By Bassey Udo
The Nigerian economy is underperforming despite its huge potential due to the absence of a political leadership that allows the intersection between the country’s politics and policy-making towards the diversification and transformation of the economy, a US-based Nigerian economist, Zainab Usman has said.
Usman, who is the director of Carnegie Africa Programme, a think tank for global, independent and strategic insights and innovative ideas for decision-makers, based in Washington, spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at a policy conversation and book presentation event.
The event was organized by Agora Policy, a non-profit policy research organization committed to finding practical solutions to urgent national challenges, in conjunction with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Usman is the writer of the book, “Economic Diversification in Nigeria: The Politics of Building a Post-Oil Economy”, selected by Financial Times as one of the best books of 2022 on economics.
In her presentation of the book to the Nigerian audience at the event, Usman gave a few highlights of the publication, pointing out that despite Nigeria’s huge potential, not only as Africa’s biggest economy and one of the world’s leading producers of oil and gas, the country has continued to under-perform and unable to harness its strengths to the benefit of the citizenry.
A political economist and one-time senior official of the World Bank in Washington, Usman said the book was a product of a research undertaken to identify the challenges oil and natural resource-rich countries, like Nigeria, face in its development strides, particularly the role of politics in policy making towards the development of the oil and gas resources.
In her key messages, Usman who underlined the need for the country’s leaders to accurately identify and diagnose the problems before attempting to proffer solutions, disputed insinuations that Nigeria’s problem was rooted on an oil curse, which tend to bring economic stagnation, corruption, bad governance and conflict in resource-rich countries.
Also, she rejected the notion that Nigeria’s challenges have anything to do with the culture of “neo-patrimonialism”, which she explained, tends to promote the fusion of traditional and modern institutions o bring about that a distorted and dysfunctional governance arrangements that are unable to deliver real economic development to the people at all levels of the economy.
To deliver development, Usman recommended a policy framework that recognizes the country’s political settlement as the shapers of policies that affect economic outcomes.
“The central challenge of economic development in Nigeria is the need to diversify and transform the economy, by ensuring the intersection of its politics and policy-making,” she told the audience the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, as well as the Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai (left) with Muhammad Sanusi II
Specifically, she identified unstable political settlement or inequitable distribution of political power as the root causes of the perpetual crises in the country, stressing the need to focus on easy-fix reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability and restoration of growth.
Besides, she called for a systematic, long-term reorientation towards structural transformation and economic diversification, adding that a conceptualized economic diversification political project would help build a strong Nigeria of shared prosperity, inclusive of rival elites and creation of an economic base to address internal threats to the country’s survival.
Other recommendations included the enforcement of a systematic power-sharing formula to stabilize Nigeria’s volatile balance of power, to allow for a long-term economic policy orientation towards sustainable development.
In addition, she called for the development of a shared vision for transforming the economy, in terms of balancing the role of the state and market as well as regional differences.
In his contribution, Sanusi said whichever administration comes to power after Buhari must learn from the mistakes of its predecessors by ensuring that competence and capacity to deliver good governance to the people dictated the selection of members of the Executive Council of the Federation.
Descrying the practice in the past where politicians that failed elections were appointed Ministers or Chairmen of Boards of sensitive government agencies as patronage to compensate for the loss, Sanusi said the next administration must take steps to protect government institutions from the excesses of politicians.
He said for the country to make meaningful progress, Nigerians must learn from the good and the bad experiences, adding that we must evaluate actions and policies to see what was done right as well as what went wrong and make amends.
“If we don’t understand where we went off-course, we are not likely to get back on course. So, we are going to have a government sworn in on May 29 and I think it’s time to start saying: what do we expect of that government? We need to put round pegs in round holes, and square pegs in square holds. People must be appointed into roles they can flourish in,” he said.
The respected traditional ruler pointed out that the country has lost a lot of ground it gained before as a result of the decision by successive administrations to give important roles to public servants who are unelected in power.
He said key institutions set up to help protect the system against the excesses of politicians have unfortunately been co-opted into the political process, citing the example of the central bank, which was granted independence and autonomy to protect it against politicians, in pursuing its mandate of maintaining price and exchange rate stability.
Also, he said the judiciary, police, and anti-corruption agencies were granted autonomy so as to be able to ensure justice have been compromised by politicians, pointing out that democracy was not just about voting, but about the rule of law, equity and justice.
“What happens if the police, the judiciary, the central bank, and the civil service now see themselves as part of a political process, as an arm of the ruling party? Everything is wrong.
“So, we need to go back to that situation where politicians respect the independence, integrity and autonomy of these institutions, and when these institutions were held accountable by the laws setting them up, to do what they want to do.
“So, I hope that the next president will make a very clear statement that he is going to respect these constitutional arrangements, allow these institutions to do the work that they are supposed to do and understand that these are not just places for patronage.
“A situation where somebody that has just lost his election into the House of Representatives, and he is made a commissioner in charge of electricity supply cannot work. These institutions are not for that.
“I really would like to see the list of ministers on May 29 or the next day. I have seen a list of 36 ministers in this country without a single economist and that cabinet ran for four years.
“We would like to see who is the finance minister, governor of the central bank, the planning minister, the trade and investment minister.
“I wish this country the best. I think this term we need a lot of good luck; a lot of prayers and a lot of effort. But we have to make sure we put in everything to move forward,” Sanusi said.
Sanusi
In his introductory remarks, the Founder of Agora Policy and co-host of the event, Waziri Adio, said the event was organized to formally introduce the book by Usman to the Nigerian audience, to create an opportunity to hold a frank and necessary conversation about the country.
While congratulating Usman for her accomplishments, Adio said the event was also an opportunity to introduce Agora Policy as a platform to help in finding practical solutions to Nigeria’s urgent national challenges.
He said Agora Policy, which was supported by the MacArthur Foundation, was committed to offering evidence-led and solution-driven policy reports, policy insights, and policy memos focused on research, dialogue and capacity building.