Nigerians are rightly infuriated that such an enterprising people have been mired in poverty for so long, while other societies with so much less, have soared past you. The forthcoming elections will be a time of ‘pass-the-blame’. Many scapegoats will be paraded before you, and I could join in. But instead, I am going to suggest something that will unite almost everyone – but it will do so, only because you will all disagree with what I have to say.
I am going to suggest that the bitter divisions that will be all too visible during the election campaign are the essence of the problem that you continue to face. Nigeria lacks a sense of common purpose around a forward-looking agenda. That sense of common purpose would not,primarily,be a matter of specific policy choices, (although there are, of course, many that would improve the situation). It would begin from a commitment that the adult lives of your children would be decisively better than your own. Around that base of shared purpose, you would recognize the shared identity that binds your fates together, and devise a practical agenda for going forward, step-by-step.
We see the power of common purpose in both China and Rwanda, remarkable societies from which you should not be too proud to learn. Under Mao, China was an ideologically driven train wreck, but his successor, Deng, galvanized people around an agenda of building a strong China that would end the humiliation of a proud people at the hands of the West.
This produced a unity of purpose between government and people, and each side had visibly to keep its part in the bargain. The government had to deliver the policies that kept the economy growing fast; citizens had to comply with what government wanted them to do. It was far from perfect but it delivered spectacular success.
Nigeria has lacked a sense of common purpose: each has been for himself or his group. Those in power have abused their office; ordinary citizens have supported their ethnic group rather than their country. Nigerian governments have done too little to build up citizen trust in government. Nigeria is by no means alone in that, but it matters more because in Nigeria the government is the custodian of oil wealth. Without citizen trust no government can be effective: it needs the willing compliance of citizens to pay tax and to obey the law: Nigeria achieves neither. To restore trust, the government needs to promise only what it visibly delivers, and do that time-after-time.
Deng’s proposed method of getting China to grow was far more genuinely revolutionary that Mao. It was ‘It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice’. In other words, it was pragmatism: ‘we’re going to do whatever we find works best’.
Whatever has guided Nigeria’s governments, it has seldom been learning from what works best:on the contrary, Nigeria seems currently to be repeating the mistakes of 1984-86.
China uses its decentralized region structure systematically to try different approaches out in different places and then learn from what works. Nigeria has the same decentralized structure, but where is the spirit of learning from experiment? Lagos State has been demonstrating for two decades that with good leadership it is possible for ethnically diverse people to build common purpose – financing improving public services through taxes on
citizens rather than relying on oil. Which other states have followed its path? Instead, every politician claims that they have the answer, and none have the humility to say that that will learn from others.
The election campaign will generate noisy claims for ‘My group wants more!’, matched by political promises of ‘More for everyone!’ that have never been kept, because they cannot possibly be kept. Yet the most elementary aspect of common purpose for a better future is willingness to share a phase of sacrifice. Shared sacrifice should, of course, start at the top, but everyone should play their part. For an entire generation, the Chinese people restrained their consumption to achieve an astounding savings and investment rate of around 50 percent: no wonder the economy grew so fast that their children now have dramatically better lives.
Nigerians should have found it easier to save and invest – you have been depleting the massive asset of oil. Instead, you have used your vast natural asset for consumption, which is why you have precious little to show for it. There is still a lot of oil left and so an absolute priority for the future is that all further depletion of oil should no longer be used for consumption, such as financing the vast government wages bill. You should be
paying that out of non-oil taxation. Oil revenues should be used only for investment. It is the
least you owe your children – otherwise what will they say of you? Is any politician proposing that? I dare not even suggest that you learn from the new decision of Ghana to establish an independent Fiscal Council. It is composed of highly respected non-political people who have the power to pronounce publicly on whether policy is prudent. Nigeria is not short of such people, and you most surely need the equivalent, but I am not holding my
breath.
And finally, all successful futures depend upon the success of firms in the private sector. The Rwandan government recognized that and has systematically cleaned up its business environment, rising up the Doing Business ratings like a rocket.
President Kagame oversees the process of making public policy effective, holding the top 200 public officials to account annually for their performance at a three-day retreat in an army camp.
Virtually all your presidents have been familiar with army camps, but have they used them for this purpose?
(This article is authored by Paul Collier a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University)
