Buhari needs to strengthen system institutions – expert

Industry watchers have urged President Muhammadu Buhari to expedite action on strengthening institutions if his plans to bring about change must yield result.

They observe that a weak and ineffective political, economical, physical, social institution in the country has been the bane of the current dilemma the nation faces today.

Owolabi Usman, head, department of management and accounting, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, observes that what drives a system are the institutions embedded in that system.

According to him, “Nigeria has one of the weakest institutions. We run one of the most careless economies in the world because our institutions are either not functioning or functioning weakly. We don’t have strong economic institutions, political institutions, social institutions and others that can drive the kind of economy we all deserve and desire.”

Usman opines that there is a wide gap between policymaking, economic articulations, managers of the economy and the institutions through which these policies are to be driven.

“Only strong institutions that can enforce the policy are most desirable.

“If I advise President Buhari that we should as a nation increase rice cultivation and reduce importation because we have the land and climate that can grow rice, and as such save money every year, but tell me, are the government institutions at the borders working?

“At every Nigerian border, you have numerous security agencies and operatives and in between all of them, all the contraband products still come into the country. So, how will the policy be effective? So, that is the problem with the institutions. And that is why the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari will go along way to help Nigeria achieve her goal if we can strengthen the institutions and organs.”

The university don further stressed that for the Nigeria economy to grow it must go beyond just buying from other economies to selling to other economies as a way of creating more employment opportunities for the teeming population.

Explaining that the economy that develops is the economy that sells, he stressed that “any economy that only buys can never develop. Once you are an economy, you must sell to others. As long as you are only buying, you can never grow as an economy because when you sell, you get a receipt and boost your economic activities, and you generate more employment opportunities, growth expand. You don’t base your economy on natural endowments, you base it on knowledge.

“Today, we are talking of knowledge economy not a natural endow economy. Japan does not have a drop of crude oil, yet they have 11 functional refineries. Nigeria has abundant oil resources yet we don’t have functional refinery.

“Japan is able to create employment opportunities for engineers, technicians, generate more employment while Nigeria spends a lot of money to bring in expatriates, technicians, so how can our economy grow?

“So, what is Nigeria selling to the world? Even to neighbouring African countries? We buy virtually everything. Imported shoes, imported cars, imported cloths. We even bought imported computers and when we go online we only download and never upload.

“So, that is the situation of our economy and we need to address it if we want to achieve anything serious. Then, it is unfortunate that in the Nigerian system, those that loot our treasury and deserve our stones are the ones we are celebrating and worshipping,” he said.