The federal government’s economic team,
led by the National Economic Council (NEC), has once again received a hard
knock for its poor understanding of how to grow a national economy.
Bill Gates; yes, Bill
Gates of the Microsoft fame, who came calling a couple of days previously, was
reported to have told a special session of the NEC that Nigeria’s ongoing
Economic Recovery And Growth Plan (ERGP) is broadly flawed.
He said for the ERGP to be effective, it must
reflect the people’s needs, and it should give priority to human capital
development over physical capital, contrary to the present composition of the
ERGP.
He then advised the
federal government to review the ERGP – I should interpret that to mean
reconstitute the NEC.
Gates’
observations and recommendation are a rehearsal of what many another knowing
person have stated soon after the ERGP was launched over one ago.
The All Progressives
Congress (APC)-federal government’s tragic lack of proper grasp of the
fundamentals of national economies became evident from its first annual budget
(2016) proposal.
That Appropriations
Bill had many firsts: it was the first to be declared missing (read recalled),
after it had been presented and submitted to the National Assembly.
It was also the first
Appropriations Bill to be be-deviled by the strange phenomenon known as
“padding”.
Christine Lagarde of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who somehow materialized
in Nigeria a couple of days following the Bill’s presentation to
NASS, expressed her misgivings about the feasibility of self-same 2016
Appropriations Bill.
It eventually took
disproportionately long months to get the Bill into a passable working
document. I remember dubbing the 2016 Bill, “Only Half a Budget”; and later
went on to call for its re-working: “Rework Budget 2016”, both on these
pages.
Subsequent
pronouncements and actions by the federal government on matters touching upon
the national economy, all of which culminated in the much advertised Economic
Recovery And Growth Plan, have done little more than expose the weak links in
the extant national economic team.
As in the previous
administrations, well-meaning counsel and suggestions respecting how to get the
Nigerian economy on the path of recovery and growth have not been shortcoming.
What is troubling,
however, is that the APC federal government and leading members of the party,
wittingly or unwittingly, give the impression that they are more focused on
looking competent in the eyes of the Nigerian masses, than they are interested
in demonstrating competence in leadership.
Consequently, many a
well-distilled counsel have gone unheeded. This trajectory is at once highly
insensitive and irresponsible in a federal government.
It is therefore
debatable whether Bill Gates’ recent engagement with the National Economic
Council will significantly impact that disconcerting trajectory.
The straight-talking
American had hardly finished giving his counsel when leading members of APC
present at the special session launched into their usual image-burnishing
campaign, with NEC’s chairman, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, leading the
charge.
Half-unexpectedly,
Osinbajo issued his all-too-familiar response to any criticism of the federal
government; “…high oil prices and economic growth of the previous years did not
translate into a better life for most Nigerians because grand corruption
prevented investments in healthcare, education, and infrastructure… To
putNigeria’s money to work for Nigerians is doing the most with the least… we
have stayed true to that vision.
Even as oil prices
went into free fall, we ramped up investments in infrastructure as well as our
social spending… We are working to guarantee basic education for all persons,
whilst also upgrading and modernizing the quality of secondary and
post-secondary education… Because this is the 21st century, we know that it is
also important to ensure that our young people are prepared for the economies
of the future…”, thus averred the vee-pee among other things.
Another impulsive
defender of the APC federal government present at the session was Kaduna State
governor, Nasir el-Rufai, who was just as predictable as the vice president;
“…adjusting (reviewing) the ERGP was not the issue but the budgeting system was
the question”, he was reported to have said, adding “…with priorities set
clearly to addressing human capital development.”
He was, however,
humble enough to concede that that session with Bill Gates was the most
important that has been held since the Muhammadu Buhari administration;
because, according to him, “the NEC had been focusing on the provision of
electricity, roads, and others, without priority for human capital
development”.
Therefore, Your
Excellency, reviewing the ERGP is the issue; the budgeting system has nothing
to do with the conversation(?). Surely, the controversy-hugging governor would,
in retrospect, see the wisdom to be more circumspect in his future public
remarks.
Typically, these two
no-holds-barred spokespersons of the ruling APC party wholly missed the kernel
of Gates’ message, clearly encapsulated in these words, “…although Nigeria was
approaching an upper middle-income status like Brazil, China, and Mexico, there
was need for all its citizens to thrive in maximizing the huge potential of the
country…”.
While Gates was
stressing citizens’ active participation for sustainable infrastructural
development, (infrastructural development must align with the citizens’ limited
technological exposure), Osinbajo was advocating futuristic technologies for
the citizens!!!
In words of a
syllable, while the august visitor’s feet were firmly planted on planet earth,
his principal host’s feet floated in space, in a regime of unrestrained
abstraction typical of Nigerian leaders.
By Afam Nkemdiche
*Afam Nkemdiche is engineering
consultant, lives in Abuja.
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