A salient point about history is that it takes its cue, on reward and punishment, from the Old Testament. It gives an eye for an eye and takes a limb for every limb. Accordingly, history is kind only to those that are nice enough to remember it. Those who forget it and, especially, those who banish it from their academic curricula, are punished without abatement. The 1973 Yom Kippur War, between Israel and the Arabs led by Egypt and Syria, the fourth Arab-Israeli war, which lasted from the 6th to the 25th of October, turned oil into a famous celebrity product around the world. Prior to that event, oil which was said to have been discovered in Oloibiri in today’s Bayelsa State in 1956 (now a hotly disputed part of our national colonial story), was not of much significance in the finances of the people of the protectorates. It is now the only significant thing.
As Easter approaches and an oil trade war, between Saudi Arabia and Russia, looms large, a reenactment of the Yom Kippur war, which happened during a Jewish festival by that name, seems to be in the offing – the Easter Oil Price War. Trouble began when Russia decided not to be part of a Saudi-led proposition of PEC Plus members to cut output by about 1.5million barrels per day. Of course, by the size of its output, Russia would have borne a large chunk of the cut; something in the region of about 500,000barrels per day. In reaction, Saudi Arabia opted to raise its production and flood the market. Price went rolling down the hill, tearing through the Nigerian government 2020 budget in its wake.
This event is going to be very significant in the lives of men and nations. Already, Nigeria is in the loan market, having worked through the National Assembly, to borrow 23billion US dollars to finance some infrastructure, controverted for their lack of national spread and capacity to yield foreign currency (or any currency at all) for servicing the loan, meant to be repaid in dollars. Indeed, palpable restiveness has enveloped the air in many countries, including Nigeria, which for all intents and purposes, now has its national budget limping towards the south as oil prices race towards 25 US dollars. Energy stocks reacted violently on Monday following massive sell off triggered by the fears of both the oil price war and Coronavirus. The implications of these events on poverty and its many indivisibilities will be telling, especially for countries relying mostly on oil.
The significance of oil was bolstered during the Yom Kippur War because the Arabs collectively boycotted any form of oil trade with the friends of Israel, which are essentially the Western nations. The result was an astronomical hike in the price of crude oil. It also presented Nigeria with the biggest temptation it has ever faced – the temptation to abandon all other sources of income to concentrate on oil. Some have argued that most of the troubles we face today in Nigeria are by-products of excessive dependence on oil, including the operation of a unitary government in the name of a federation, and the adoption of a wasteful presidential system fraught with incongruencies. These are in addition to the famous Dutch Disease that has afflicted the country over the past several decades.
The yoyo that has become the finances of the government of Nigeria typifies the lot of an individual with only one skill, and derivatively, a single source of income. Some people go to school and graduate in a discipline, say Economics, and that’s all. Although they may be the best in that particular discipline, they know little about anything else. If you mention anything else, they are quick to brandish their undoubtedly very good credentials in their discipline, and tell you they are not interested in the rest. Their income is from this one discipline only. Even if they lose their jobs in that field, they wait till another one comes in the same field. If the industry goes into recession, they will not retrain but instead wait for the recession to end. These people have only one stream of income. If anything happens to that stream they go dredging the earth around the stream only, to ensure that water (income) continues to flow but it doesn’t.
Unfortunately, the impact of technology, globalization and all the bad/good things of this modern era are quick to turn lucrative careers into relics of history. Sometimes they even ensure that a stream of income, once dried up, never returns.
That is what is happening to the giant nation of Africa, whose foot is rapidly turning into clay.
Nigeria has only one significant source of foreign exchange earnings, petroleum. It currently produces about two million barrels a day, and its price determines what revenues she has for national projects. All other sectors of the economy have continued to play minor roles over time.
Somehow, the fear of the consequences of over-dependence on oil has, from time to time, been recognized, discussed and seemingly properly understood in Nigeria. This is apparently the reason why several committees and economic experts have recommended the diversification of the Nigerian economy away from oil. Sadly, like a man under a trans, Nigeria continually saunters away from this all-important national challenge. As a result, there seems to be no end to the confusion in Nigeria’s economic management community, which catches cold every time oil prices sneeze.
The youth must learn from Nigeria’s inability to develop its economy away from oil dependence. We all have our individual economies, just like nations, and we can make the same mistake Nigeria has made. Certain mistakes die hard, and more so when they relate to careers. We may get too old to retrain and even if we do, we might not be employable for age, and can ill afford the gestation period of some businesses. So we must train as much as possible now, ensuring that we do have alternative steams of income. Young people must avoid the many easy steps to poverty. One of them is lack of alternative competencies or fixation to a single career or source of income. Nigeria has failed in many ways: a failed automotive industry policy that disregards local production, and spites made-in-Nigeria cars; a totally impotent economic diversification policy that pays lip service to economic reform, and a shameful failure to cut the cost of governance and curb daylight robbery by state governors, who complete looting their states, award themselves shameful retirement benefits and begin new careers at the National Assembly.
Every individual must learn to avoid the Monocultural economic challenges Nigeria has put upon itself by developing alternative careers and hence streams of income.
Emeka Osuji
