STATE OF THE NIGERIAN NATION: BY H.E. PROF. PAT UTOMI

PRINCE FRANK ONAIVI UKONGA COMMENTS ON THE CANDID TRUTH REVEALED BY H.E. PROF. PAT UTOMI ON STATE OF THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION : COURTESY OF THISDAY GROUP:

State of the Nation by Prof. Pat Utomi

The signals about the state of our nation are pervasive and palpable. In my church “The prayer for Nigeria in Distress” has returned.  The newspaper before me as I reflect, has a piece, wondering if Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will be the last President of Nigeria, and small pub talk seems to have reached a consensus that the first 100 days of the current administration has been, to put it charitably, anything but what people had hoped for.

Still this reflection has been particularly challenging for me.  It has been so for a variety of reasons.  First I took the view that if our democracy is to mature, we have to cultivate what is “practiced restraint” to allow a new government a honeymoon to implement their promise so that share partisan bickering from day one, when what they are trying to do is not even clearly articulated in a legislative agenda, and the unfolding of certain policy initiatives, do not frustrate governance.

Secondly, the states of things are so fragile that a responsible statesman must be on guard, lest a statement not too well considered, produce an outcome more damaging to our collective desire for peace and progress.

Thirdly, this is a time of rapid change in the global arena making a certain delicacy in how we position, see ourselves, and project into that arena, critical for the legacy we bequeath to our children.  It was important to make haste slowly at times like this in terms of rush to judgement in public comments.

All things considered, however, the grave nature of the current condition is such that failure to alert the simple, the ordinary, and the mighty and powerful about our country’s sad race towards anarchy may be a betrayal of the mission of my generation, in the Franz Fanon sense.  Perhaps patriotic counsel can cause a reflection and review that may yet save us all unwarranted agony.

In this review, which is by no means exhaustive, we consider security of the governors and the sovereign wealth fund, we also reflect on failing institutions from the Judiciary to the Central Bank, the healthcare system, infrastructure in a rapidly urbanizing situation, the deepening electric power crisis and labour tensions.

Then we shall speak on the issue of constitutional reform, fiscal federalism and the competitiveness of the Nigerian economy as well as challenges with agriculture, corruption and the cost of governing.

On Security
The first demand of modern man on the Leviathan is security.  Escape from the philosophical “state of nature”   is pointless if the state cannot provide security.  Yet to read our newspapers is to read a “manifesto” on insecurity.  Kidnappings are now daily routine that attract little coverage unless high profile targets like Mikel Obi’s father and Dr. Kusamotu’s daughter are involved.  Armed robbery reigns in many parts and big target hits like banks are not rare anymore.

Then there is terror.  I do not have the statistics of exodus from Maiduguri but most admit that it is headed to “ghost town” status.  The suicide bombing of the UN Building in Abuja, finally brought to the World, after the Police Force Headquarters bombings the phenomenon of Nigeria’s journey to Pakistan, which has already paralyzed several states in the North East of Nigeria.

To this alarming situation can be added saber rattling in the traditional Niger Delta battleground, and Plateau State’s travel on the road to Somalia.

Sadly, this has been tragedy foretold. The book by the American writer Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy, in which West Africa’s descent into wanton criminality, ethnic and religious conflict and the revenge of the poor, pointed to Jos going this wayv15 years ago.  But we did nothing, I was recently in Jos to speak at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru. 

To encourage responsible Youth, I spent hours in Radio interviews, and in meetings to motivate Youth to consider the dignity of the human person cardinal, and human life sacrosanct.  I was sad that a day after my visit one of those youth listening to me died a torturous death in these ethnic and religious orgies that have stripped beauty from once serene Jos.

In the face of all this the reaction of government has been pathetic.  Every new event shows that intelligence, instead of improving, is caving in.  The desperate need to rethink the structure of the police force is apparently ignored even as experience around the world suggest the imperative of decentralization and review of command structure.

I have always favoured community policing and the need for state and regional police force but the fact that no serious discussion seems to be going on about this makes one wonder what the purpose of the Federal Executive Council is. Evidence suggests that the FEC has become a tender board rather than the national operating committee engaging on our key challenges.

Failing Institutions
Central to my model for reviewing state performance for years are six critical variables.  Among them, the state of Institutions, the Value System (Culture) and Leadership.  The state of institutions is a veritable barometer for the health of a nation.  Weak institutions have been the bane of progress in Nigeria for a long time.  In the last 100 days they just got much worse.

Particularly traumatized and traumatizing for Nigeria are the immobilizing punches to the midsection of the last frontier institution, the Judiciary.

It is considered the hope of the Common Man, and the final bastion for expectation that all will get a fair, if not perfect chance to actualize in Civil Community.

The issues around the controversy over allegations by the lead judge of the Court of Appeals, Justice Salami, and the handling of the matter by the government left a sour taste about the possibilities of Justice in Nigeria.  This is the dominant reason why many investors skip over Nigeria in spite of alluring market possibilities.  As author of the 1998 book: Managing Uncertainty.  I have evidence based reasons to be frightened about a future in which the judiciary declines so badly in the estimation of fair minded people.

Institutions are so central to progress that in dealing with them state actors must be focused on the long term good of society rather than small time transaction partisanship.  Nigeria is hemmoraghly badly from the many errors of judgment of Justice Kastina-Alu and the Presidency. 

I recall that in my response when the story first broke I had suggested that both Kastina-Alu and Salami resign graciously, not because they were right or wrong but because the responsibility of high office which they had attained, made saving the institution more important than establishing who was right or wrong.

Just as troubling is the case of the Central Bank stumbling from one set of questionable decisions to another.  I have to confess that each time I think of the actions of the CBN in the last two and half years the metaphors that strike me are Adolph Hitler in Germany and Juan Peron in Argentina.  Both men enjoyed public acclaim in populist jingoism of their style but the effort in the end was the near destruction of their countries. 

Argentina went from being more or less at par with the United States in 1939, as Allan Beattie lucidly shows in his surprising Economic history of the World, False Economy, to West Africa level GDP by the 1990s, thanks to Peron’s nationalism.  Hitler brought utter devastation to the Third Reich.

The description by someone of the CBN functioning like an Animal farm of mental asylum run by raving lunatics, is an extreme parody of George Orwell.  What I am more saddened by is that we will wake up 10 years from now and realize this CBN has done more damages to the Nigerian economy than all the corrupt bank executives removed and left behind through some of the most arbitrary choices I have ever encountered as a student of the public policy process around the world, put together.

Even more ridiculous than the disruption of the financial system is the Islamic Banking matter that could result in the breakup of Nigeria.  There is nothing peculiar about non-interest banking of even one of an Islamic flavour.  I had collaborated with Alhaji Umaru Mutallab and others in trying to explain it, several years ago, including featuring the subjects on Patito’s Gang.  But this CBN, staying in character, to score cheap points has made it polarizing.

What is troubling is not that CBN is the way it is, the matter is that the administration has watched unconcerned as it is dealing death blows to the economy.  A sick and enfeebled Umaru Yar’Adua could stop the decimalization programme of CBN so why is autonomy an excuse to hand cheques to people working at dismantling the economy.

The National Assembly is quick to claim the powers of appropriation, so how much have they done to check tax payer’s monies being recklessly disbursed in the name of banking reform.  One illegality after the other has gone on and the Attorney – General office has pursed shadows elsewhere.

If government is serious it should invite independent international analysts to review every decision of CBN from the stress test to nationalization to establish if the protest travesty has not been inflicted on investors and citizens.  What seems sure is a decline of the sector and the economy for whose sake SAP sought financial deepening and the banking sector liberalization that was to be its processor.

Suddenly we are back to those times when people bribed to be appointed bank executives by a public sector in which we have a “tragedy of the commons” writ large.

In one year before better connected people replace the successful bribers from one round of executive changes, the appointed would have done maximum damage.   I still clearly remember a few people who went through that between 1990 and 1994.  The CBN error unchecked will surely add to the unemployment time bomb.

The Unemployment Time Bomb
We have a young population.  Every year they reach working age in their millions but an economy in which government action has stifled private initiative and growth appropriate to our “demographic dividend” has been unable to provide the required jobs.

In 100 days we have seen no bold initiative articulated or the implementation of our effort at putting idle hands to work and stimulate the private sector to hire many more. This is a time bomb receiving platitudes rather than action.

Rapid job creation will have to come from creative initiatives in agriculture, manufacturing recitation, and infrastructure development.

The Sovereign Wealth Fund and Governors’ Amnesia
In recent weeks governors have carried on an assault on a law so recently passed to enable us save a little for the benefit of the next generation.  The excuse they offer for recovering from amnesia suffered when the issue became law is the grand norm,  the law.

This idea is not new.  It was raised when the excess crude account was first suggested and later implemented.  I recall saying to Lagos State Finance Commissioner, Wale Edun, who worried that I supported the “illegality” of states funds being held back that I think we should quickly change that grand law rather than fail to save.

My take is that the governors perceive a weekend presidency and are deepening the politics of power erosion to take more resources to consume now.  This is inspite of a “lottery effect” that has been evident with the states being less effective in serving the needs of the people with more money that comes as wind fall, relative to the wealth creating regional governments of the times of true federalism in the 1960s.

In some ways this anti-savings disposition of governors already seen as reckless spenders by the people seems so impolitic.  It leaves the impression of a perverse generation of politicians that has raided the barn stored up by their fathers, are various consuming what today has brought by accidents that include little of their effort and a reaching-in to devour the patrimony of their grand children.

I have for year’s advocated constitutional reform that would allow a fiscal regime in which percentage of revenues going to the distributable pool, the federation account, the next tranche of revenues from mineral income going to stabilization fund and the balance to a future fund.  The last two revenue stores would be managed like mutual funds where the bolding of each state is as per their constitutionally prescribed share.

Citizenship behavior needs to be exercised in the direction of putting pressure on the governors to back off the track they are traveling.

Forging Consensus
Leading Nigeria out of its current state of self double, when the prospects of rapid economic growth and prosperity have never been more self evident require visionary effort to forge elite consensus.  Phenomenal opportunity for that in the last 12 years has been squandered by leaders too limited to see the value of playing statesman and bringing all the valuable human assets of our country under one roof especially in a time of crisis as we have today. 

With so many embittered that their country is in the firm grip of those who do not lead it well in the direction other nations are going and experiencing progress.  It is no surprise that Nigeria’s core is being rocked, both violently and in terms of a sense of despair from its intellectual elite who have moral authority, if not power. 

If those who are perceived to know and are committed, stay outside perceived to know and are committed, stay outside “pressing” in progress will be hard.  Mahathir Mohammed discovered this in Malaysia and worked to get all into the house, pissing out.

•Professor Utomi is a Political Economist and Entrepreneur.

comments of prince frank onaivi ukonga:
I agree 100% with the candid views of the Erudite Prof. He has accessed the state of Nigeria with an eagle Eagle eye and proffer solutions that would really help to build a vibrant egalitarian Nation of Sub Saharan model.
CBN: The gestapo in the CBN should be quickly looked into as the Prof. rightly demanded for a non politicized nor patronizing .
SECURITY; H.E.Prof. pat Utomi was emphatic on security so that Nigeria will not become the Hobebian state where life will be short brute and nasty leadership of the CBN and a review of its patronizing policies... this is very important...
WEAK INSTITUTIONS...This is very true . It is only in Nigeria that you can find individuals stronger than national institutions and the will of this individual come first and can lord their will on all of us... the Prof. was very correct about this.
REDUNDANCY: H.E Prof. Pat Utomi spoke about UNEMPLOYMENT TIME BOMB ...This is very true as we have above 200million Nigerians unemployed statistics from MAN  ...Manufacturer's Association of Nigeria...
GOVERNORS FORUM & SOVEREIGN WEALTH..Gov. Ameachi the Chairman of Governors Forum has to come to terms with H.E.Prof. Pat Utomi about the necessity and sufficiency reason de entree of Sovereign fund and the need to keep something for posterity....
I hope the policy makers will listen to H.E. Prof. Pat Utomi but for rest of the Nigeria COMPATRIOT I advice you to listen and believe in the candid truth of the great Prof.He is a man of GOODWILL