21042021

Between a wailing Godwin Obaseki
and a hailing Zainab Ahmed
ONE of the less aggravating things that
happened last week, something that
offered diversion if not comic relief from
the now-humdrum news of mass abductions
and murders whose economic dimension is
often occluded by their bestial details, was
the spat between two unlikely adversaries:
the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki,
and the Minister of Finance, Budget and
National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
It followed the release of an apparently
private recording of the governor, lamenting
the state of the Nigerian economy. In this
age of social media and secret devices hardly
anything is considered private. Not a locker
room, or more precisely, beer parlour talk.
Otherwise, Obaseki would probably have
kept his musing to himself, or at least within
the close circle of his associates.
In the leaked footage, he condemned the
country’s fixation on crude oil, a wasting
and fast depleting resource, as the main
revenue earner at a time many countries are
switching to more environmentally-friendly
means of energy. The culture of overdependence
on the centre that sees state
governors go, bowl in hand, to Abuja for their
monthly allocation, a beggarly handout that
discourages self-reliance and economic
discipline and creativity, also came under
Obaseki’s attack.
The governor, in the course of his outburst,
made the bombshell remark that things had
become so bad and unsustainable that
Abuja literally resorted to printing money
to the tune of N60 billion in order to give
each state its March allocation.
The idea that government could on its own
print money no doubt sounded strange and
alarming to many Nigerians. This way of
increasing cash flow and stimulating an
economy already in or headed for recession,
quantitative easing those who know call it,
is not unheard of among economists or
financial experts even while it may sound
like the outcome of a child’s imagination.
But to the rest of us civilians, it looked and
sounded like a crude way of ensuring the
availability of funds. If things were that easy,
if it was that simple to claw one’s way out of
debt, why is everyone not free to do it, some
might ask? Obaseki’s aim was to warn of
the impending danger of what he has since
called "monetary rascality", while doubling
down on his initial statement after the cold
reaction of the typically sedate Ahmed.
Since nobody else has addressed the
authenticity of Obaseki’s claim or the
refutation by the Finance Minister, who then
should Nigerians turn to? Yet this is a serious
matter that deserves more attention than it
has received from official quarters.
Not even the usually loquacious
"presidency" that is quick to respond to even
more arcane and extraneous matters has
spoken. It’s been dead silence everywhere.
We must leave God out of this very mundane
matter. Perhaps only the devil knows the
truth of the printed N60 billion as neither
the Central Bank of Nigeria, nor state
governors nor "the presidency" have chosen
to speak.
At the heart of this debate, however, is the
increasing worry about Nigeria’s
indebtedness to foreign creditors. Many
Nigerians, less those presently in the All
Progressives Congress-led government, are
almost united in their fear about the
unsustainability of Nigeria’s increasing
debt profile. But Ahmed has denied money
had to be printed, and all but called Obaseki
a liar. Nigeria’s debt, she says, is within
sustainable limits at 23 per cent of the GDP.
The country under this present
government has been seeking and taking
loans from every available quarters, even
dipping or attempting to dip its hands into
other people’s coffers (read pockets)-
pensioners’ funds, unclaimed dividends and
sale of what it says are its own property.
This is evidence, if no other, of a desperate,
cash-strapped economy. Abuja harps on
building infrastructure and insists there is
nothing bad in taking loans. What matters,
The President’s habit of
relying on surrogates whose
actions he does not appear
to question or scrutinise is at
the root of his government’s
failure
it argues, is what the loan is spent on. Which
has the same ring as that claim often
attributed to General Yakubu Gowon, who
famously said Nigeria was so afloat with
money its only problem was what to spend
it on.
That claim would explode in his face in
less than five years following the oil glut of
the late 1970s and the subsequent plunge
into recession and "austerity measures" at
the end of that decade. Time was when a
president went out of his way to clear the
country’s debt even when many felt there
was nothing bad in the country owing a little
provided there was justification for it.
Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021—17
Olusegun Obasanjo paid off Nigeria’s debt
and won some relief from the Bretton Woods
institutions in the early 2000s. Today, his
successors are telling Nigerians that we can
owe for as long as we are only borrowing to
finance infrastructure.
If only government words could be taken
at face value! Not with inflation or prices of
goods beyond galloping but perched as if on
a flying carpet. Governments across the
country (for this is not all about Abuja alone)
have been fuelling inflation and taking loans
to finance recurrent expenditure- paying
salaries of and buying vehicles for outsized
and unnecessary staff; furnishing the homes
of surrogates and officials, fuelling their
vehicles and meeting their daily expenses.
These facts are concealed in the overarching
claim of borrowing to fund infrastructure,
including dead horses like our outmoded
refineries.
To clasp the hands of future generations in
economic cuffs is not a way to secure the
future or build infrastructure. There are too
many crooks in the corridors of power that
the very idea that they are encouraging the
procurement of foreign loans for whatever
purposes should worry everyone.
Some of the leading lights and key decision
makers of the present government have been
too embroiled in accusations of corruption
and lack of transparency to be trusted in
matters like this.
Muhammadu Buhari may be the face of
this government and should rightly be held
accountable for its successes and failures.
But it is obvious that he only reigns where
his aides/ministers rule. Whenever Aisha, the
wife of the president, raises a ruckus that her
husband does not know most of his own
appointees, some may cite this as evidence
of the President’s impartiality.
But the backstory to this is more complex
and what it implies is that the President’s
lifelong habit of relying on surrogates whose
judgement or actions he does not appear to
question or scrutinise is at the root of his
government’s failure.
It should be concerning and is the reason
Nigerians have to be wary of the dodgy busy
bodies spinning yarns of reassurance around
the country’s increasing indebtedness.
08055069060 (SMS Only)
With Twitter, an indignation
most uncalled for
LIFE in Nigeria would have
continued its new normal last
week, not the new normal imposed
by COVID-19, but the bizarre reality
of waking up to stories of deaths and
attacks and threats of war – yes –
that is the new normal, only if Twitter
did not decide, in a flash of corporate
affront and effrontery to Nigeria, to
take its African headquarters to
Ghana. What a cheek! Nigeria is the
giant of Africa with the largest
economy and a population of over
200 million, compared to Ghana
with just about 30 million people
which can easily be accommodated
by one and half states in Nigeria. So
one could understand our
entitlement mentality and why there
is outrage in the land about how one
organisation has decided to spend
its money and in what location. We
have the land. We have the people.
We have the economy. So, nations
must come to worship at our shrine
and obliterate every little vestige of
freedom of choice.
Such expectations by indignant
Nigerians punctured my little
cocoon of peace and excitement
which had started for me early in the
week. I thought I was going to follow
the nation’s rambunctious
presentation on the preparation for
the Digital Switchover, DSO, launch
in Lagos, one little orchestration of
government genius and intervention,
that would bring economic and tech
relief to the people of Lagos, at least,
something to look forward to, if they
survive the daily grind of traffic on
their bodies! Somewhere, the
apparitions of a previous life were
emerging from their pantheons to
haunt the life of a minister who now
has the immediate responsibility of
clearing his name, apart from the
simple task of pointing to dangerous
enemies hiding in the shadows.
But there was also a breather,
something to break a little smile on
the face. Government has lifted,
beginning Monday, April 19, 2021,
the ban imposed on the registration
of new SIMs since last year, but this
must be done with your National
Identification Number, NIN. Dear
friends, in the situation we are in, you
have to quickly hold tight to your
half bread before it is taken away
completely by the strongman.
However, the Twitter decision was
the most irritating intrusion last
week. The Minister of Information
and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,
who should have been enjoying the
fallout of a successful conference in
Lagos on the DSO, couldn’t hide his
anger when he blamed the media
and those who speak ill of our
beautiful nation for instigating such
rash decision by a corporate
international entity. Except, however,
that Twitter was ready, knowing that
there are countries in Africa who
would like to dictate to owners of
money where and how they would
have to spend their cash. That is,
irrespective of their business plan. “As
a champion for democracy, Ghana
is a supporter of free speech, online
freedom, and the Open Internet, of
which Twitter is also an advocate.
Furthermore, Ghana’s recent
appointment to host the Secretariat
of the African Continental Free Trade
Agreement aligns with our
overarching goal to establish a
presence in the region that will
support our efforts to improve and
tailor our service across Africa,”
Twitter said.
No investor jumps into
fire because it wants to do
business in a big country;
where there is chaos,
structures and systems are
broken
And Nigeria is fuming! Or, at least,
the government is hitting the rooftop
in boiling rage!! How preposterous!
We claim to be so much that we are
not. We claim to be a democracy but
it is a strongman that is in charge,
not strong institutions, dispensing
favour according to his state of
mind. The strongman decides who
to listen to. When citizens’ actions
become too irascible, and voices too
loud, the strongman wields the big
stick and hit everybody into silence.
There is nothing unusual there, so
we have ventriloquists who wax oriki
(chants) for the strong man.
Unfortunately you cannot force the
international community to take
their eyes away from evil.
Let’s do a little flashback. October
20, 2020, Nigerians saw an
equivalent replay of happenings at
Tianamen Square in 1989. In the
night of that day, a group of men
dressed in military uniform took
advantage of the dark hours to
attack a mammoth gathering of
young people who had
demonstrated for days under the
#EndSARS, demanding for a
reform in the Police Force. From all
sides, as pictures would show, bullets
rained on them, their only crime
being that they demanded to be
treated better by their government.
The event played out on Twitter.
Blood flowed at the Lekki Toll Gate
before mayhem would spill all over
the land; but government said
nobody died. Twitter would still have
the details. It would have been
wishful thinking for anybody to
expect that organisation to bring an
office to a land that drank the blood
of its youths. There is a hackneyed
saying that investment goes to where
it is needed. It goes beyond
population and size of country. This
is why at international fora, like the
GSMA, there are usually sessions
organised for governments to share
ideas on how to attract and handle
big businesses operating in their
countries. Plus genuine democracy
are the policies of government,
whether they accommodate
investors and guaranty their funds.
Here we fall in serious deficit. One
will only need to point to a few areas.
The telecommunications and the
broadcast industries are atrophying
under inexplicable regulatory
capture which is never an exemplary
hallmark of genuine democracy. The
Minister of Information and Culture
is running the broadcast regulatory
agency, the National Broadcasting
Commission, NBC, to the
discomfiture of its workers, while his
counterpart in Communications
and Digital Economy, has
guillotined the Nigerian
Communications Commission,
NCC, to his own advantage. The
Minister of Finance, Budget and
National Planning doesn’t seem to
have the bravura to take on such a
complex economy like ours. Oh, my
God, just look at where we got the
country by not playing a deserving
first eleven!
Government should listen to quiet
whispers on the streets. Quite a few
operators in the tech sector are
unable to express themselves
because they don’t know what
government will do next. Some have
expressed fears to this writer that this
government is so unpredictable that
its officials can withdraw their
licenses. This is an information that
will be circulating locally and
internationally. And there are policy
decisions and individual
predilections to support their fears.
Security is a major concern. Deaths
are mounting in Nigeria as the
country drifts towards anarchy in the
face of strongman democracy. Yet
government looks so incapacitated
and nearly absent. No investor jumps
into fire because it wants to do
business in a big country. Where there
is chaos, structures and systems are
broken. The Nigerian system is
fractured. We are too afraid to look
at the mirror and tell ourselves the
true image that we see. This
government is abridging the future
of Nigeria without claiming
responsibility for such malfeasance.
The world can only react by keeping
away.