Roadmaps to nowhere

In spite of numerous economic development programmes (a.k.a roadmaps) launched by successive administrations since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999, the country continues to totter on the edge of economic precipice, with citizens hardly feeling the impact of these programmes.

Our research shows that there is indeed hardly any sector of the Nigerian economy where one roadmap or the other has not been developed or launched since 1999, all geared towards making the economy more competitive, ensuring internal food sufficiency, minimising import dependency, alleviating poverty and guaranteeing better livelihood for the country’s teeming population. This is besides numerous others that had been launched in the 38 years before 1999.

Some of these roadmaps launched in Nigeria since 1999 include Nigeria Vision 2020 (NV2020), which aimed to, by 2020, make Nigeria one of the 20 largest economies in the world, “able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena”; National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), which birthed States Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDS) and Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (LEEDS); Nigeria Power Sector

Reform Roadmap; and National Poverty Eradication Policy (NAPEP).

Others are National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP), National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP), Nigerian Gas Master Plan, Roadmap for the Development of Solid Minerals and Metals Sector, Nigeria Water Sector Roadmap, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s 7-Point Agenda, President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda, several policies on rice, among others.

Despite these several roadmaps, however, Nigeria’s economy has continued to be in the doldrums, recently sliding into recession. Electricity generation and supply remain abysmal, no industrialisation has taken place, majority live under the yoke of poverty, unemployment is on the increase even as companies continue to lay off staff, the country relies on importation for even its most basic needs, the local currency, naira, has been on a freefall, inflation is at an all-time high, and hunger ravages the land. Food sufficiency, a fundamental target of all the agricultural policies over time, continues to elude Nigeria as the country remains a net importer of food.

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, a renowned industrialist, international consultant and a former president/CEO of Neimeth International Pharmaceutical Plc, told BDSUNDAY in a recent interview that these roadmaps would continue to fail to achieve their objectives until policymakers realise the need for policy adoption.

“There are issues with roadmaps. They haven’t yielded much fruit because, first, most of the roadmaps are not well thought through. Second, they are not well adopted … [When] you design a policy as a policymaker, you must get the stakeholders, those that your policy will affect, to test the policy, to adopt it. That’s a critical thing for its execution. Most of Nigeria’s policies come from policy articulation to implementation. They miss the adoption strategy, and that’s why people resist it, fight it, because they don’t understand where this policy will take them to, its benefit,” said Ohuabunwa.

“The third factor is the selfishness of policymakers and policy implementers. Some ask what is in it for them otherwise they don’t implement; some implement it selfishly and selectively to benefit them and their own areas. The fourth issue is inadequate resources. Policies and programmes are well advertised, sometimes well written, but the resources to implement these policies are not provided, so it just becomes policy on paper and after a few years it fails. The fifth problem is inconsistency, the issue of lack of continuity; in fact, that has been a major challenge for the Nigerian policy space. Policies are made and dethroned or abandoned just because one minister has left a seat, one director has been redeployed, one state governor has left, one political party has gone, and so on,” he said.

 Moving in circles

In his 2,942-word inaugural speech on May 29, 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo excited Nigerians with hopes of a glorious future with his vision to fix the country’s perennial power supply and to wage war against corruption, as contained in his economic development roadmap.

Subsequently, two anti-graft agencies – Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) – were set up in 2000 and 2003, respectively, to fight corruption, seen by many as the bane of Nigeria’s economic development. Obasanjo also launched NEEDS, Nigeria Power Sector Reform Roadmap, National Poverty Eradication Policy (NAPEP), among others.

“Hopes were high; everyone expected the best governance. There was sudden quest for equality, openness, justice, etc. The choice of ministers was excellent, with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as finance minister, Frank Nweke Jr. as information minister, Nasir el-Rufai as FCT minister, among other notable Nigerians,” said Sylvan Olisa Ebigwei, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

“But sadly, nothing much came out Obasanjo’s government for ordinary Nigerians, except the GSM,” he said.

On his part, President Yar’Adua launched the 7-Point Agenda encompassing power and energy, food security, wealth creation, transport sector, land reforms, security, and education.

“The emphasis under the late president was on the development of modern technology, research, financial injection into research, production and development of agricultural inputs that will lead to a five- to ten-fold increase in yields and production. This was supposed to result in massive domestic and commercial output and technological knowledge transfer to farmers,” said John Orewhere, head, Department of Mass Communication, Auchi Polytechnic, Edo State.

On February 13, 2008, the Yar’Adua government approved The Nigerian Gas Master Plan, which was to serve as a guide for the commercial exploitation and management of Nigeria’s gas sector. It represented the concretisation of Nigeria’s resolve to become a major international player in the international gas market as well as to lay a solid framework gas infrastructure expansion within the domestic market. Its objective was to grow the Nigerian economy with gas by pursuing three key strategies: Stimulate the multiplier effect of gas in the domestic economy; position Nigeria competitively in high value export markets; and guarantee the country’s long-term energy security.

Also in his inaugural speech, President Jonathan pledged to bring an end to the unending darkness that Nigerians had experienced over the decades. He promised to focus on macroeconomic framework and set economic direction; public expenditure management; justice and judiciary; legislature; human capital development; education priority policies; development of the health sector; agriculture and food security; infrastructure policies, among others.

Subsequently, President Jonathan launched the Transformation Agenda which was eventually adopted and internalised by different ministries as a framework for the development of sectors under their jurisdiction. Prominent among them was the Agriculture Transformation Agenda launched by Akinwumni Adesina, the then minister of agriculture and rural development. Though there were criticisms against the ATA, many experts and Nigerians believe it had positive impact on the economy.

In September 2014, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the then chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora, had described President Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda as a “roadmap to nowhere”, calling for the entrenchment of quality leadership in the country with a view to addressing lingering economic woes.

“The Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government looks more like a labyrinth leading to a cul-de-sac,” Dabiri-Erewa said, adding that the agenda had not stopped the perception of Nigeria as a country consuming what she does not produce.

Also to Jonathan’s credit was the launch of Nigeria Power Sector Reform Roadmap 2010, Roadmap for the Development of Solid Minerals and Metals Sector 2012, National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) 2014, National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) 2014, among others. But the most critical of these programmes was the power sector roadmap which was believed to have the capacity to unleash quantum industrial activities in the country.

 Nigeria Power Sector Reform Roadmap

In 2005, the Obasanjo administration enacted the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA), which paved the way for the unbundling of the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA) into successor companies, with Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) as the holding company.

The power sector reform under the Obasanjo administration, according to the report of a probe conducted by the National Assembly in 2008, gulped $16 billion of taxpayers’ money but still left the country groping in the dark. Small businesses collapsed, big businesses who could afford it relocated to other countries within the West Africa sub-region while others simply closed shop.

‘Power and energy’ was a cardinal point in President Yar’Adua’s “Seven-Point Agenda” launched in 2007. The late president had explained that developing an adequate power supply so as to ensure Nigeria’s ability to grow into a modern economy by the year 2015 was top in his agenda.

However, development of the power sector was stalled until Jonathan came to power in 2010.

In August 2010, President Jonathan, who had chosen power as one of his cardinal programmes, acting on the report of the Presidential Task Force on Power and the Presidential Action Committee on Power, fully launched the Nigeria Power Sector Reform Roadmap. He promised uninterrupted electricity supply by 2012, the time the reforms were envisaged to have achieved the projected transformation.

The implementation of the roadmap saw the handing over the PHCN successor companies (generation and distribution) to private operators, with government holding on to transmission. At the time the Jonathan administration concluded the handover of the N480 billion assets of the defunct PHCN to the new investors on November 1, 2013, Vice President Namadi Sambo, who served as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, had assured Nigerians that privatisation of the power sector would improve electricity supply.

Three years after privatisation, and despite over $30 billion invested in the sector in the past 16 years, Nigerians are yet to see any improvement as both homes and businesses continue to generate their own power even in an era of increased electricity tariff.

 A failed roadmap

Victor Adeleke, an energy analyst, said the power sector roadmap under Jonathan derailed, blaming the past and present government for failing to create an enabling environment for the power generated by the state-owned IPPs, like that of Lagos State, to be transmitted to the end-users.

“The gospel truth is that the highly celebrated roadmap for power sector reform under Goodluck Jonathan has simply missed road, but can and should be redirected by the Buhari-led government. The roadmap was an indication that Nigeria’s power sector reform is fraught with difficult roadblocks but none is more daunting than the fact that the policy implementation veered off by failing to steer the original direction of the roadmap,” he said.

Adeleke noted that the first main detour was at the juncture where major public electricity assets under the privatisation exercise were sold off at ridiculously below-the-market prices to a retinue of government cronies who not only lacked the technical capacities and expertise but also the genuine interest to drive home the power vehicle.

“The most perilous mishap to the roadmap yet is that the implementation team placed all its eggs in one shaky basket. Contrary to the dictates of the roadmap, instead of prudent diversification to alternative sources of energy, implementation has been concentrated on gas-to-power,” he said.

He advised that the current administration should revisit the files on the below-the-market sales of national power assets, the role of banks in the process, the N193 billion owed to the banks by energy firms, and several billions extended to the private energy firms, adding that such approach would ultimately help to expose irregularities in the privatisation scheme, determine sincerity of purpose, and identify critical omissions towards efficient power delivery.

Roadmap for the Development of Solid Minerals and Metals Sector 2012

The development of this roadmap was borne out of “the desire for the diversification of our national economy away from over-dependence on oil as the principal revenue source…with a view to transforming the minerals and metals sector into a strategic catalyst of growth”, according to the Road Map for the Development of Solid Minerals and Metals Sector published in April 2012. Its highlights included increasing the sector’s contribution to GDP from 0.4 percent to at least 5 percent by 2015 and 10 percent by 2020; creating about 3 million direct/indirect jobs by 2015 and producing geological maps on a scale of 1:100,000 covering the entire nation by 2020. At the presentation of the roadmap in 2012, Sani Shehu, then president, Miners Association of Nigeria (MAN), said the outcome of the roadmap was a conclusion of the instruments needed to rejuvenate the erstwhile ailing sector.

 National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) 2014

Launched on February 11, 2014 by the then President Goodluck Jonathan, the NIRP was designed to support the development of a competitive advantage in the industrial sector. It was developed by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment with the aim of creating jobs, maintaining trade balance, boosting competitive advantage and increasing its GDP of 4 percent at the time to 10 percent over the following five years. The project was to focus on three sectors – agriculture, solid minerals, oil and gas – where the ministry said it saw potential comparative advantages. The three sectors were then divided into six subsectors: palm oil, textiles and apparel, basic metals, automotive assembly, base petrochemicals, and plastics and rubber.

 National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) 2014

NEDEP was launched alongside NIRP and was to focus on the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), seen as the engine room of economic development of any nation. Delivered by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Industrial Training Funds (ITF) and National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), NEDEP aimed to provide business development services, entrepreneurial training, access to affordable finance and core craft skills acquisition to Nigerian entrepreneurs. Its objective was to boost Nigeria’s rural economy and create job opportunities by providing technical, vocational and apprentice training; improved access to affordable and start-up finance; access to equipment and machines; access to markets; improved access to business development services; and improved business infrastructure and high cost of doing business.

A very ambitious programme, NEDEP targeted to generate an estimated 5 million direct and indirect jobs between 2013 and 2015 with the training of 48,000 students in skills acquisition per location (Abuja, Kano, Lokoja, Lagos and Jos) per annum.

APC government and roadmaps

In March 2014, the All Progressives Congress (APC) launched another roadmap during the presentation of its manifesto. Lai Mohammed, then national publicity secretary of the party, told BDSUNDAY in an exclusive interview that the party was going to change the story of governance in Nigeria.

“This is the first time in the history of politics in this country that a political party will arrive at a roadmap how it hopes to fix a nation through a scientific method or research, and by carrying the people along. We did not just sit down in one room and decide the contents of the roadmap; on the contrary, we first sent out a team to do a thorough study on Nigeria. What is their view about the government in Nigeria? What in their view is the most single important need of the people? What are the things they need from a government? What do they want from those representing them in government, and many others? Now, after the painstaking research, the outcome was given back to us. We now analysed it, and from there we now know that the number one problem of Nigeria is unemployment,” he said.

“By that roadmap to a new Nigeria, we say when we come to power, we shall create job, fight corruption, we shall improve the welfare of all Nigerians, and return Nigeria to the path of a greater nation; that’s what the roadmap entails. And everything in that roadmap, every policy there must be tested –will it create job? Will it cater to the needs and interest of every Nigerian? Whether we are talking about job creation, fighting corruption, healthcare, education, agriculture, housing, social welfare, peace and security – that is what the roadmap is all about, and that’s what APC has rolled out for Nigerians.”

But Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, who was the keynote speaker during the launch of the roadmap, had bluntly told the APC leaders that unless they demonstrated the attributes of competence, character and competence, “your roadmap will lead nowhere”.

The PDP, speaking through Olisa Metuh, then national publicity secretary, described it as “a roadmap to perdition”, saying the APC was pursing “a Janjaweed ideology”, which he said was the same as the “Janjaweed and the Anti-Balaka and the Seleka of the Central African Republic, whose ideology are completely anarchists”.

Since coming to power, the Buhari administration has also launched a number of roadmaps. These include the Nigerian Communications Industry Roadmap, 2016-2019, unveiled on January 26, 2016 by the Communications minister, Abdul-Raheem Adebayo Shittu, aimed to “leverage the bountiful opportunities in the communications sector to generate additional revenue for government, now that the prices of oil have been on rapid decline at the international market, create employment for our teaming youths, improve access and enhance quality of service delivery and affordability in the country”; The Green Alternative: Agriculture Promotion Policy, 2016-2020’, which is a regurgitation of previous agricultural policies, especially the Agriculture Transformation Agenda of the immediate past administration, and has the vision to revive agric sector to boost food production in the country; and Roadmap for the Growth and Development of the Nigerian Mining Industry (2016).

Recently approved by the Federal Executive Council, the new mining roadmap builds on the old roadmap that was approved by the council in 2012. The roadmap maintains the three-year tax holiday, as well as exemptions on import duties for mining equipment – incentives first implemented under the Jonathan administration. It also stipulates the creation of a new independent regulatory agency, which will assume the collective roles of the existing regulatory bodies in the sector, including the Inspectorate, Environmental Compliance and the Artisans and Small Scale units of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, which will in turn allow the ministry to focus on facilitating investment and development. According to Kayode Fayemi, the minister of mines and steel development, the new strategic plan for the sector targets expanding mining’s contribution to GDP to approximately 7 percent over the next decade, from under 0.3 percent last year, predicting that the sector could be worth $27 billion by 2025.

Nigerians say they are watching to see what difference these new roadmaps will make even as they continue to bear the brunt of the hardship brought about by the present economic recession.