The average secondary school economics textbook in Nigeria has examples of Nigeria’s plan and vision over the years by different administrations. About a decade ago while in secondary school, I read about the Green Revolution, Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Seven Points Agenda, Vision 2020, and a host of others. Nigeria, my country, is so adept at rolling out economic policy documents but at the end of the day, the plans never come to fruition. Like the average prophet, the plans promoted visions of a great and bright future even when current actions, realities, and methods at the time suggest otherwise.
Recently, the government rolled out the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan which is the successor of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) launched in March 2017. Like the economic plans before it, the ERGP sought to achieve bold targets but failed to achieve the desired results (sounds familiar?) The ERGP was designed to diversify the economy, provide employment for the teeming youths, address human capital challenges and provide improved infrastructure. While the plan was in motion, The Brookings Institute in a report projected that Nigeria had overtaken India as the poverty capital of the world in 2018. As a matter of fact, The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has not published unemployment figures for the country since 2018. This surmises that today we do not have the required data to determine those statistics. This begs the question, ‘Why do we always have challenges with the implementation of the country’s plans, ‘Is implementation rocket science?, ‘How have other nations of the world like India and China lifted the standards of her people over the decades while Nigeria keeps failing?’
While some argue that Nigeria’s problems are unique and difficult to solve, I disagree with that assertion. I believe Nigeria has never developed the will and drive to tackle our challenges head-on. In the book ‘Why Nations fail’ by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, the central reasons identified for the failure of nations are the economic and political institutions. Simply put, Nigeria is in her present state because the economic and political elites want the situation to be that way. How else would you explain a country cutting budgetary allocations to her health sector by a whopping 42.5% in the middle of a pandemic while approving the sum of NGN27.7bn for the renovation of her national assembly? How else would you explain the government’s lavish spending over the years while critical infrastructure is left to rot?
The Economic Sustainability plan was produced in response to the economic and health challenges faced by the nation as a result of COVID 19. The plan is to help identify fiscal measures to enhance oil and non-oil government revenue spending, create a financial stimulus package for the Nigerian economy and extend protection to vulnerable groups within the nation while cutting non-essential spending. Does this sound familiar? The average Nigerian has heard all these plans in one form or the other. From the provision of adequate power supply to the development of social amenities and cutting wastage in the government, every administration has made these promises in different forms but most, if not all, have failed woefully in that regard.
Regarding the provision of economic stimulus to the vulnerable, one pertinent question we need to ask ourselves is ‘how are we sure the stimulus gets to that group?’ In a country where a significant portion of that group is presently unbanked, how can the government assure Nigerians that the funds do not end up in private pockets? During the lockdown, pictures surfaced online of government palliatives given out as cash. Today, verifying that the funds got to the right hands is a herculean task. One would expect the government to promote strategies that would ensure that even the most vulnerable have access to mobile phone digital payment systems like the MPESA which has been a resounding success in Kenya. Leakages of these sorts do not promote faith in the government’s ability to truly manage the policy well enough.
I am not a prophet of doom, but I foresee the latest plan failing to achieve the desired results. Implementation of plans require individuals who share a common goal and have the collective passion to ensure things work. Nigeria currently lacks that. The government in the past has rolled out policies to reduce unemployment by providing the enabling environment to enable entrepreneurs, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) to thrive. Quite ironically, it is the same government via its agencies that levy arbitrary charges on the small-scale businesses that provide their own power in the form of generators to run their operations. From basic activities like transportation, distributions of goods and services, etc., there is a government-backed institution that frustrates the activities of law-abiding small businesses.
No nation can thrive without a strong legal system that promotes enforcement of contracts while punishing erring parties. In Nigeria today, the average man is of the opinion that justice is for the highest bidder. We have seen how state and federal governments disobey a court order and abuse the rule of law at will. How then would you give an investor the assurance that agreements will not be breached?
Unfortunately, the latest policy document fails to address problems caused by our government institutions. I am inclined to believe the arguments of individuals who submit that top government official do not understand the reality of the average Nigerian. It appears that there is a cloak in government offices all over the federation and the FCT that prevents them from understanding or processing the basic issues facing Nigerians. It may also be that they know the challenges and are not ready to take the required steps to solve those problems. No amount of planning, projections, or PowerPoint presentation will solve that.
Hopefully, a time will come when we are finally ready to tackle our problems heads on. Perhaps as Arya Stark would say to the God of death, ‘not today’
Toluwanimi Adeyefa is an Economist/Banker, writer, and social critic. He tweets @Rcadetolu.