By Anas Abdullahi
The Nigeria of my dream—and arguably every patriotic Nigerian’s dream—revolves around the vision of a ‘thriving’ country; a country where the living condition of its citizens matches its natural endowments; a country where everyone, irrespective of background, has a sustainable source of livelihood, a secure environment to enjoy it and is able to attain the pinnacle of his/her potential. While there are divergent views of how this dream can be realised, everyone agrees that it is just a dream in the face of a dark mirror of an undeniable fact of life. The second part of the essay promptly asks an even more important question: how do we transform this dream into reality? From the onset, it appears that this question will be more accurately disserted by policy and strategy experts—two fields beyond the full grasp of my expertise. Nevertheless, in my own very limited way, I will give some ideas that may steer us towards the realisation of this vital dream.
Our problems are complex and multi-dimensional but traceable to a few independent variables; our deficient education system is chief among those variables. Education is the bedrock of every ‘elite’ society, but our government has gotten the basics of ours completely wrong. Basic education, which ought to be, according to the global standard, the level of education that must be free and accessible, is the most neglected by our government. The level of degradation in our public primary and secondary schools is such that many parents would rather their kids stay at home than attend such schools. Surprisingly, Nigeria spends three times more on tertiary education than it does on basic education. In a country with a high percentage of out-of-school children, this is not only a gross misplacement of priority but doesn’t also reflect our national priority. It becomes imperative then, as a matter of national agenda, that different tiers of government embrace and focus on basic education in addition to whatever they might be pursuing. This is viable via increased funding and robust teacher training to meet the challenge of providing quality basic education for all. Secondly, there’s a need for increased supervision; in most cases, private schools perform better than public schools because of stricter consequences management.
There is also a need for us to re-adjust our position on the payment of tuition for tertiary education. Is it not ironic that basic education, which is supposed to be free, has become more expensive than tertiary education? Most parents no longer have confidence in our public primary and secondary schools and prefer high-paying private schools. The bigger irony is that even those parents expect tertiary education to be free. To be honest with ourselves, researching innovation—the hallmark of tertiary institutions—requires a lot of funding, and government cannot do it alone. If we truly want to have a world-class education, then we must be ready to do what it takes to have it. Nigerians squander billions of Naira in pursuit of quality education abroad, and while this is not inherently bad, why are they then disinclined to
pay tuition in Nigeria? Meanwhile, the fact that students pay tuition does not mean the government should discontinue funding our tertiary institutions; tuition is only meant to increase the revenue of tertiary institutions, which in turn expands infrastructure and research capability. Students who can afford it should pay, while exceptional students whose parents are poor should receive scholarships and student grants. This will induce healthy competition for academic excellence and make parents demand more from teachers and institutions.
The restructuring requires our post-secondary education to be expanded. The glamour attached to university education at the expense of polytechnics and colleges of education conflicts with Nigeria’s contemporary and future needs. What a country bedevilled by high unemployment needs is high-level, hands-on manpower, which comes from polytechnics; as a matter of urgency, there is a need for our education at all levels to be solidified along vocational, technical and academic lines. There are many opportunities in ICT, construction, manufacturing, services, etc., that do not even require a university degree but some specific skills and certifications. Government can even go as high as liaising with companies to offer internships and apprenticeships, and the companies get reduced taxes. The one-year mandatory national service scheme NYSC has outlived its relevance and should also go in that direction. The government must realise that its politically-motivated attempts to expand university access without increased investment will only increase the amount of ‘unemployable’ graduates, which remains a major issue in the labour market. Fixing our education remains the key to fixing our country. It is necessary that we get the basics and the structure absolutely ‘spot-on.’
The proportion of youths in our population is probably our greatest cause for optimism, but only if we are able to groom a generation that is more preoccupied with “what can I do?” rather than “what certificate do I have?” As youths, we must be ready to understand how today’s labour market works and outgrow the comfort zone where a university certificate is tantamount to a government job. Albert Einstein famously said: “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” We must learn the skills that are needed by today’s highly demanding market and if the job doesn’t come, be ready to look within our environment and find opportunities; we must see education as a tool that helps us navigate the high-competitiveness of today’s job market and a mirror through which opportunities are seen; we must desist from excessive and often pointless use of mobile phones but instead leverage on the formidable power of the internet as a learning tool; we must be ready to accept that unemployment is not the inability to get a job, but rather the inability to see opportunities and utilise them; we must not be discouraged by our situations and remember that all the things we admire in the world today were not the product of people that complained about their
situation, but products of those who changed their situations. Poverty, it is said, is passing over opportunities repeatedly.
Parents have a crucial role in grooming this new generation of Nigerians. In addition to quality education, parents should teach their children resilience, discipline and the ruthless art of ‘living’ right from childhood. We must recalibrate our thinking to align with our reality and environment; parents must be willing to let go of the obsolete notion that learning a trade or handwork is detrimental to the pursuit of academic excellence. To achieve the Nigeria of our dreams, we must throw away a fundamental misconception about the role of government: the job of the government is not to create jobs but to create an enabling environment for businesses and the private sector to thrive and, in return, the government gets revenue through taxation. The misconception of the role of government has led to people demanding the government create jobs, and because the government wants to please people, what does the government do? Create endless and often unnecessary agencies and roles so that they can create jobs. The result is an exponential rise in recurrent expenditure that the government cannot simply afford. And because the government cannot afford it, they try to find ways to supplement their revenue. The government has been increasing taxes and VAT to pay salaries, and who is the innocent victim? Nigerian citizens and businesses are the very groups the government ought to protect.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not, in any way, asserting that the Nigerian government has done its part or that government should not be giving people jobs, but this sustained pressure has led to the over-saturation and, ultimately, the inefficiency of our civil service. The gross redundancy and inefficiency are nothing compared to the massive corruption that is going on in this place; civil service is simply the epicentre of evil in Nigeria. During the COVID-19 pandemic, low-ranking civil servants were asked to stay at home for two years; given the fact that these cadres constitute the majority ranks in the service, it is safe to say that most civil servants sat at home. One would have expected things to stagnate especially given the huge amount of money that is spent on salaries every month; quite the contrary, everything moved seamlessly. The country, both the government and the public, did not feel the effects whatsoever; there was simply no vacuum created by this absence. Think about this very carefully: the civil service executes the economic and social function of any government; it is the medium through which the impact of government is felt. In Nigeria, it is more of a curse than a blessing because it consumes a chunk of our revenue without performing its vital function. Nigeria will not change unless the institutions of government are changed and corruption is drastically reduced. Unless civil service is reformed, the dividends of government will never be truly felt in Nigeria.
Public institutions must be streamlined, professionalised, and realistically incentivised; government must block fiscal leakages and let off redundant agencies and roles while
concentrating on having an efficient civil service department that will contribute towards solving the socio-economic problems of this country. The government should be bold enough to take the next step, which is, of course, privatisation. The government must, simply and plainly, back off. Every sector that seems to work effectively in Nigeria is because of less government, not more. Government, economists say, has no business running businesses. Many sceptics of privatisation argue that privatisation is a mixed fortune in Nigeria. While this is true, is it not better to embrace something that partially works rather than something that doesn’t work at all? The commercialisation and planned privatisation of NNPC is laudable. More state-owned assets like airports, railways, power plants, etc., should follow. We are sentimentally attached to these things, but when we look critically, it is easy, as Nigerians, to see why privatisation is the way forward. For example, our four refineries have a combined monthly operational cost of N10 billion despite not refining anything; no businessman, in his right senses, will accept this. In addition to greater efficiency, privatisation will free up government responsibilities and allow the government to concentrate on social sectors like education, health, roads, etc.
Privatisation, though, will be met with strong resistance. To begin with, privatisation of NNPC means petroleum subsidies will be scrapped, adding to the economic situation that is already looking gloomy; half of the population already lives in poverty; the unemployment rate has, according to the latest statistics by the National of Bureau of Statistics (NBS), rising to 33%; and inflation is high, which means the prices of commodities in the markets are not affordable to the poor. Secondly, despite the incessant call by the government that Nigeria is broke, many people simply couldn’t believe the government, and sometimes, for good reasons. This assertion doesn’t align with the larger-than-life lifestyle of politicians and top government officials, nor has it been helped by a stereotype propagated especially among the lower class that if this country’s wealth were to be divided among its citizens, everyone, even an unborn child, would never experience poverty. It becomes necessary, therefore, that the government show transparency and carry Nigerians along the way. The first place to begin is our expenditure; the governments must re-prioritise by spending only on very essential items and reducing the cost of governance. A radical idea, albeit difficult, is to cut down the size of the national assembly. Again, the government must explain things to Nigerians in a matter that they would understand. Continued subsidy payment means N6 trillion will be borrowed next year, adding to the cost of servicing our debt, which according to the finance minister, exceeds our revenue. We are not even talking about the principal yet.
Why does this matter? CBN will be forced to keep covering financial gaps through means and ways that may have severe inflationary consequences. Furthermore, exploiters of financial leakages offered by the scheme and their networks will keep getting returns until the scheme is terminated. Privatisation will set the tone for our economic revival. The next economic reform
will be to increase our revenue through proper taxation. This is achievable through efficient tax generation and collection processes, strengthened tax laws and demands more compliance (by individuals and corporations). Tax collection agencies should also collate data on businesses and individuals in the informal sector and facilitate easy compliance, and more tax should be imposed on harmful products. The caveat is low economic growth; when individuals and companies are not making money, you can’t effectively tax them. One very important question that everyone at this juncture may be desperate to ask is: will this increased revenue translate to the prosperity of the people? Will it give us the Nigeria of our dream? Increased revenue means increased capacity of the government to carry out developmental projects, but it certainly doesn’t solve all our problems because even when the economy blossomed, many Nigerians wallowed in poverty—the Nigerian economic paradox. This is further illustrated by the fact that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa but ranks below many other African countries in human developmental indexes. To address all the problems, we need to go back to the fundamental of growth.
Nigeria typically exports primarily raw materials and imports finished consumer goods. While this may increase GDP, it has negative effects on other developmental areas as a result of the low participation of citizens in this model. What we need is to fully maximise the entire value chain of our raw materials; manufacturing touches all parts of development and is much more resistant to external economic factors that can bring sudden cracks to the economy. Economic diversification is a worn-out narrative in Nigeria, but we need to see it happen. Our policymakers took this too far and tried to achieve forced industrialisation by restricting imports. The result was counterproductive. We do not need to produce ‘everything’ we consume; we should instead play to our strength by exploring areas of production and trade where we have a comparative and competitive advantage and by dominating value chains in which we have factor endowments. This will cater to our domestic demands and, at the same time, give us a strong export push given the free trade platform that the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides. We must be intentional about this: we should select a few industries that we desire to compete in, focus on them and assist them for the next few years. What is the sense, for example, in having timber and importing paper? Our internal disparity should also be taken into consideration. For example, the northern part of Nigeria produces greater agricultural output and has a greater proportion of semi-skilled and unskilled labourers. By extension, this means that agro-processing factories will be suited to this region.
Restoration of the ‘enabling environment’ for this structural transformation is necessary to attract local and foreign investors. To this effect, the government should clearly define and make accessible its policies, regulations, and tax laws to remove the issues of multiple and duplicate regulations, which often emanate from the excessive drive for tax revenues. Secondly, foreign exchange currency should be made easily available and accessible to
manufacturers to purchase raw materials and equipment from foreign countries. Thirdly, infrastructural challenges posed by dilapidated transport networks and insufficient power supply should be eliminated. Government should rehabilitate major roads leading to industrial areas, improve access to ports and continue the ongoing development of the rail system; these will drastically reduce the operating cost associated with transportation. Another constraint that must be overcome is electricity fluctuations. The bill recently supported by our lawmakers to allow the state governments to generate and transmit electricity is recommendable. This will allow private investors to take part in the Nigerian energy market. Another alternative is using abundant renewable energy sources (hydro, solar, wind) to supplement the national energy mix, which will be particularly instrumental in remote areas where the distribution of electricity is difficult.
Finally, we need a ‘meritocratic’ environment for anything to work; an environment where hard work, excellence and discipline are rewarded and corruption bastardised; an environment where achievement becomes a function of merit and not sentiment; an environment where everyone will be given what is due for them at the right time; an environment where accountability and transparency are institutionalised in government. For us to achieve the Nigeria of our dream, we must grant full and complete independence to our judicial system; whoever is found guilty must be punished according to the rule of law. No amount of ideas will work in Nigeria with selective justice and wasteful expenditures by the ruling class. I dream of Nigeria with selfless leaders who are not afraid of ‘one big man’ and who put the national interest above their interests. I dream of Nigeria, where everyone does what ought to be done to the best of their ability. I dream of a country where corrupt officials become ‘outcasts’ in society. I dream of a country where politicians will be unable to mortgage the conscience of the people with bread and butter.
Endowed with 923,768km² of land mass (80% arable), 37 billion barrels of crude oil deposit (estimated), huge deposits of solid minerals, an 853km long coastline, and a youthful demographic—Nigeria is a country that oozes ‘greatness.’ What remains is for us to collectively put our hands together right now to achieve the Nigeria of our dream.
Anas Abdullahi sent this via anaschemical2008@gmail.com.
