Despite the politics and the constant gbas and gbos between political parties on performance while in office no government has been completely bad. Every political party always claims this government is clueless, or that government did nothing for 16 years, or the other government destroyed the economy, and so on. The reality is a lot more nuanced. Every government since independence has done some good things, some not so good things, some bad things, and some very bad things. Every government has been completely useless in some areas and pretty good in other areas. In my opinion there are two questions that really count; is governance and policy getting better and are we moving the needle forward fast enough in terms of the quality of life of ordinary people. If the answers to those two questions are positive then I can live with that. With the caveat that people are not jailed arbitrarily, abused, or killed in the process of course.
The idea of some good and some bad is also true for President Buhari. Despite what some of the naysayers may think, President Buhari has actually done some very good stuff. The most recent example is his government getting the final investment decision for the NLNG train 7 over the line. It is difficult to argue with that as it has been a long time coming and moves Nigeria further down the path of becoming a major gas player. A very good thing. In fact, if you think about it, in areas where you need government to go big this government has not been that bad.
The failures have been in areas where you do not need government and where you need the private sector to take the lead. I could list out many instances mostly relating to prices and trade but there is no need. The classic example of this failure is in infrastructure. Nigeria needs tens of billions of dollars’ worth of investments in infrastructure every year for at least 30 years to close our infrastructure gap. The government does not have the money, and everyone knows it, and desperately needs the private sector to take the lead. Yet the government has stubbornly stuck to its historic policy of controlling everything. All the talk about amending the exclusive legislative list has fallen on deaf ears. The strategy has been “give us money let us do it” which given the reality of the country we are talking about is not something that many investors want to hear. With a few exceptions of course.
If you are to judge this government on my two key questions then wahala dey. Is governance getting better? You can maybe argue about that. What you cannot argue about is that the quality of life of average Nigerians is not improving. It may even be getting worse. This is not conjecture but based on the cold and calm statistics. My advice for the government in 2020? Leave ideology behind in 2019. If Nigeria is to work then pragmatism is needed and the private sector must drive part of the process. Leave all the price control this and trade restriction border control that in 2019. In many instances leaving people to their devices is the best thing to do. Also, rule of law please. Thank you.
Governance does not begin and end with the federal government of course. State governors cannot be spared. The same two questions apply to them too. Even if the space for policy is a little bit more restricted there is still potential to move the needle. Some governors appear to be trying to make a difference while others are fooling around on a quaballistic level. As a whole we seem to be hearing only the same old stories on how the governors need more revenue and so on. Not that they do not need more revenue, but we also need to see more impact. At some point they have to turn off the political mix tape and play the governance mix tape. And of course, there are local government chairpersons, senators, representatives and so, but the space for this column is limited. The advice is the same though. Let 2020 be the year of pragmatism.
NONSO OBIKILI
Dr. Obikili is chief economist at BusinessDay
