Q: Once a country is already a fragile state, which Nigeria is by international standards, what does it take, in the absence of effective government, for it to become a failed state?
Good riddance! That was the reaction around the world to the end of the year 2020 last week. TIME magazine even had a cover that read: “2020 Cancelled – The worst year ever”! It was an apt description of a year that turned the world and everyday life upside down, a year brutally eviscerated by COVID-19. But 2020 was also the year of Nigeria’s 60th independence anniversary, and of my 60th birthday. Therefore, I won’t describe it as a cancelled, non-existent year. Yet, it was truly an annus horribilis!
But leaving aside COVID-19, 2020 also tested government effectiveness or state capacity worldwide. By government effectiveness, I do not mean a government’s ability to stop the spread or mortality rate of the coronavirus. On those measures, few countries covered themselves in glory. What with 83,247,114 cases and 1,815,893 deaths worldwide, as of December 31, 2020, according to the global statistical body, Worldometer! Truth is, without vaccines and individual responsibility; no government can control the mutating COVID-19.
So, government effectiveness can’t be about tackling COVID-19. Rather, it is about state capacity for essential functions; about governments’ abilities to be problem-solving and progress-creating agencies.
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The World Bank developed Government Effectiveness indicators, revolving around the ability of a government to formulate and implement sensible policies, and to deliver high-quality public services. For instance, can a government provide effective relief to its citizens during the pandemic? Can it prevent, or respond sensibly to political and social crises, including insecurity? Can a government effectively implement reforms?
Government effectiveness matters. It matters because, among other benefits, effective governments tend to have higher levels of economic growth, better educational and healthcare systems, lower levels of poverty and economic insecurity and lower security threat from organised non-state violence, such as terrorism and banditry.
But Nigeria fails the government-effectiveness test. It lacks the basic elements of effective government. Indeed, Nigeria is a fragile state. According to the 2020 Fragile State Index, compiled by Fund for Peace (FFP) Nigeria ranked 14th out of 178 countries, meaning that it is the 14th most fragile state in the world. Nigeria beats only countries like Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan, and performs woefully on the cohesion, economic, political and social indicators!
Recently, the government was up in arms when the Financial Times said in an editorial that “Nigeria is at risk of becoming a failed state.” But the FT simply judged Nigeria by global standards. The definition of state failure, according to the World Bank, is “the risk that a state is unable exclusively to ensure law and order, and the supply of basic goods, such as food, water, infrastructure and energy, or is unable to respond to or manage current or likely future emergencies.”
Can anyone objectively look at Nigeria in light of that definition and not conclude that, even if Nigeria is not yet a failed state, it is verging on becoming one? Once a country is already a fragile state, which Nigeria is by international standards, what does it take, in the absence of effective government, for it to become a failed state? Little, if you ask me!
Take the debilitating security situation. Is President Buhari’s government really in control of law and order in this country? The answer must be no. Truth is, the government has lost total control of the security situation, and its only means of dealing with terrorists and bandits is, apparently, through negotiations and payments of ransoms, as seemingly was the case with the release of the 344 Kankara schoolboys kidnapped by Boko Haram, despite the government’s unconvincing denial.
But the basic feature of state legitimacy is that a state has a monopoly on the use of organised violence within its territory. If a government lacks the monopoly of violence and has to negotiate with and pay ransoms to terrorists, we are in the territory of state fragility or, even, state failure. Recently, President Buhari said only God can secure Nigeria’s borders. What territory do you think Nigeria is in, or risks falling into?
Take another test of government effectiveness: the delivery of public services. Efficiency in the delivery of public services has a direct impact on poverty. But how efficient is the delivery of public services in Nigeria? Well, leave aside the chronic inability to provide basic goods, such as water, electricity, good public schools and good public healthcare, what about the disgraceful failure to distribute even the so-called palliatives to poor Nigerians who badly needed them during the shoddy COVID-19 lockdowns?
The UK government spent over £85bn to keep 11.5m people in employment by paying their wages while they stayed at home during the lockdowns. The US government passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, with over $2 trillion economic relief package, under which it provided direct financial assistance to workers, families and small businesses. But the Nigerian government imposed misguided lockdowns without protecting jobs or even providing basic relief to the poor.
During the recent #EndSARS riots, several warehouses were discovered where the “palliatives” for poor Nigerians were simply locked up, presumably by politicians who would later sell the goods for personal gain. The inability to distribute such basic relief materials to the neediest in society during a pandemic was an utter failing of state delivery. Similarly, the government’s N-Power programme, purportedly designed to support unemployed youths, has suffered from a failing of state delivery!
As I said earlier, countries with more effective governments tend to achieve higher levels of economic growth. Why? Because they tend to implement policies and reforms that support private sector development, boost economic activity and incentivise local and foreign investment. But in 2020, the Buhari government proved utterly unable to formulate business-friendly policies. Even when it introduced supposedly business-friendly reforms, there’s no credible commitment to implementation.
Last week, the Financial Times published a story about Nigerian ports. According to the FT, “ships lie idle at sea waiting to unload goods, while trucks can be kept queuing for weeks”, costing $55m a day in lost economic activity. But what about the ease of doing business agenda? What about Executive Order No 1 of 2017 purportedly aimed at tackling the problems at the ports? Well, as Muda Yusuf, the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry told the FT: “In the ports, practically nothing has changed.”
But government effectiveness is also about policy stability. According to IHS Markit World Economic Service (WMO), elements of policy instability include protectionist measures, such as import barriers, price controls, and political control of monetary policy. Yet, there were common practices in 2020, with the government’s several anti-business interventions. What with the import bans, the capital control and the direct political control of monetary policy, such as President Buhari’s orders to the CBN on how it should allocate foreign exchange!
Last year, Nigeria fell into recession for the second time in five years. The government blamed COVID-19 and the oil price crash. But, in truth, the recession was caused by policy failures that, for example, led FDI to stagnate at just $148.6m last year, down by about a third from a year earlier, and that led portfolio investment inflows falling to $385.3m, down 91 per cent from a year earlier, according to the FT.
Finally, consider another indicator of government effectiveness: the ability to respond sensibly to public crises. Well, with the government ordering brutal military clampdown on the peaceful #EndSARS protests, resulting in the Lekki shootings that left many dead, Nigeria fails that test too!
So, in 2020,Nigeria failed utterly to demonstrate the government effectiveness or state capacity necessary to make progress. Sadly, with the Buhari government’s adamantine refusal to do the needful, expect little to change in 2021!
Happy New Year, dear readers!
