The New Republic
by
Again, as a fallout of "all politics, no vision", Nigeria socio- economic descent is gradually moving towards a crescendo. Its spiral effect is reverberating at an alarming rate. From party without partisanship, politics without programme, position without principle and policy without projection, we now have its socio-economic manifestation, which can best be described as all money, no productivity.
Ordinarily, money is supposed to be the springboard from which productivity results through a process of capital formation. In Nigeria, the reverse is the case. It seems the more money circulates, the less the production activities. The more that is allocated, the less the people have, and the lesser the demand it could boost. Money has no bearing on productivity, infact it alienates it. Rather than facilitate manufacturing, it aids crude acquisition, instead of helping to stimulate creativity, it seeks to destroy it and replace it with self glorification. Yet this is just one side of the story.
The other side is heart rending and pathetic. Lack of money or credit is said to make economic reform impossible. In our shore, socio-economic reforms have failed partly because of misapplication of so much money.
Because it circulates so much amongst few elites, who lack in commitment to enterprise and economic emancipation. the result is ostentation, giddy exhibitionism, and conspicuous consumption. Luxurious cars and foreign taste have replaced profitable investment, while the lust for chieftaincy title displaces a sense of community and most times it glorifies the poverty of a people. Yet it is in respect to power that the use of money endangers all of us. Because money is seen as the goal of powers by our rulers rather than service, same money is used to acquire it and it must necessarily be used to retain it. This in itself creates a stiff competition of its own. The more of it you have, the more power you get. We have seen that from Babangida years to the present. Power gives cheap money and this explains why those who are out of power seek to get back as quickly as possible. This explains the present political movement and regrouping. Yet this has created a tension of its own. That is, between power-haves and power haves-not. The power haves are getting prepared for the big fight ahead. So much money is being stashed away in foreign land either directly or indirectly. Again, this in itself has created monetary crisis of immense proportion. It has over heated the exchange rate. So much money mopping up the dollars. These do not return by way of goods to jump start the factories, they rather stay away as capital flight. Those who are looking for the cause of the present foreign exchange crisis must begin from here.
Talking about exchange rate crisis, does it not confound us that Japanese Yen and Korean Won are devalued currencies in relation to the dollar, yet little fuzz is made by these nations because of its positive bearing on national productivity. An export led industrialised economy rarely bothers about how low its currency is. In Nigeria, the reverse is the case. A perpetual import- substitution economy compounded by primitive accumulation of its rulers and elites has no business complaining about exchange rate crisis. And because it is elite-engendered, there is the tendency to isolate the problems, confuse crisis with conflict and contradiction with contexts. The problem is seen as conflict between the CBN and the Finance Ministry instead of viewing as a manifestation of an endemic economic crisis. And because we tend to isolate it from the general malaise, we obscure the causes and fail to define the nature of the crisis. And again, because of its urgency to our immediate economic needs, quick fix solutions are sought, small relief is gained, we get psychological relief, and we go back to business as usual and reflection becomes a deflection.
When a little over two decades ago, the Africa's most celebrated political economist, Claude Ake of blessed memory described Africa's economy as structurally disarticulated, and proceeded to show the absence of linkages between agriculture and manufacturing, between education and development, between health and productivity, between research and industry, between production and consumption, between rural and urban progress and between power and responsibility. It was thought that this was only a passing phase.
Today that disarticulation has metamorphosed into total isolation of sectors and is beginning to manifest in all social spheres. Thus instead of having a socio-economic reform and progress founded on able political platform, what we have is economic descent, political stagnation and moral collapse. There is isolation of the community from private life. Social life has no bearing on the personal economy. Income has no correlation with living standard, wages have no bearing on productivity. Our houses bear no relevance with the environment. If they are not intimidating nature, they assault it. There is also the disarticulation of values otherwise referred to as value dissonance. We mouth and celebrate idea of free market free enterprise and competitive economy without imbibing their values, etiquette, laws and the discipline required to nurture them. We do not value skills because we are not interested in technical competence. This explains why we under pay teachers because we do not see relationship between education and wealth creation. We are not interested in investment in human capital, thereby weakening our intellectual base necessary to articulate right developmental approach. Technical skill is neither retained nor nurtured, they are wasted under the pretence of what foreign skills bring by way of kickbacks. We over capitalise infrastructural projects instead of using them as engine of mobilisation, training and job creation.
Our litany of woes and confusion is endless, but we need not say more. Yet we ought to move forward. The starting point is first to recognise that there is crisis of value on which all other problems revolve. Dr Pat Utomi once ably advocated a value renaissance, but is there really anything to renew? Perhaps a revolution of values is necessary. The need for the right attitude, right belief and the right mental approach to development. The need to see socio political and economic lives as inseparable and the necessity to anchor development on a cultural foundation. The need to activate a sense of community, the development of elite commitment, the necessity to evolve active political consciousness and mobilsation that make a virile civil society, the need to place more emphasis on development of human capital which is a precondition for progress. Then we must be disciplined. Not just ordinarily. There is discipline of the mind, of the attitude, of private life and of public life. These are necessary to control our tendency towards vanity and recklessness. They make us place emphasis on substance more than on form. They help to cultivate the right mental approach to development. Above all, the leadership by example and agenda setting will stop us from going in a vicious circle.