The Nigeria we need

Q: Nigeria must strive to shape legislative lists and powers to make laws – such as to have relevant tiers of governments to be responsible for those issues that they (tiers of governments) are best suited for

I like to suggest out-front that just as we are doing here, the starting point for whoever leads the country in 2023, should be to seek answer to the cui bono question: ‘Where must I begin to start repositioning Nigeria’? The answer to this question would help the leader and the team to:

• Prioritize issues since reality shows that there would be multi- faceted challenges seeking urgent attention.
• Determine what path Nigeria may follow in the quest to join the league of developed nations in the 21stcentury.
• Determine the necessary balancing act between the pursuit of ‘brick and mortar’ issues (infrastructure, artefacts and the like) and ‘soft issues’ (knowledge, rules and ethos) that provide guardrails for infrastructure and national development.

The answers to these questions would require deep, reflective, and forthright thinking – that would task even the best among Nigerian leaders.

Fellow compatriots, ladies and gentlemen, against this background, permit me therefore to tweak the focus of the Opening Plenary by arriving at the topic: The Nigeria We Need. I am deploying this topic because one is mindful of three interrelated maxims associated with ‘Needs’ and ‘Wants’, thusly:

1. A need is an essential requirement or necessity, such that non-fulfilment of needs can lead to adverse outcomes.
2. The fulfilment of needs is essential for survival, whereas fulfilment of wants is not.
3. Needs may not change overtime, while wants do. And wants may differ according to different individuals.

After sketching out – ‘The Nigeria we need’, my intervention would highlight – ‘Why We Haven’t Fulfilled Such Needs’. The paper would round up by drawing attention on –‘How to begin to bend the curve to get the Nigeria we need’

So, what’s the Nigeria we need? The answer to this question need not be farfetched. Afterall, our national anthem (old and new) – adopted by our founding fathers and subsequent leaders – have succinctly captured the national mission statement, goals and objects. In the likely event that we may have forgotten, permit me to refresh our memories, along the following lines:

• The National Anthem adopted by the founding fathers at independence in 1960 drew attention to the fact that “…though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand”. At another line, the anthem enjoined us “…to hand on to our children a banner without stain”. The same anthem rightly concluded by asking God to “… help us to build a nation where no man is oppressed”.
• By the same token, the current National Anthem which came into force in 1978 requires Nigerians “…to serve with heart and might one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity”. In the second stanza, we are required to “…help our youth, the truth to know, in love and honesty to grow”. Finally, the National Anthem again admonishes us “… to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign”.

So, it is clear that the founding fathers and the rest of us have lofty dreams for this country. From the foregoing, the Nigeria of our dreams may well be encapsulated along three interrelated lines, thusly:

• A strong and united nation bound in brotherhood, despite our diversity.
• A nation where no one is oppressed or discriminated against on account of tribe, sex, religion or status.
• And arguably, the most telling vision (or redline, if you will), is ‘to build a nation’:

1. a) ‘Where no one is oppressed’
2. b) ‘Where peace and justice shall reign’, and
3. c) In the process help our ‘youth the truth to know’ – the very essence of teaching the youth truthful national history.

But experience teaches us that ‘National Anthems’ are at best– mission statements, intents and dreams. In other words, anthems are not an end in themselves. Furthermore, the operative phrases – ‘to build’ suggests:

1. a) The need to build a Nation-State out of multiple ethnic nationalities
2. b) The action of ‘building or constructing’ a Nation-State is continuous, and
3. c) Even older nations don’t rest on their oars. For instance, even after two centuries, – USA leaders are still driven by the quest to build a more perfect nation.

Even so, nation-building or the art of constructing a Nation-State, always requires undergirds, that enables the realization of the intents and dreams encapsulated in such statements as national anthems. Constitutions, Laws and Policies, which experts have variously dubbed – ‘Basic Norms’, ‘Institutions’ or ‘Rules of the Game’ – provide such undergirds. Reminiscent of physical buildings, Constitutions and Rules of the Game act as foundations on which nations are built. In the circumstance, if there’s a misalignment between intents and undergirds, nation-building would be difficult. Some experts go as far as positing that with misalignment, nation-building, national development and national progress would be a mirage.

So, ‘Why haven’t we realized the Nigeria we need? Whereas there were reasonable provisions in the 1960 (Independence), and 1963 (Republican) Constitutions to undergird nation-building in a plural society like ours, that republic was unfortunately cut short. And the military regimes that followed the three decades (up until 1999, bar the four-year ‘civilian interregnum’ of 1979-1993), bequeathed to the country what such administrations are usually associated with, including:

1. Suspension of the Constitution along with its nation-building underpinning provisions
2. Authority was nearly always established by force and violence – with attendant negative impact on peoples’ rights
3. Problems were often ‘solved’ by issuing more decrees, by setting up more bureaus and agencies – and charging people for such ‘services’ by adding to tax burdens or appropriating more revenues – while ignoring direct taxation of the citizenry. In the process, the typical citizen – government relationship that taxation usually engenders, was badly eroded – with attendant nation-building frustrations.

It was against this backdrop that NESG held the first summit in February 1993. Tellingly, by that date, the country was in deep crises. What with the following facts:

1. A hitherto fledgling democracy and rapidly developing economy of the early 1960s had been emasculated by three decades of governance by decrees.
2. A general election that was considered fair to usher in democratic governance was annulled.
3. Political and civil society activists agitating against the annulment of the elections – were being harassed –and exiled
4. The polity and economy were tail-spinning into chaos – instanced by urban violence and lawlessness – especially in Lagos, the country’s commercial nerve centre and bell- weather State.
5. Macro-economic environment was in the doldrums: Inflation rate at 44.59% in 1992 (31.58% change over 1991), jumped to 57.17% in 1993 (12.58 annual change). Basic infrastructure – including electricity, transportation, water and telecommunications–were at backwater standards.
6. Corruption was rife – with consistent Transparency International Corruption Index (TICI) among top three most corrupt countries. Poor and negative GDP growth: (0.36% in 1991, 4.63% in 1992, -2.04% in 1993, -1.81% by 1994).
7. Second ASUU strike in history (1992), well after the first of such strikes in 1988 – resulting in ASUU’s second ban in August, 1992–only to resume strike a year later in July 1993, following lifting of the ban.
8. Crises and conflicts in the oil-rich Niger Delta region had reached a watershed – with the 1993 murder of ‘Ogoni-4’, the 1995 subsequent trial, conviction and execution of ‘Ogoni-9’ by the FGN – resulting in the suspension of Nigeria from the 54-Member Commonwealth of Nations.

So, the cui bono question may well be – Are there parallels today?

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, because I do not want to join in lamentation only, let me acknowledge out-front, that we have made progress from those heady days of the 1990s. Let’s highlight a few. Shall we?

1. We will do well to remember that barely two decades ago, private universities were illegal. Today, we may well have a surfeit of them.
2. Add this to the fact that in less than a decade, we moved from a practically primitive telecom country (with one of the lowest tele-densities in the world) to sophisticated tele-services and one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world.
3. We are also enjoying the benefits of tele-comm-IT add-ons, including internet banking, banking reforms, comparatively ‘cashless economy’, and ‘internet of things’, social media and the like.
4. And shouldn’t we relish the very fact that with 22 continuous years and counting, this is our longest spell in democratic political governance –warts and all. With every respect, this should elicit the envy of the founding fathers. Now, if you want to treat this feat with levity, just cast your mind back to where we are coming from. You may also want to visit countries where dictatorship (and governance by decrees) is still the order of the day.
5. The 1995 Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission Act that supplanted the 1972 and 1977 Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decrees (NEPD), which hitherto restricted foreign ownership of firms and FDI flows in Nigeria, remains a watershed in the promotion of the private sector.

Read also: Democracy imperiled, redefined in Nigeria

One couldn’t be prouder for the role NESG played in some of these monumental and significant developments.

But we must confess – the parallels between 1992 and 2022 are troublingly similar – and that’s putting it mildly. We don’t have to rehash these here– they have been duly established elsewhere. And they stare us in the face. Unfortunately, even in a democratic setting the trust between the government and citizens, is yet to be strengthened, or some will even argue yet to established and there is still no social contract binding us as a nation.

So, how do we begin to bend the curve, set an agenda for leaders in 2023 and beyond – (and in the process) – get the Nigeria we need?

I like to sketch out my views on a 9-point interrelated postulation, along the following lines:

One: We will do well to accept that democratically established and rule-based governance systems are more enduring compared to dictatorships. It follows that those good rules of the democratic game – effective constitutions, laws and policies – duly negotiated and agreed upon by the people or their representatives – are more readily acceptable. Getting constitutional provisions and laws right, are so vitally important that, over 200 years ago, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America –Thomas Jefferson – opined that ‘the two enemies of the people are criminals and government. So let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so that the second will not become the legalized version of the first’. One need not say more.

Two: Our founding fathers agreed for independent Nigeria to be a secular state for good reasons: in a plural, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic country like ours, if the state (Nation-State and its federating units) act in a way that promote any religious vintage above others – that would be sowing seeds of discord. This deters cohesion, progress and development. It therefore follows, for instance, that the use of public funds to sponsor persons on religious events, building of places of worship and the like – contradicts the secular nature of Nigeria as agreed by the founding fathers at independence. Ours is a secular state –and must be seen to be so – in normative, positive and practical terms.

Three: We must be a federation – not just in name – but also in nature and in deed. In line with more successful, enduring and plural Nation-States – including the US, UK, Canada, India, Brazil– Nigeria must strive to shape legislative lists and powers to make laws – such as to have relevant tiers of governments to be responsible for those issues that they (tiers of governments) are best suited for. It therefore follows that the exclusive, concurrent and residual lists in the constitution needs reworking for a more efficient and effective federation.

Four: Ours is an economy that urgently needs a positive regulatory environment that is private sector- and business- enhancing. It therefore behoves on governments (FGN, State, LGAs) to de-personalize institutions by levelling the playing field and making it attractive to investments – both local and foreign.

Five: Our education system needs to unify and not divide, and must meet development challenges of the 21stcentury. The current figure of 20million out of school children are time bombs that are already detonating. This can be seen from egregiously high crime rates and violent conflicts bedevilling the country. So, how do we begin to reverse the trend? And how do we recover, train and equip those that have ‘passed formal school age’ – to be productive and fend for themselves? These must be in the front-burner of leaders come 2023.

Experience also informs us that curricula for schools is much more important in nation-building than the ownership of education organizations. For instance, we need to find better ways to institutionalize affirmative actions to lift the vulnerable and less endowed as against the current ‘unity school system’ – which implementation now has the unintended consequence of dividing instead unifying families, groups and Nigerians.

Equally important is the question: How do we structure our school curricula to be more amenable to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)–adjudged veritable drivers of 21^st century economic development?

Six: We must deploy more inclusive and development-enabling institutions over economic extractive ones. Whereas inclusive institutions, (including land titles for vulnerable groups and social safety-nets for the poor), bestow equal rights and enable equal opportunities, voice and access to resources, Extractive Economic Institutions(EEI) permit the elite to rule over, exploit and extract wealth from those who are not in the elite. In the circumstance, EEIs stymie national cohesion and development – with attendant debilitating effects on societal cohesion and development.

Arguably, the most debilitating economic extractive institution–‘arrived’ Nigeria in 1978 via the Land Use Decree (subsequently, Land Use Act, LUA). Ever since, an avowed ‘public-good intention’ has had the unintended consequence of imbuing elites, including State Governors and powerful people to takeover and allocate private and communal lands to themselves, and their cronies. In the process, citizens are denied their heritage with attendant negative impact on agriculture by small- and community-holder farmers, poverty alleviation and wealth creation – all to the detriment of economic development and societal cohesion.

In the circumstance, after over four decades of unintended negative consequences, the time is ripe for a comprehensive review and amendment of the Land Use Act.

Seven: Ours is a polity that’s crying for urgent solution to the insecurity bedevilling the country. As a fundamental principle of nationhood, regardless of the cost – we must deal with threats to our national security (violence, attacks, terrorism, war, espionage)–in a smart, transparent, accountable, and coordinated manner.

Eight: Nigerian leaders and citizens must appreciate the very fact that whereas economic and social infrastructure – electricity, transportation, water, housing, health, and the like play important roles in catalyzing development – freedom of choice (and associated soft issues) are inalienable rights and therefore central to human development and sustenance. For instance, despite the best intentions of Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, where among other freebies electricity was available everywhere and free, homeownership was a human right and was provided, education and health-care were available and free, farmland was available for free for agriculture, the ‘Great Man-Made River’ project (the world’s largest irrigation project) made water available free to citizens. Even so, the regime ended violently –and the rest is negative or positive reminiscences – depending on which side of the divide one appreciates.

Nine, and finally: I therefore like to conclude by reiterating that – The Nigeria We Need –is one which was envisioned, negotiated and agreed upon by our founding fathers. To wit: A democratic, federal, secular Nigerian Nation-State, in which relevant groups mutually agree on rules of engagement on an equal keel, where ethnic groups may differ, but respect and harness the good in each other. Which we handover to our children by teaching them the truth about our history, in a Nation-State where no one is oppressed and our young ones will no longer be forced by circumstances like in The Old House to wander and scatter, or as they say, japa. So, help us, God!

Text of a keynote speech by Pascal G. Dozie at the 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28) by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group