The term “chasing the purple dragon” is a euphemism used widely within law enforcement circles, particularly those concerned with the use of heroin. As deadly as it is addictive, heroin creates an incredible sensation of relaxation and well-being every time a user injects it, creating a powerful craving for more. As a user begins to inject more and more in search of an imagined permanent high that will not wear of, they are said to be chasing a purple dragon – chasing an impossible outcome and destroying themselves in the process.
Whether it is the search for nirvana through illegal substance abuse or the quest for an imaginary outcome through a crackpot religious or political ideology, the search for the elusive purple dragon always has similar characteristics and outcomes. The assumed goal is always grandiose and not thought out well, and the vehicle for achieving said goal always turns out to be ludicrous, bordering on insane when examined objectively. Most importantly, even though it should be manifestly obvious that the purple dragon will never be caught, the chasers never end their quest because it is driven by emotion rather than evidence.
Autarky for You, Global Trade for Us
The word ‘autarky’ refers to a national situation whereby the country is fully self-sufficient and independent of all international trade or assistance. There was a time in history when a Chinese Emperor’s ability to provide sufficient rice to his army via the production of Chinese citizens was the most important metric by which his reign was appraised. Unsurprisingly, during the isolationist Cold War period in the 20th century, autarky was a central idea for Marxist states like North Korea and the USSR, from where it found its way into the popular African imagination via the influence of a certain legendary Ghanaian statesman.
While the leadership of these countries did not restrict their individual tastes and consumption to local production, they sold the bad product of global isolation and needless suffering to their people under the banner of fervent, navel-gazing, nativist, jingoistic patriotism. Few things have the ability to galvanize human morale in the face of poverty like the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that one’s sacrifice is for the greater good of one’s family, community, ethnic group, country or race.
Defectors from North Korea who make it across the De-militarised Zone (DMZ) unanimously agree that the biggest change that comes with adjusting to the outside world is dealing with how much consumer choice exists. In North Korea, the diet is a harsh one dominated by poorly grown rice, fermented cabbage and hunger. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the other hand, spends an estimated $30 million a year importing alcohol for himself, in addition to a luxury diet heavy on cheese and imported Kobe steak. Luxury Japanese beef for Kim, rice and Kimchi for his people – for their own good of course.
Closer to home, while we are inundated with messages decrying our “Imperial Contempt” for pushing back against a policy that will effectively ban milk imports into Nigeria – ostensibly to compensate for whatever makes the local dairy industry uncompetitive – those selling us the gospel of forgoing everything that makes us internationally competitive including foreign education do not live what they preach. It may be our patriotic national duty to exclusively consume locally-made goods and services, but it is not their duty to invest enough in Nigerian universities and hospitals to reduce their own education and healthcare tourism. Russell Group universities and the NHS for political leaders, ASUU strikes and cockroach-infested hospitals for Nigerians – as God surely intended it.
Numbers Don’t Lie
The second problem with autarky is that it is fundamentally incongruous with the 21st century world of global supply chains and San Francisco neighbourhoods that import everything but produce computer code worth trillions of dollars annually. The ways of the Ming Dynasty have no relevance to the year 2019, which is why autarky can only be promoted through the purple dragon route. In the time-tested fashion of governments trying to sell ruinous economic policies to citizens, using patriotic bluster and nationalistic fervor, the federal government last week again deliberately and strategically missed the point of the debate around the CBN’s forex ban for milk imports.
In an interestingly-timed tweet posted some hours after last week’s column, President Muhammadu Buhari said: “A country with a population of close to 200 million has to be able to feed itself. We cannot rely on importing food. This is why one of our priorities as a government is growing the food we eat. Our policies will continue to be focused on agricultural self-sufficiency.”
Apart from the fact that this message ignored the economic arguments against agricultural autarky in the 21st century, the mention of Nigeria being able to “feed itself” is a clever insinuation that the country currently is fully, or at least overwhelmingly, dependent on food imports, which would objectively be a serious problem for a country with 180 million people. A related problem raised by such a scenario is that Nigeria must be hemorrhaging large amounts of scarce foreign exchange to food imports, making the situation a real economic crisis. Do the numbers support these talking points however?
In 2018, Nigeria’s total import bill according to the National Bureau of Statics was $36.5 billion. Of this figure, an estimated 17 percent went for importing food and beverages – about $6.2 billion in total. If you divide this figure by Nigeria’s estimated population of 180 million people, the figure comes to about $34 worth of food imports per Nigerian per year. In other words, the average Nigerian consumes an overwhelmingly local diet plus roughly N12,400 worth of imported food every year on average – hardly the fiscal emergency the government tries to make it sound like.
Even more significantly as I noted last week, Nigeria has a balance of trade surplus, with food imports currently only the third-highest import category behind industrial machinery and capital goods, which cumulatively make up fully half of Nigeria’s annual import bill. Banning food imports would accomplish what outcome exactly? Would it make Nigeria’s local producers more competitive or better off when they still have one of the highest production cost profiles and most inefficient routes to market on earth? In the light of transparently porous borders, would it even have any effect other than raising food prices?
Most importantly, at a time when Nigeria’s economic and fiscal outlook is as dire as it has ever been, is the message we want to send to the world one of an unserious petrostate committed to an autarkist ideology with none of the industrial, human or financial capacity to even come close to pulling it off?
I recently had a long conversation with ex AMCON CEO Mustapha Chike-Obi on the subject of Nigeria’s economic outlook. It will form the basis for next week’s column, but in the meantime let me leave you with two key insights from our conversation, so you can juxtapose them with the spectacle of Nigeria trying to pursue an economic doctrine of autarky.
“The debt-to-income ratio is more than 70 percent. If you add what is owed to the GENCOs and DISCOs and add what is owed to the petroleum marketers, it is close to 90 percent, so the only way government can function is to default on a lot of debts. It will be close to 100 percent by 2023, so Nigeria is definitely going to default on its public debt at some point.”
“Nigeria does not have the money to develop Nigeria, and that is why we need foreign investment. To get these foreign investors, we need to speak their language.”
David Hundeyin
