The advice by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, that President Muhammadu Buhari summon an emergency meeting on the economy appears on the surface innocuous but deep down, it is fully loaded and ominous.
*Buhari |
On a visit to the
Dr. Josef Goebbels of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Soyinka
called for an emergency conference on the economy to which people outside
government circles will also be invited, such as consumers, producers, Labour
unions, experts on the economy, University egg-heads, among others.
Note Soyinka’s exact
words: “I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue
operation bringing as many heads as possible together to plot the way forward.”
We must also note that the Nobel Laureate, being not just a man of letters but
also one with an internationally-acclaimed mastery of the English Language,
gingerly and delectably picks his words. He means the words that he uses; no
idle or wasteful word is allowed.
So, look at the
words he chose to employ in just that sentence: “I think we really need…”
meaning that it was a carefully thought-out process that brought out his
advice; he was not whimsical about it. He did not just wake up from the wrong
side of his bed to begin to rant; the advice was his considered opinion.
*Wole Soyinka and Lai Mohammed |
And he was emphatic
that not only do we need the conference he is advocating, “we really need” it.
That emphasis is very important. The Soyinka conference will not be just any
ordinary, mill-of-the-run, daily conference but an “emergency economic
conference”; what he advocates is an extra-ordinary conference, as it were.
We all know the
difference between a scheduled, normal meeting and an emergency\extra-ordinary
meeting. Going along with an emergency is the necessity to make haste; to hurry
up with the aim of averting possible or looming danger.
The Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary defines emergency as “a sudden serious and dangerous event
or situation which needs immediate action to deal with it”. Soyinka says what is
needed now is "a rescue operation”; you rescue what is in danger or what has
been lost or stolen e.g. the Chibok girls.
And you do so in\by
an operation; lighting operation possibly in a military fashion; taking the
opponents\enemies by surprise; churning out in rapid succession series of
precision attacks that will not only daze but also totally uproot the enemy.
This is not the time
for go-slow action; the type that allowed Boko Haram escape with the Chibok
girls before we starting asking "where are they?” What is needed is (surgical)
operation because the patient’s condition (i.e. Nigeria ) is critical. This is no
time for palliative measures. “Emergency” and “operation” go hand-in-hand – and
this time, its purpose is a rescue mission. We have lost\we are losing\we are
about to lose something as important as our economy (i.e. the blood that runs
in the country’s veins) and prompt and quick action is needed to avert such a
disaster.
Soyinka wants “as
many heads as possible (to be brought) together” to undertake this urgent and
critical national assignment. What it means is that he is not convinced the
number of “heads” currently tending to the matter is enough – presumably both
in quantity and quality.
Therefore, he wants
a foray further afield in the search for solutions. I understand him to mean
that a non-partisan gathering of “heads” is what is needed at this juncture. We
must therefore jettison “us” and “they”; “our government” and “our
opponents\enemies” mentality. It will be unhelpful at this point in time when
all hands are needed to be on the deck to rescue the nation.
Soyinka is quite
clear and emphatic about the purpose of the emergency conference on the economy
that he has called for; it is “to plot the way forward”. This can only mean
that we are not going forward at the moment; what we have\what we are doing is
taking us anywhere but forward. In other words, we may be stagnating at the
moment; we may even be regressing\ going backward or we may be moving in
cycles, like the proverbial barber’s chair.
All motion; little
or no movement; all sound and fury but signifying nothing, to quote William
Shakespeare. A new “plot” is needed to move the nation “forward”. Either there
is no such plot at the moment or what we have is so defective\useless that it
cannot guarantee our going “forward”.
The beauty of it is
that Soyinka is not an enemy of the Buhari government; in fact, he will be
classified more as friend than as enemy of the APC. And he did not make his
comments outside but took the pains to travel to the appropriate quarters – the
Minister of Information’s office in Abuja
– to offer his priceless advice.
I hope it is well
taken – and taken also in good faith. With those who get easily irritated by
the slightest show of dissent, Soyinka’s advice can earn him the status of a
persona non grata. But that will not in any way help this administration.
Already, important players in the economy have queued behind Soyinka – the
Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria, and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and
Industry, for instance.
As at the time of
writing this, the official currency, the Naira, which used to exchange at N165
to the US $
when Buhari took over last May, was exchanging for close to N400 to US$ – and
there was nothing suggesting it would not continue the free fall. This
staggering depreciation in the value of the Naira poisons the system for
everyone – except, of course, the speculators and round-trippers.
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