29092019 - 2023: Controversy over Pastor Tunde Bakare's prophecy on Buhari's

PAGE 18—SUNDAY VANGUARD, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
How to fight p<strong>over</strong>ty in
Nigeria — Kpakol
By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief
After 59 years of independence, a large portion of the
Nigerian population lives below the p<strong>over</strong>ty line.
In this interview, former Chief Economic Adviser,
to then President Olusegun Obasanjo, Prof. Magnus
Kpakol, says that only a refocus on human capital development
can help defeat p<strong>over</strong>ty in Nigeria. Kpakol
who also headed the P<strong>over</strong>ty Eradication Programme
(NAPEP) also lamented that without accurate
data, g<strong>over</strong>nment policy decisions are often
based on political and other sentiments. Excerpts:
When you came to g<strong>over</strong>nment
at the beginning of this
current experience of democracy
under Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, what were your
expectations and what were
your goals, what were you
hoping to achieve returning
from the US to work in the
Nigerian g<strong>over</strong>nment?
I had very high expectations
because you would recall at that
time, we had just come out of
military rule and everybody was
excited that we had democracy,
although I didn’t come right away,
I came a couple of years after that
had happened. Also I never had
any intention of coming back to
work. I probably thought I could
do some consulting down the road
but as things happened, before I
knew it I was in Nigeria as Chief
Economic Adviser to the President.
I had great inspirations from
President Obasanjo because I saw
in him a man that was completely
dedicated to the redemption of
Nigeria after those many years of
military rule and so that gave me
a lot of excitement and there was
this great aspiration as a result to
achieving great things and I was
privileged to go with him round
the world. We travelled quite a
bit, meeting strategic partners. So
I had very high hopes for Nigeria.
And then the President had a very
good team, very solid people, most
of the areas were occupied by the
right kinds of people. So we had
great hopes for Nigeria.
Looking back, you were at
National
Planning,
NAPEP;
what would
you say
were your
experiences
in terms of
planning
and execution
of
g<strong>over</strong>nment
programmes
and
projects?
I think that
people mean
well but we
don’t often
work from
practical
realities.
From the
point of view of having correct
information. So often times you
find a g<strong>over</strong>nment that is making
decisions that are not evidencebased
because the data are not
readily available. I think we
have a little bit more data now
than at that time, some of the data
we had you couldn’t depend on
them.
With all due respect, at that time
it was called The Federal Office of
Statistics I was <strong>over</strong> it, it was more
of my parastatal and I told the
President that we had difficulties
with the data. You may recall I
had a little skirmish trying to
bring it to Abuja because it was
extremely important for me that
we are able to get good data.
So often times we end up
making decisions that are more
emotional and more political than
are practical because they don’t
have the data. I want to be
exact. One of the real big things,
if you really don’t have the data,
then sentiment and emotions can
move decisions because if I have
the data I can tell you this is what
the number shows and this is what
it has to be.
But when the data are not
available then it is a
matter of ‘I believe’,
‘I think’, ‘you
think’. Somebody
said our people are
suffering. Okay
your people are
suffering, I am not
able to prove to you
that they are not
suffering because I
don’t have the data.
Okay, this people
are suffering
more than the
other people.
In my
tenure at
NAPEP
(National
P<strong>over</strong>ty
Eradication
Programme),
I
wanted to
focus more
on the
North, I
wanted to
shift a lot
of the re-
Our problem is that
we have not historically
put a lot of
emphasis into
preparing the type
of human capital
that can create the
economic value
sources
to the North because I felt that
they were poorer but I was told
that you couldn’t because people
are also equally poor elsewhere
and you couldn’t really argue too
much.
In terms of statistical analysis,
not that you wouldn’t give
anything to the other person or
other parts of the country but I felt
that we should bring more focus to
where the problem was but I didn’t
have good enough data.
With all due
respect to the
NBS, sometimes
our p<strong>over</strong>ty data
till today I am not
so sure how
correct they are;
maybe the latest
ones are correct.
But like I used to
tell the President,
this is the data
that you have and
you have to use it
but if you don’t
like this data then
go bring another
one, so that is the
problem. So you
have to work on
the basis of what
we have.
On that issue
of the p<strong>over</strong>ty
data, it appears to be worsening
at least from what is
coming out from the NBS;
why do you think this is so?
I think it is the number one
problem facing Nigeria. It is the
p<strong>over</strong>ty issue because you have the
situation where I would safely say
well <strong>over</strong> 50% of the people are
terribly poor, there are people who
take the number to 70%, that is
why I say I am not sure of the data.
Official data is about 46% but
then you have data from the World
Bank- that is not official data. It
doesn’t mean that because it is
form the World Bank that means
that it is correct, they don’t do
primary research, I depend more
on what the NBS has.
Why is p<strong>over</strong>ty getting
worse in our country?
The reason I think we are poor is
because of serious deficiency in
human capital. If we have to try to
find one reason and pin it down
and say this is what it is, I mean
people can say it is mismanagement,
we don’t have infrastructures,
but as the World Bank has
recently found, two third of the
wealth of nations is really human
capital.
So our problem is that we have
Kpakol
not historically put a lot of
emphasis into preparing the type
of human capital that can create
the economic value. What I mean
by human capital is the body of
knowledge that we have, the skills
that people have, skills for being
creative, innovative and be able to
perform to create economic goods
and services, to create value.
If you have to create a television
or whatever you have to do, you
have to first of all conceive it in
your mind, then you process it,
then giving your skill sets, you
would be able to know where you
can get the necessarily technologies
to use, and knowledge and
information, then you understand
the season, the climate and the
facilities that you can use.
Another very serious problem
that we have is that sometimes we
get so focused on the statistical
numbers and we don’t see the
substantive or practical numbers.
Let’s say you have a country of 10
people and the p<strong>over</strong>ty rate is 40%
that means 4 out of ten are poor
and you say okay that is bad.
Supposed within that same space
where you used to have 10 people
you now have 100 people and the
p<strong>over</strong>ty rate is even 35% that
means you have a large number of
people who are poor, so you see a
lot of it around and it has demoralizing
effect that creates disillusionment,
people then see so much
p<strong>over</strong>ty and they begin to see
defeat and then they get <strong>over</strong>whelmed
and you don’t have the
resources it takes.
So if you don’t grow your
economy from when you had 10
persons to now that you have a
100 people then you are not going
to be able to handle the situation,
just like we have in Nigeria
currently.
The g<strong>over</strong>nment capacity to
handle the economy is significantly
reduced from how it used to be
and you can see it very clearly in
terms of the g<strong>over</strong>nment budget or
g<strong>over</strong>nment revenue as a percent
of GDP that has been going down
and we have one of the poorest
rates in the world. So that means
the g<strong>over</strong>nment does not have the
capacity to be sufficiently catalytic
in the economy.
So what do we do in this
circumstance?
There is really not much magic
you can do because if you really
want to do what you should do,
you should begin to put a lot of
emphasis in human capital
building but it takes a long time,
you have to wait for like 20years
or so. If you invest in a baby born
today, it will take them up to about
16 to 20 years for the child to grow
and be able to make contributions
to the economy. the whole
definition of human capital is the
amount of investment put in for
these people so that by age 18 you
try to measure it. Your ability to
be productive, your work force to
be productive, so you have to wait.
But when you cannot wait or
when you should not wait, you
should begin to have strategic
partnerships and I don’t think that
we have done well in gaining
strategic partners. What we tend to
do is that we tend to have strategic
policy g<strong>over</strong>nmental partners that
speak in New York, or Tokyo or
London but it does not affect the
guy on the ground and how do we
know it is effecting the guy on
ground is when we start to see
these foreign nationals, let’s even
start with the Nigerians in the
Diaspora, when we begin to see
them in our villages doing stuffs.
So the kind of strategic partnership
that we want is the kind of
partnerships that effect our
communities.
I have a programme that I have
in partnership with the University
of Texas, Dallas and what we are
trying to do is to bring professors
and business people and policy
makers to meet with professors,
business people and policy makers
in the US. So we want to see
how we can have partnerships
amongst our professors in
Nigeria and those
outside the country,
likewise with
business people and
policy makers.
In fact in a
couple of
weeks I am
taking
some
g<strong>over</strong>nment
officials
on a
trip
like
this because of what I found, in
Nigeria and much of Africa we
don’t do much research and
development. So we need to create
more attention, we need to
sensitize our policy makers and
stakeholders, so that policy
makers should be more active and
stakeholders should demand more
that we do research.
Many Nigerians are
concerned that Nigeria was
the same level of economic
development with countries
like Singapore, India, Brazil
and Indonesia, at independence
but Nigeria has been
left behind. What basically is
wrong with our country?
The human capital like I said
before is the problem. If you go
and see those countries, in India
for example, you can say they have
p<strong>over</strong>ty too but their p<strong>over</strong>ty rate
is coming down drastically, even
China is coming down to like 3%
from 80% not up to 30years ago
and the reason is because they
invest in their people, they
recognised that is where the issue
is.
If there is one thing I want to be
known for now is the promotion of
human capital development
because I have disc<strong>over</strong>ed that is
where the problem is. People say
teach me how to fish and don’t give me
fish and that is what it is. So give me
human capital. The g<strong>over</strong>nment should
be very serious at the local and state
g<strong>over</strong>nment levels about this, in
addition to the work at the federal level.
So what our organisation really
wants to do is to try to get local
g<strong>over</strong>nment chairmen and state to
understand that. We have met with
ALGON many times because of this
issue to try to cause them to see
that there is something they can
do- then they can demand that the
state and federal g<strong>over</strong>nment have
partnership with them.
The strategic partnership that we
talked about should start from
home then we begin to get people
from outside. The Koreans,
Singaporeans and all those other
countries succeeded from strategic
partnership.
Most of the strong companies in
the United States of America that
are working are American
companies, they are British
companies and they are in China
they are working. Also you have a
lot of American, British companies
in Hong Kong, in mainland
China, so there is a lot of interface
taking place between Hong Kong
and mainland China and of
course in Singapore it is the same
thing.