By Theo Adebowale

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This past week was eventful more eventful than others in terms of national economic policy. The Federal Government used subterfuge to increase pump prices of Motor Premium Spirit and electricity unit. It was daring in no ordinary proportion. Here is a government which party is a major contender in gubernatorial election in two critical states, where there are formidable opposing political parties.
Citizens all over its territory are bemoaning the weight of rising food prices and high rate of unemployment compounded by the coronavirus pandemic which was seized to unnecessarily instill fright unto the populace.
To the glory of God, while in other continents corpses abound, in our own clime there are only threats to arrest and prosecute, to impose fines and to send to jail. While in other lands, governments deliver palliatives to residents, as far as we are concerned, such palliatives are reported in the new media and the costs in hundreds of billions are announced to us.
It has also afforded the Federal Government an opportunity to process loans from China and a cabinet member to caution that sovereignty is nothing when Chinese loans are in view. The truth is that living has become very expensive, costlier than the inference from Alhaji Umar Dikko denial when he disclosed in President Shehu Shagari’s Presidency that no Nigerian was scavenging for food in the dust bin. To be candid, very few Nigerians can afford to throw food into the trash cans, and they are not accessible to ordinary mortals.
Truth is that the seed for the present economic predicament was sown decades ago. At independence, the ruling elite was remote controlled for class suicide. When the military took over, it was preoccupied with the objective of establishing a hegemony. The bureaucrats were focused on efficiency which they maintained for sometime without political leadership. In the absence of the right leadership, the system was led into a culture of corruption with actors determined to outplay themselves in self enrichment. Dissenting views were tagged unpatriotic as corruption held sway. The emerging political class of civilian and military politicians run Nigeria as a private estate such that even at the inception of the present republic, the military fashion of governance still obtained. President Shehu Yar’Adua came with a disposition to civiliarise the polity but a terminal disease and his eventual death could not let him. When Dr Goodluck Jonathan succeeded him, there was too much economic adversity constituted by those Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi later identified as vested interests. The vested interests are in such a minority that they can operate faceless. They adopt the style of the spirit to feed on subsidy. From the ports, they make returns of non-existing fuel tankers which cargoes are in millions of units of measure. Having castrated the refineries at home, they returned to them occasionally to rip off the petroleum industry of billions of naira for Turn Around Maintenance TAM. The economic elite periodically embarked on TAM in the past, but while General Muhammadu Buhari was campaigning for Presidency 2014/2015, he promised to revive the local refinery to eliminate cost of importing petroleum products for local consumption, that promise has been truncated by powerful vested interests. As such the mono cultural economic commodity has turned to a liability on the Nigerian economy, the main source of draining foreign receipts and the instrument for the unpatriotic elite to fleece the treasury.
It was not so in the past. Each region used to earn substantial incomes from agriculture, specializing as it were in particular commodities. From the North, peanuts fetched sufficient income not only to power the regional economy but to also make a fair share of contribution to the center. Eastern Region earned a handsome income from coal, from palm produce to deliver good governance to its people. Western region was privileged with a crop of farmers and an expanse of land that was cocoa friendly. From the economic crop foreign receipts were humongous, and from it there was life more abundant. Over sixty years and still counting, the infrastructure, human capital development and an enlightened citizenry are there for everyone to see. Even thereafter despite the years of the caterpillar and the locusts, all over the country many industries sprang up. With the benefit of hindsight Nigeria, we can recall with nostalgia, was very productive. An anonymous chronicler has recorded that as at 1980, there was economic growth because Nigeria was a net exporter of refined petroleum products unlike today when refined petroleum products are imported. When all oil producing countries make it mandatory, for oil and gas companies to set up, each, a refinery, Nigerian elites forbid the multinational corporations from doing so, laying a solid base for collecting phoney subsidies. The automobile industry has a viable presence in the economy. Steyr produced tractors for the agricultural sector. ANAMCO in Enugu and Leyland in Ibadan assembled trucks and buses. Then components. The seats were produced by Vono in Lagos, Ferodo produced brake pads and discs. Isoglass and TSG produced windshields, all of them in Ibadan. From rubber plantations in Rivers State Dunlop in Lagos and Michelin in Port Harcourt produced tyres for vehicles. In Ibadan, Sanyo produced radio and television sets. Textile mills in Kano, Kaduna and Lagos manufactured clothing materials for consumption locally and abroad. Many more were manufacturing and processing concerns that produced commodities for local consumption and for export.
But the Nigerian elite is the proverbial parasite, the tapeworm. It is quietly undermining its host’s health, believing it is killing the dog, it does not occur to it that it is on a suicide mission. And when coronavirus broke out, the attendant lockdown restricted everybody to the homelands, and the reality of their rule making and governance stares all of us in the face.
On assumption of office expectations were high. But Mr President declared that he was for everybody but also for no one. He proceeded to leave agents of its predecessors to continue to man all sectors of the economy, of the polity. The only personnel he could entrust security on, are those who belong to the same faith as he does and who share the same local language with him. Since it became obvious that security challenges are too enormous for them, Mr President would not effect change of guard in the security architecture and personnel. Security issues get more complicated by the day and the consequences are getting more devastating. While farmers have been endangered by murderous activities of invading herdsmen, global warming poses a great danger to their crops. There is drought in the South West; rivers are overflowing their banks in the North and Middle Belt. The pandemic lent itself to leaders who would not let go any opportunity to demonstrate how awesome is their power, how damning executive authority at their disposal. As at today the situation is so bad that something has to give, and urgently so. If some government personnel thought that terrorist organisations and groups should not be completely eliminated to help them achieve certain primordial objectives, they must have missed it. The terrorists have gone out of hand. Whoever helped to facilitate their take off must now have discovered that there is no escape, for the wicked. It is most harrowing that Nigerian has been boxed into becoming the lawless center of anarchy. While all land borders have been shut against our neighbours, trans Saharan trade route appears open, unhindered, unrestrained for herdsmen and cattle rustlers creating a path way for international terrorists. The hostility towards Nigerian business persons in Ghana is not only going to exacerbate the economic crisis at home. It has the potential of infecting many other African countries. It is time to seek peace with Nigerian neighbours and members of the Economic Community of West Africa, which would be extended to facilitating a mutual template for economic transactions. Economic solution must be fetched immediately because ultimately, Nigeria is at the mercy of market forces, and naturally they are crucial and brutal. Crude price, dollar rate and landing cost can only deliver untimely death to the main foreign exchange earner.
With alternative energy sources in use, the relevance of crude oil will continue to dwindle, until it reduces to a subsistence commodity. Then local technology and manufacturers would be required to keep it fit only for local consumption. Should Ondo State succeed in prospecting bitumen that can only compound its woes.
The way out is to seek the resuscitation of industries and factories that have shut down. Cottage industries or rather, small and medium size industries must be situated and replicated all over the place to cater for employment and local consumption. Expenditures on foreign goods and foods are misplaced. They must be drastically reduced. Farm produce, and locally produced goods must earn foreign exchange. The Nigerian state must facilitate a bilateral relationship between the tertiary institutions and the productive sectors. This is realizable if the security architecture is redesigned to deliver a conducive atmosphere for legitimate business and government ensures that for the people, the rule of law will find expression.