By Iliyasu Gadu, Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
It is no brainer that after one year in office President Tinubu has not only lost his way generally, but more ominously he has set the economy of the country on a dangerous path of no redemption. Every measure the administration has taken on the economy be it on subsidies, tariff increase, taxes, monetary policies, currency parity has not yielded the desired remedy. Thus we are inexorably heading towards a trajectory of economic uncertainty the consequences of which no one, not even the administration can predict.
How then can we extricate ourselves from the suffocation and uncertainty of President Tinubu’s economic policies?
The first thing to note is that since coming to power the administration had tended make policy pronouncements affecting Nigerians without wide consultation. The removal of subsidies which is the tap root of the harsh economic situations Nigerians now find themselves and the decision to apply sanctions on Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Niger following the overthrow of the democratic civilian rule in those countries are prime examples of President Tinubu’s policy actions in this direction. In all the cases this had resulted in severe hardship on millions of Nigerians whose livelihoods had been disrupted and even destroyed perhaps forever.
The present economic policies the president is implementing are neither the product of deep understanding of the dynamics of International economic relations nor are they the outcome of a conscious, consultative and collaborative effort involving Nigerian economic thinkers, business practitioners, employers and employees across the country. Had he done this he would have been availed of expert opinion and advice of stakeholders in the economic, social, political, security sectors of the country to put him in a better position to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if he had to. This would also enable him to better handle and share the risks and maximize the benefits and opportunities to Nigeria in this endeavour.
As it is the president chose to implement such fundamental economic policies on his own impulsive whim which has exposed him and the country to the ruthless manipulations of international economic sharks.
Thus President Tinubu missed the opportunity to lay out a profound and fundamental national economic policy incorporating the peculiarities of the Nigerian social and economic environment for the present and into the future.
The IMF knows that as president Tinubu has thus exposed and weakened himself without a fall back option on the economic policies he is implementing at their behest. It behoves on to save both the president and Nigeria from the economic quagmire we are presently in. It helps neither the president nor the Nigerian people for the president to say there are no alternatives to an economic policy that has turned the economy into a tailspin with spiralling inflation, brutal taxation, tariff hikes, unemployment and growing poverty in the land. If the president says this because he is insulated from the harsh insensitive economic policies that is turning record Nigerians into paupers then he should know that his administration is certainly bound to face a push back from the Nigerian people.
Rather than continue to be obdurate about the situation and piling up more misery on Nigerians, the president should own up to his mistakes and weaknesses in implementing these policies to the Nigerian people who elected him and to whom he owes such an explanation. And like he did with the reversal of both the sanctions he implemented on West African military juntas as well as the national anthems he should also trace his steps back and begin a genuine dialogue and consultation with stakeholders on the need for an economic restructuring of the country. The economic restructuring should be in tandem with the current moves to revert to our old political structures and policies in the country. President Tinubu cannot readily take a decision to revert to certain things and on one hand say that his economic policies which have brought severe hardship to Nigerians are not reversible or without alternative as he stated.
Nigerians need to understand that president Tinubu’s economic policies of subsidy removal, hike in tariff and tax increases are essentially and manifestly a grand de-investment exercise taking away investments in social peace and security, productivity and general economic and social well-being as well as inclusiveness of the Nigerian people from their God-given resources and honest endeavours.
That is the underlying philosophy and essence of IMF’s policies which Tinubu has signed into and to which he has committed Nigeria without the courtesy and benefit of discussions with leaders of economic and political thought.
In every country, the people are the work force and focus of development and economic growth. If Nigeria must develop, its work force must be incentivised through general and specific work place policies to enable them be as optimally productive as possible. This is the fundamental basis of any economic policy which obtains even in the principal countries of the IMF.
President Tinubu’s economic policies cannot stabilize Nigeria’s economy; they cannot provide a platform for Nigeria’s long term economic development and growth as the emphasis is on short term speculation; the policies are a recipe for social chaos and graduated insecurity across the country. What Nigerians want are not minimum wage demands and negotiations. The puny palliatives that the administration bandies about as remedy for the harsh economic measures it has instituted cannot be the basis of a sustainable economic policy for Nigeria.
Tinubu’s disastrous economic policies spare no one and are neither limited to ethnicity nor religion. So in this regard the actions to compel him to listen to Nigerians and their quest for review and restructuring of the economy must cut across the spectrum of Nigerian life.
So what is to be done?
President Tinubu should suspend his on-going engagement with the IMF and convoke a national conference on economic restructuring of the country’s economy. The economic restructuring should aim to bring about a transformational economic agenda deploying the nation’s human and material resources in a productive and inclusive synergy for Nigeria’s long term development goals.
Fundamental in this regard must be the retention of capital for investment to aid backward integration, research and reverse engineering and value added exports. This is what countries like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea and Turkey etc did to attain the level of growth that spurred their economic development.
The baseline of Nigerian economic development should begin with inputs from our economists, business operators, employers and leaders of the labour movements which should form the core of our national economic thinking taking into consideration the peculiar nature of the Nigerian social and economic environment. Then we can engage the IMF and where possible incorporate some of their economic principles. In this wise if we have to remove subsidies at all it will make more meaning if they are ploughed into massive infrastructural works projects utilizing Nigerian workers of all levels of skill from masons to structural engineers and supervised directly by the Ministry of Works. This was how the massive and extensive highways, railway networks, the housing projects were built in many countries directly by workers who are recruited, trained and progressed in the construction projects. Indeed this was how the railways, roads and GRAs were built in the colonial days some of which exist today.
This is how we can effectively utilize the fuel subsidy removal; money saved is ploughed back and retained through mass employment, training and skills acquisition, supply and fabrication of construction materials, reverse engineering and quality assurance and overall national infrastructure development and economic recovery. (Concluded)
Iliyasu Gadu, a former Foreign Service Officer who served at the Nigerian Missions in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK), is a columnist with Daily Trust