THE STATE OF THE NATION
Today, Nigeria is supposedly the
largest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa and Egypt with a GDP of $522
billion, a value obtained since the rebasing of the economy in April 2014. With
this nominal GDP, Nigeria is now the 26th largest economy in the world. It would appear, then, that her aspiration
to become one of the twenty largest economies in the world by 2020 is within
reach. However, whenever the GDP figures are brandished by the government as
signs of achievement, red flags start emerging as the people look around them
and wonder if GDP stands for garri don peme because even staple foods
are becoming unaffordable to the so-called ordinary Nigerian. In any case, we
need not go into those socio-economic realities that challenge the bogus claims
of economic growth; let us simply dwell in the realm of economic statistics
with which experts have often attempted to blind the eyes of Nigerians.
According to the National Bureau
of Statistics as well as Trading Economics, a resource centre for economic
indicators for countries the world over including Nigeria, there was a decline
in average GDP growth rate between the third quarter of 2011 and the first
quarter of 2014 with growth declining to an average rate of 4.5% within that
period compared to earlier rates as well as a 2014 rate of 6%. Were these not
signs of a staggering economy; signs that were strongly denied by the
government until recently when the fact could no longer be hidden following the
fall in oil prices? One also wonders if this decline was not the pointer to the
fact that the economy could no longer sustain the massive corruption in the
fuel subsidy regime which then informed the attempted subsidy removal and the
increase in fuel price in January 2012, a policy which the people protested,
defying intimidation until the protests were crushed by a combined force of
political intrigues, economic sell-outs and military deployment with no action
taken against the major culprits in the subsidy fraud. Also, one wonders if,
despite all the acclaimed benefits of the rebasing exercise, it was not mere
recourse to plastic surgery as an attempted solution to an internal disease in
a last-minute effort to window-dress the economy and attract investments rather
than address the problems fundamentally, considering the fact that it was
done in the first quarter of 2014.
The gap between the bogus GDP
claims and the economic realities of Nigerians is seen in the fact that
Nigeria, according to the World Bank, has one of the lowest GDP per capita
based on purchasing power parity (PPP) in the world at the 123rd position out of 185 countries, thus revealing that the value of our
currency as an import-dependent economy makes our GDP claims of little worth.
Worse still, the level of inequality in the distribution of wealth that shows
that a select few have cornered the wealth of the nation is seen in a Gini
coefficient of 43.8 which is one of the highest inequality indicators in the
world according to World Bank statistics. To explain to Nigerians what this
means, the Leadership newspaper of March 1, 2014 revealed
that in a population of about 170 million people, only about twelve
Nigerians control one-eighth of the entire Nigerian economy!
More damning revelations were
unveiled in an article titled “Bitter
Truths about Economy the Jonathan Govt. Does Not Want Nigerians to Know”,
published by Premium Times on December 22, 2014. In it,
inconsistencies in statistical indicators being brandished by the government
were unveiled. The fact was revealed that in the first five years of civil
rule, oil prices were not as high as they were between 2009 and 2013. Yet,
whereas in those first five years, we had fiscal surpluses, we have been having
fiscal deficits despite the relatively more favourable oil prices between 2009
and 2013. It will also interest Nigerians to know that within the same period
when oil prices were high, all other oil producing countries recorded surpluses
and deployed those surpluses to long-term infrastructure projects while Nigeria
was recording deficits and borrowing to service the deficits. Again, despite
the fact that only about 70% of the budget is implemented annually in Nigeria,
we keep borrowing and accumulating debt supposedly to service the contrived
deficit. Also, whereas growth has supposedly remained strong, we have never
been as indebted as we are now since our exit from the Paris Club with a $3.5
billion external debt and a N2.2 trillion naira domestic debt even though what
the debt has been used to achieve remains to be seen. Considering the negative
correlation between growth and public debt, does this not suggest a statistical
window-dressing of our claims of growth? Why do we store our excess earnings in
foreign reserves that give us a paltry 3% interest while we accumulate debt at
an average interest rate of 13-15%? Even worse is the fact that, according to
Chatham House, oil theft averages $3-8 billion annually. Yet, this monumental
loss of an industrial scale does not reflect negatively in our growth claims. Definitely,
some voodoo economists are cooking our books.
Furthermore, earlier in 2014,
the then Governor of Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi Lamido alleged that about $20
billion was not remitted to the federation account by the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) – a claim that was later dismissed. Was this
allegation thoroughly investigated without bias? Considering the fact that this
allegation was made in a year preceding general elections, and just before a
fiscal era where Nigerians are being asked to tighten their belts, we are
compelled to ask where recent huge campaign donations are coming from and for
what purpose such humongous donations in clear violation of the law are made.
It appears the PDP campaign slogan for the 2015 election is “to hell with the
poor”.
In the midst of these
provocations, a supposedly successful Transformation Agenda is being peddled as
the basis of re-election for four more years. We have failed to admit that our
economic growth is not so much the result of astute fiscal and monetary policy
as it is of the global stirring of the Four Winds of the Earth. In our
mono-product economic structure, international political and military crisis,
especially among oil producing states, has been the cause of our acclaimed
economic growth due to the resultant high oil prices brought about by a
shortfall in the supply of the product. Now that the prices have fallen, with
some of our erstwhile major importers abandoning our crude and with the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) vowing not to cut
production output even if the price falls to $20 per barrel, we are
face-to-face with an economic crisis that an austerity budget based on uncertain
income projections cannot address.
These red flags of economic
upheaval are being raised alongside an alarming security situation that has so
far cast serious doubt on our military capability. Who would have thought that
Nigerians would one day be displaced from their homes and would become refugees
in countries like Chad and Niger? Who would have thought that entire
communities in one geo-political zone of the country would one day be under the
control of terror groups or that the time would come when hundreds of women and
children would be carted away by terror groups on more than one occasion with
no intervention by security forces? Who would have expected that Nigerian
soldiers would one day be helpless against insurgents to the extent of abandoning
inferior weapons and fleeing to neighbouring Cameroon? Who would have thought
that Nigeria would one day be classified alongside Iraq and Afghanistan on the
list of terror-stricken nations? In the recent Global Terrorism Index, based on
2013 incidents, Nigeria ranked 4th among 162 countries with 303
reported attacks, 1,826 fatalities and 457 injuries. Terrorism was said to have
cost Nigeria $28.48 billion in the year 2013. Nigeria is surpassed only by
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq in this index. Given the dastardly activities of
Boko Haram last year, the 2014 index would be even more damning for Nigeria.
WELCOME TO FAIR HAVENS: A
TRANSITIONAL HARBOUR
ACTS 27:7-8 (NKJV):
7 When we had sailed slowly many
days, and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, the wind not permitting us
to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmone 8 Passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near
the city of Lasea.
With great difficulty, the
Alexandrian ship in which Paul travelled arrived at a place called Fair Havens
and, in verse 8, we notice that there was contemplation to temporarily harbor
the ship in that location but the harbor was not suitable to winter in. In like
manner, the journey of the ship of the Nigerian state has thus far been
difficult and we have largely been drifting under the influence of the winds.
It is clear that a great storm lies ahead as we are approaching elections
without addressing the fundamental flaws in the polity. These flaws include:
1 the awkward geopolitical
structure that has the form, but lacks the substance, of federalism;
2 the consequent lopsided economic
structure in which a single product from one region of the country contributes
the bulk of the revenue of the entire nation despite the abundant resources
spread across the nation;
iii.
a constitution that lays claim to the phrase “we the people” but to which the
people made no input;
1 contentious population figures
that have been the harbinger of election disputes since the pre-independence
era; and
2 an electoral body that wears the
label ‘independent’ but is practically under the control of the presidency.
These factors have directly and
indirectly contributed to the current economic crisis, the political
instability, and the security situation. We managed to trudge on in this
condition, advancing with great difficulty until we got to our Fair Havens. We
arrived at our Fair Havens when, for the first time in the history of our
nation, a person from the South-South, the region worst hit by the fundamental
flaws in our polity, became president. One would have expected that being from
the Niger Delta and an academic for that matter, President Jonathan would
understand the role carved out for him, lay aside transient political ambitions
and champion the cause of restructuring while pursuing national integration,
and then go down in history as Nigeria’s greatest leader hitherto; but this is
yet to be seen. However, President Goodluck Jonathan came close to living up to
this when he convoked the 2014 National Conference – a gathering of nobles,
elders and the young from across the nation in which these issues were
critically examined and recommendations made. Fellow Nigerians, I speak
expressly to you that the report of the 2014 National Conference is the Fair
Havens in which Nigeria must winter to avoid the storms that are ahead.
Just the way Paul on the
Alexandrian ship perceived that the voyage would end in much loss and warned
the centurion, helmsmen and ship-owner (Acts 27:9-10), I
warned the nation through a broadcast and press conference held at the Latter
Rain Assembly on Sunday, July 22nd, 2012. I told the nation that I
perceived that there would be no 2015 if we failed to fix 2014. Indeed, those
perceptions were signals I was picking at the time but there are practical
pointers in that direction today even if faintly perceptible to the discerning.
Between 2012 and now, the signs have become more visible though stakeholders
still refuse to pay attention. Like Paul, our counsel has become unpopular. As
it was in the Alexandrian ship (verse 12), the majority has asked that
the ship of state set sail towards the general elections rather than winter in
fundamental reforms such as those proposed in the 2014 National Conference and
the reason is obvious – just like Fair Havens was an inconvenient place for the
Alexandrian ship to winter in, change or reformation is a difficult process and
is often not suitable to the comfort zone mentality that prefers to do the same
thing over and over again and hope for a different result; a mentality which,
according to Albert Einstein, is the very definition of insanity.
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