By Iliyasu Gadu, Ilgad2009@gmail.com
(08035355706 Texts only)
Co-determination as a template of economic management had helped many countries around the world to integrate the key economic sectors and thus organize economic recovery and development going forward. Over the years, it had proven to be the catalyst for creating synergy between workers/employees right from the primary stages of an enterprise to the complex level of big industrial conglomerates. The key feature here is that workers, managers and employers are involved in the decision making along the chain of production. This makes it feasible to determine issues of production targets and performance.
As it is, Nigeria is a huge field of infrastructural, industrial and social challenges that must be met in order for us to progress from an underdeveloped to a developed country. We can only begin this by identifying these challenges and kick starting the process that will drive the attainment of these outcomes.
Imperative of Comprehensive Labour Reforms
Obviously, in this regard, the first priority has to be given to the Labour Force. For the huge challenges we have to meet in our quest for economic development, there has to be a comprehensive overhaul of our Labour sector.
Presently, the scope of the involvement of our Labour sector in development objectives is severely limited. Our Labour sector is hardly involved in the design of projects, execution and management. And where they get involved, their impact is of little consequence. It is not helped that successive governments have tended to treat Labour in the form of a trade union group discussing only matters of wages and remunerations which government dispenses at its whim.
As a matter of economic and social necessity, in order to advance economic development goals, government must initiate the establishment of a Nigerian Federation of Labour (NFL) that it will partner with for the identification, execution and management of strategic public economic projects. For this the Labour sector should be tasked with engaging the huge teeming young people of working age in the country left to wallow without productive pursuits helpful to national economic development.
The huge public infrastructure projects that we will need to deliver must have in the Labour complement our teeming young people involved from the lowest to the highest tasks relative to the quality, skill, training and expertise required in the projects. The projects should not be conceived merely as contracts to be delivered by foreign or local contractors on piecemeal basis as currently obtains. They should be conceived, executed and managed as national development projects with training, capacity and skills acquisition, cost management, design expertise and application, quality control and project management. Along the process of these projects, the country will derive multi-faceted value in economic, social management, strategic and value terms.
Economically we will cut costs, we would also resolve to a large extent the issue of unemployment among the people of working age and the attendant social issues. The projects will also produce economies of scale boosting and integrating a chain of economic activities involving millions of Nigerians across the country. Most of all, we will have projects delivered by Nigerians who have acquired the requisite training, skills and expertise to conceive, design and deliver other projects. This will enable us have the necessary skill reserve to confidently undertake not just local projects but outside ones within the African sphere thereby helping to boost our strategic presence in the continent.
This template is not new to Nigeria. The British colonialists in their need to dominate and extract resources had priority projects like railways, local and trunk roads, government reservation areas etc. As early as the turn of the last century these projects had reached hinterland towns like Kano, Kaura Namoda and Nguru. These projects also led to the establishment of towns like Enugu, Port Harcourt, Aba, Kaduna, Kafanchan, Zungeru, Jos etc helping not just to boost the local economies, but also migration and social integration. Although these projects were not designed by our people but by the British, our people did however participate in their execution and management. The skill pool developed under these projects enabled its management by our people throughout the colonial period and beyond.
Renegotiation of terms and conditions of our International financing and trade relations
Of course, this is the tricky part of the new economic paradigm we should adopt to our path to economic recovery and transformation. Countries like America, United Kingdom, EU etc will apply pressure on us not to follow this path and for good measure they will despatch their economic and financial hit men from the IMF and World Bank to threaten us. A good many of our ‘’economists’’ and ‘’financial analysts’’ will echo such threats in the media with fake figures and conclusions. But the fact remains that no country in the world had ever recovered or developed by adopting IMF and World Bank recommendations hook, line and sinker. Indeed there are countries in the world that have even grown exponentially under withering economic sanctions and trade and financial restrictions. Fact is, the presence of gravitational force did not and could not deter flight; it only challenges you to find ways to defeat or manage the force of gravity with appropriate mathematical and physical calculation and application.
Nigeria is no spring chicken and our country does have some unique selling points it could deploy in the International scene to advance its economic interests. For far too long, we have punched below our real weight in the international arena because we are busy looking at the muscles of others and not appreciating ours.
In international relations, the overriding principle is that you get what you negotiate. Nobody gives you a free lunch and if you do not have a plan you get shafted, pure and simple. What we need to do is come up with our own all- encompassing economic and social plan integrating our economic sectors and how we can link them up in a productive process. Just as the folks in the IMF do, we should also key into their thought pattern and determine ahead what they are likely to come up with and how we can respond.
One thing for sure is that the IMF, World Bank and their principals cannot afford to ignore Nigeria no matter what. The World is changing and new economic powers are emerging in the global horizon with interesting offers for cooperation and partnerships. The older economic superpowers are themselves not on sound economic footing. If we have a good economic plan and stick to it we could cut a deal both ways for our own benefit. That is what this paper is about.
We cannot continue to deny the economic development that we owe ourselves and the people around the world that expect such from us, under whatever pretext. We are neither constrained by resources – both human and material – nor by geographical location. We are however constrained by our inability to think out of the box of our current economic circumstances and we have allowed ourselves the dangerously complacent thinking that our economic salvation can only come some supposedly benevolent folks who have more grey matter in their brains than ours on our economic issues.
Conclusion
That is the fallacy behind the Tinubu economic reforms which the administration maintains there is no alternative to. As long as there is alternative to night which is day, there is also alternative to Tinubu’s economic reforms which are what I tried to sketch out in this article. It draws on the practical economic experiences of America, Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Israel and even in our historical experience under colonial rule.
The Nigerian people should take this as a starting point to develop and adopt as a paradigm for economic and political recovery and transformation which we must challenge President Tinubu to implement going forward. And if he does not, the Nigerian people should exercise their rights to vote in people who could do it. (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