will rise by the tricks of market forces to a parity level

These stories are as old as the era of military dictatorship when the confusion in the oil sector actually started in Nigeria. That was the era when individuals in military uniform in government and their cronies in civilian robes rummaged through the national system to gain undue access to personalise the national commonwealth. Indeed, that was the start of deregulation climaxing in 1985 when Babangida took in the IMF programme hook, line and sinker and sustained by the PDP in making it a key part of its manifesto at its birth in 1999.

The position of Labour

The trade unions and the civil society have been very consistent in its battles against deregulation in the petroleum downstream sector by its regular fights both in the era of military dictatorship and the current period of PDP right wing dispensation. These organisational expressions of the Nigerian working class have used the strike weapon to maintain their pro-people position. The issue really is that the PDP right wing government is fully committed to implement an economic programme in favour of international capitalism and its Nigerian comprador agents. There is hardly any difference in the positions of the other ruling right wing political parties ANPP, AC and APGA. The total collapse of the energy sector whereby Nigerians are compelled to spend 796.4 billion naira of their own money annually to fuel private generators in addition to the huge capital commitment to own the hardware and maintain same in working condition certainly is not in the interest of the poverty ridden pockets of our people but in favour of the foreign economies from whom we import the generators and the fuel, not to mention the vehicles and other machineries that keep our consuming and non producing economy running.

 

The answer

The answer is basically political. Indeed, I dare say that it is entirely political. It is to wrest political power from the right wing political parties and install a government that will dump the pro-imperialist and anti-people programme that promotes fuel product importation, generator importation, and similar economic postures in favour of a centrally planned economic development programme that is nationally implemented for the benefits of the working class and the generality of our people. There is simply no rational position for a country with the enormous economic capabilities of Nigeria holding over 140 million human beings to be a prostrate economy incapable of local efforts at production but a beggar importer of fuel products, generators, phone handsets, pins and toothpicks and begging for foreign investors.

 

There must be a publicly promoted programme for a people oriented economic development  system to reverse and replace the current imposition by the PDP and its cohorts. One does not need to claim any gifts of prophecy to know that the right wing governments will go on with privatisation, downsizing and deregulation, no matter what the people say. The only answer is to replace them. 2011 is getting close.

 

Dr Abayomi Ferreira

Lagos

9 November, 2009