If
Nigeria is working, we will know! Those were the exact words of late Prof Chinua
Achebe, Africa’s foremost novelist and distinguished intellectual. In other
words, the citizens do not need any bogus claims by government’s megaphones to
realise that there is an improvement in their country’s economy because it will
automatically translate to an enhancement in their lives.
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| *President receiving a get-well card |
And as
they enter the markets to procure their basic needs or engage service providers
for some of those services they just cannot do without, they would certainly
have direct encounters with the “improvements” their country is alleged to have
witnessed.
But
sadly, what they are still seeing everywhere are benumbing evidences of
further deterioration and the attendant pains – a direct result of
very poor management of their country.
The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a report in March and announced that
the “Nigerian economy is recovering.”
The
people who read the report must have echoed: which Nigeria? The one we live in
or another?
“Real
GDP increased by 1.9 per cent in 2018, up from 0.8 per cent in 2017, on the
back of improvements in manufacturing and services…and strides to improve the
business environment,” the IMF crowed.
Now did you just
hear that in this country, there is an “improvement
in manufacturing and services…?”
Could, somebody,
please, furnish us with specific examples of this milestone? Is this not the
same country where companies are folding up or relocating to other places due
to the high cost of doing business here caused mainly by the seemingly
intractable epileptic electric power supply, rising insecurity and unstable
policies?
Although, the IMF
moderated its optimism and toned down its report at several sections, those
brazen declarations of unverifiable “recovery” and “improvement” can only be
seen as an advertisement of gross insensitivity to the fragile feelings of
hapless Nigerians trapped in the throes of a battered economy being
progressively compounded by the reckless experimentations of a noisy bunch of
tyros.
One of
the most dreaded phrases in Nigeria of the mid-eighties, specifically, during
the Gen Ibrahim Babangida junta, was “IMF conditionalities” which our country
was required to fulfill at that time to qualify for an IMF loan. Happily,
Nigerians unanimously rejected the poisoned apple.
Since
then, I have been very suspicious of the motives of the IMF and whatever it
says about any country, especially, in Africa. Its prescriptions are often
killer-pills that plunge the citizenry into needless sufferings and ultimately
set the country on the path of destablisation.
And so,
when you see them praising any country, just watch out: that country may be
naively or even unwittingly complying with its “conditionalities.”
IMF has
always recommended massive devaluation of the Naira so we could have what
they called, a “realistic value” of our currency; never mind that this will
brutally weaken further the purchasing power of the already impoverished people.
Well,
Nigeria through the howling incompetence of her groping leaders has already
horribly devalued the Naira, probably, far beyond the expectation of the IMF.
Have you tried recently to purchase even the weakest currency out there
with your Naira? That’s how bad it has become!
Another
“conditionality” at that time was the downsizing of the civil service. They
called it the beautiful name, “rightsizing.” Already, many state governments
are almost on that excruciating path as they threaten to drastically reduce the
public service population if they must pay the meagre N30, 000 Minimum Wage.
Many
workers have already been frustrated out of the civil service by very poor
working conditions and the tormenting experience of being laden with mountains
of unpaid salaries. Some have even been “retrenched” by death due to inability
to feed themselves and care for their health as their callous and profligate
governors withhold their salaries.
The other
“conditionality,” the introduction of school fees in the universities, is
already operational at the state universities and partially at the federal
institutions while the rationalisation of courses which has been on the cards
is already being partially implemented. So, the IMF is already
winning in Nigeria. The “conditionalities” they handed down to us in the
eighties are already enjoying full implementation. It has always insisted that
the implementation of these measures represent the fact that we are already on
the path of progress. Does that make even the slightest sense to
you?
The
killer “conditionality”, however, is the total absence of subsidies which
is gradually showing its egregious head, and may become fully manifest
soon as the nation’s worst nightmare, especially, in the prices of
petroleum products. Already, we are hearing about what they call “over
consumption” of petrol by Nigerians which subsidy removal will
effectively check. Sometimes, I wonder what would have been our fate if ours
were not an oil-producing country.
Certainly,
many Nigerians will soon park their cars because of inability to fuel them, and
in a country with a chaotic transportation system. Given that most commercial outfits
and service providers rely on petrol to remain in business due to the
intimidating crisis in the electricity sector, Nigerians should, therefore, be
ready for the worst times in a “recovering economy” because the price of goods
and services would certainly ascend beyond the reach of many Nigerians.
By the
way, why is this anti-subsidy pill always appearing like an “Only-For-Africa”
solution? Why are they are not breathing down the necks of other countries that
are heavily subsidising education, healthcare and several other services for
their own citizens?
In
Kuwait, for instance, government provides free medical care for its nationals.
They are also trying to establish what they call “expat-only hospitals and
clinics” which will serve the health needs of expatriates with health insurance
coverage. And their hospitals are of very high standard.
In
neighboring Saudia Arabia, the same “completely free” medical services are
offered to Saudi nationals. Even near us here in Seychelles,
government has put in place a system that ensures that sick citizens receive
free medical treatment.
The
same system is operational in Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Bhutan (which even
moves serious cases to Indian hospitals for treatment at government’s expense)
and several other countries which Nigeria may even be far richer than. In
Spain, government “provides a public universal health
care system for all citizens and, under certain conditions, also,
non-citizens. Healthcare is free except for co-payments in some products and
services; it is mostly paid from the Social Security budget.”
Why are
the IMF and World Bank so determined to keep stampeding governments
in African nations into presenting themselves continually as enemies of their
people?
What of
education? Several countries in Europe offer free education, except for some
minimal fees (charged in some countries), and in several cases, international
students also benefit from this.
In Norway, Sweden,
Germany, Denmark, Finland, for instance, you have world-class tuition-free
universities (which international students also benefit from).
So what
is all this fetish about the total absence of subsidies as the sole panacea for
economic growth? Has the economies of these countries collapsed because they
are offering subsidised essential services to their people (and even
foreigners)?
Indeed, Nigeria’s
problem very is far from the crazy speculations of the IMF and the World Bank.
Nigeria’s problem is the crude mediocrity and pervasive corruption which our
leaders have instituted as an essential character of governance.
Removing subsidies
(which will end up in private pockets, any way, if they really exist) and
unleashing more crushing pain and suffering on Nigerians will not revive the
economy. We tried it with the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the
Babangida junta, where did it take Nigeria to?
The Nigerian
government should look for thoroughly educated Nigerians with
sound understanding of the Nigerian economy, who know how to navigate it
out of the woods, and stop hiding its incompetence and failure
behind “reports,” “recommendation” and suspicious “commendations” from a
gaggle of confused “experts.”
We can solve our
problems if we sincerely wish to.
*Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is a Nigerian
journalist and writer (scruples2006@yahoo.com; @ugowrite).
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