Have you observed that instead of telling Nigerians what they would do to sort Nigeria out, after the peculiar (penkelemesi) mess created by the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, (retd), many of the presidential candidates are discussing inanities?
Well, except Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, who is arguing that rather than have a consumption (or import-oriented) economy, Nigeria should have a production economy, which some derisively describe as a “Container Economy,” because he seems to derive his muse and inspiration from Asian Tiger countries.
Kola, the presidential candidate of Peoples Redemption Party and son of Bashorun MKO Abiola, presumed winner of the freest and fairest presidential election ever held in Nigeria, and presidential candidate Malik Ado-Ibrahim of Young Peoples Parry, are on audio silence.
No one, not even the media, is drawing attention to a desperate situation whereby the buffer Excess Crude Account drastically dropped from $35 million at the end of June 2022 to an alarming $356,000 in July 2022.
Nor are they focusing on the “foodflation” that hit Nigeria long before the Ukrainian-Russian War that has caused scarcity and consequent hike in the price of food items.
On June 6, 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s website reported that Nigeria’s foreign reserves dipped by 5 per cent, from $40.521 billion in December 2021 to $38.483 billion by May 31, 2022. It however rose a little in June.
What seems to be the concern of candidates and the electorate (many of whom may not vote) appears to be the faith of running mates, the (disputed) age, (obscure) origin or (borrowed) name of a candidate and how much another invested in his family business.
Except for Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, no southerner or fair-minded northerner, objects to the Peoples Democratic Party’s jettisoning of its constitutional provision that a southerner should succeed a northern president and vice versa.
After a presidential candidate committed the gaffe of his intention to continue from where the underwhelmingly performing regime of President Buhari will sign off, no one really asked what the candidates would do differently.
Nearly all the candidates are watching whatever they say to avoid the (plausible) possibility of incumbent President Buhari using the Independent National Electoral Commission to block their ambition.
They point to the promise of former presidential aspirant, Yemi Osinbajo, who invited the ire of some admirers when he promised to build on the (woeful) performance of President Buhari. Critics say it is the ploy of calling a cow Big Brother to qualify for a piece of meat.
The most critical concern of Nigerians right now is insecurity. One would have expected presidential candidates to have lined up a committee of retired military, police and intelligence officers to help them understand the issues and articulate the way out.
Indeed, Section 14(2)(b) of Nigeria’s Constitution says that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Of course, a secure political environment is conducive to economic progress.
When Charles Aniagolu of Arise TV asked if presidential candidate Bola Tinubu had a plan for dealing with the insecurity throughout Nigeria, George Agbakah, member of All Progressives Congress and of the Tinubu (presidential) Support Group, didn’t give a straight answer.
He waffled that the 2023 general election is the future of Nigeria and boasted, in opaque terms, that Tinubu has the capacity to tackle the insecurity. He didn’t seem to realise that Charles wanted to know what presidential candidate Tinubu would do, in terms of strategy, funding and personnel deployment.
Presidential candidates should be telling Nigerians about the strategy they would use to ensure that strategic petroleum products—petrol, diesel, black oil and kerosene—‚are produced in refineries based in Nigeria.
This and local production and processing of food crops and livestock should significantly reduce Nigeria’s importation bill and, thereby, reduce the sickening pressure on Nigeria’s foreign exchange market.
Russian currency, the rouble, which was removed from SWIFT, the world’s international payment system, is getting stronger because Russia reduced importation, insists on receiving the rouble for its gas sales and insists Russian companies must convert 80 per cent of their foreign earnings into rouble.
These measures conferred high demand for the rouble, thus raising its relative value against the dollar (especially) and other hard currencies. Russia’s action demonstrates a good understanding of how to manipulate the principles of supply and demand.
Significant reduction in the demand for foreign exchange should significantly strengthen the naira against the American dollar, British pound sterling, German deutsche mark and the other hard currencies.
The presidential candidates should pay attention to the increasing debt, debt servicing and continuous fall of government revenue. Their Ways and Means instinct should be activated to devise ways to mitigate and meet service the growing national debt.
What the presidential candidates really need to do is to have shadow cabinets that will monitor and interrogate the failing policies of the current government and speak to them with alternative solutions.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, recently revealed that total debt servicing of N1.94 trillion outstripped total government revenue of N1.63 trillion in the first quarter of 2022.
That’s a suicidal N310 billion shortfall or 119 per cent Debt-to-Revenue ratio. A strategy must be in place, ahead of the inaugural of the next President, to contain this before what looks like an imminent Srilankanisation of Nigeria.
The presidential candidates must have a plan to raise daily production of crude petroleum to the nearly 2 million barrels per day that Nigeria has the capacity and approval of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to produce. This should fetch the foreign exchange needed to fund Nigeria’s import bills.
The big elephant in the room is the need for restructuring so that no one part holds back the political, social, economic and educational progress of the others. The first step is to devolve some items on the Federal Exclusive Legislative List to states.
To achieve this, the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly will have to be more proactive. An honest presidential candidate should let Nigerians know where he would be leading them if he became president.
Nigerians should not have to deal with a president like retired Major General Buhari who denied making certain promises to Nigerians on the political hustings. He claimed that the party, and not himself, made those promises.
If a presidential candidate doesn’t seem to know what restructuring is all about, or what to make of it, he can take a cue from what a former Kano State Commissioner for Works suggested on Channels Television the other day.
First, is that you must devolve power so that individuals and sub-national governments can develop at their own speed and without restraints from any quarters, certainly not the Federal Government.
The three geopolitical zones of Northern Nigeria should concentrate on agriculture and agro-allied industries, while the geopolitical zones of the South-West, South-East and South-South concentrate on manufacturing and marine economy, technology and trade, and oil and gas respectively.
Because high calibre manpower is crucial to making a success of these plans, the educational system should be reviewed to introduce relevant technologies needed to run the economy of each geopolitical zone. There might be a need for a Marshall Plan on education throughout Nigeria.
Restructuring should free the creative spirit of Nigerians.
Lekan Sote
Twitter: @lekansote1
