It emerged in the last two weeks that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is expanding its search for oil in the North and in the middle belt. Ordinary, it is wonderful to search for oil, but early this week, media reports suggested that the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, was quoted to have called for patience in finding that oil, coming at the back of continuous and intense search for oil in the region in the last four years.
In relation to this search, the Punch newspaper had written a very damning editorial on November 20, 2017. They made three important points in the editorial that is worth reporting here. First, they argued that the search was a “wrong step (by the President) ordering the NNPC to double up its search for oil in the North”, for which it thought the government has spent US $340 million and N27 billion in seismic expedition. Second, the editors argued that the search for oil in the Lake Chad area started almost forty years ago, “initiated when President Buhari was Federal Commissioner for petroleum. Third, the editors argued,“politics, rather than sound economics, underlies the compulsive oil search”.
It is not surprising that this is back in the news, two weeks to election. But that is not the focus of my piece. Rather, it is that there is a thin thread that runs through the actions and policies of the President, and if he wins the election, and does not change, nor embark on economic reforms, will be dangerous for the economy. This symptom of the actions and policies of the President is best illustrated from the angles of the three cardinal campaign issues. And I now take them one after the other.
First, let us look at the economy. In 2014, in the period leading to the election, the economy had just become the largest economy in the Africa, surpassing South Africa, after rebasing. Nonetheless, it suffered from three important weaknesses. While the economy was growing, it was not providing sufficient and adequate jobs for the youths emerging from our poor and weak education system. It was also dependent majorly on a single export, and thus required that we diversify our exports. Third, and tied to the second point is that government revenue was not as diversified as the economy. So, the purpose of voting for Mr. President was to correct what was wrong, and not to “kill” the economic growth of those years.
There are similarities with the fight against corruption. Nigerians acknowledge there was serious problem with corruption. Everyone knew it had become a systemic issue, widespread and has severe implications for Nigeria’s growth, prosperity and inequality. They also recognise that the fight against corruption in the past had been one sided, and that the indiscipline of those in leadership had allowed corruption to continue to fester and also grow. Finally, they recognise that our politics is largely motivated, tainted and sustained by corruption. In the context, without necessarily saying so, they had imagined that Mr. President, with a perception and record of prudence, would deal specifically with these aspects of corruption.
In the case of security, the President campaigned and responded to the fears by Nigerians that insecurity was becoming a grave and potent danger, capable for dividing and destroying the country. Indeed, the motivation also was very simple. From 2013 onwards, it had become really scary that Boko Haram had become an unbearable menace and a full-blown terrorist organisation, especially given the consistent suggestion at the time that it was linked to Al Qaeda and the El Shabab in Somali.
There is no doubt that the President and his handlers will make references to the successes it has recorded on the security front and in the area of corruption. On the security front, there have been successes, but they will also admit that those successes have been below expectation. Nigerians voted for a President they believe will decisively deal with Boko Haram because they believed his knowledge of the military would be helpful.
But it is in the area of corruption that this thin thread becomes clearer. The successes in the area of corruption are largely personal, meaning that whatever successes recorded are not in response to some systemic change but on personal conviction by those in certain level of leadership. Also, and this is very important, while the President has pursued vigorously fighting the corruption of the past, he has not made the same progress in fighting the corruption of the present. We thus have a President that has vigorously used the policies established by previous administration in fighting the corruption by opposition, ironically using the policies established by them in fighting them, especially the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) of our accounts.
In conclusion, the thin thread that runs through the search for oil, and the actions and policies of the President is the extent and scope of the imposition of the personal belief of the President. What we see is that the progress is associated with the personal belief of the President and not a display of how we think it should really work. In the search for oil, it would have been better to rely on sound economics, and by extension, rely on the major oil companies to search for the oil. Yes, if there is oil there, they will find it.
In fighting corruption, it will be better to rely on systemic approach, and make reforms that build on the progress made and not on the personal conviction of the President. On the economy, it should not be about the expansion of the State, but on critical economic reforms that will pull in investments. For instance, while we are searching for oil in the North, the country is missing out on investments in the sector because we have not passed the PIB. On power, we are missing out on investments because we believe the poor should not pay more for power. They already do. So, please, Mr. President, stop this personal approach to Presidency, especially because any progress made will not be sustained.
I thank you.
Ogho Okiti
