Clay Richie

One factor that is strongly linked to Nigeria’s inability to attain great heights is tardiness. We are awfully slow in virtually everything and usually barely moved by critical issues. Yes, we are that bad.

Yesterday, I ran a couple of errands that had me go through LASUTH, Opebi, Ikosi and CMD Roads. Every stop I made brought new revelations that made me marvel at how fast things are retrogressing  and how hard the government is trying to reward people’s tenacity with frustration.

As Nigeria marks its 56th Independence Anniversary, very few Nigerians would expect any form of celebration or excitement.  Independence from colonial rule in 1960 has brought the country so much to be cheerful about, but 56 years later, also a lot of regrets.  I am not one of those who imagine that we would probably have been better off if we had remained under British rule, but that there are some Nigerians who still entertain such impossible thought indicates the depth of the people’s anxiety about Nigeria’s post-colonial reality.

I thank the organizers of this AGM for giving me the opportunity to make a few remarks on the topic – Diversifying the Nigerian Economy: the Role of Government in Manufacturing.

And, sadly, it came to pass. It is well predicted that most countries blessed with natural resources, even in the best of times, perform worse economically than countries not so endowed; and that, when times are tough, countries that are dependent on natural resources come to an assured grief. There is a popular name for this strange but common condition: resource curse. It sounds metaphysical, it seems counter-intuitive even, but it is a position supported by enough evidence. And there can’t be better evidence than this: a Nigeria that is in the choke-hold of economic recession right after fifteen years of consistently high oil prices and over N70 trillion of oil revenues earned by the federation.

I’m looking for a knife, a very long and sharp one. I’m not possessed with murderous rage over the recession. The Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, has said the worst is over and I believe him.

Finally, the cracks papered over by the All Progressives Congress since it took office have become a gaping hole where political lizards now recreate. Even if they still deny it, the statement recently issued by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, National Leader and prime mover of the alliance that birthed the APC signals that undertakers may soon be invited to inter the erstwhile party of promise.

In the heat of the election to halt Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s 16 years rule in 2015, the new coalition of opposition political parties to form All Progressives Congress, APC brought in a renown American political strategist, David Axerold to help develop and implement the strategy that facilitated the demise of the former ruling party.

Last week Africa’s top business mogul, Aliko Dangote, along with Emir of Kano and former governor of Nigeria’s central bank, Malam Mohammed Sanusi II, stirred the hornet’s nest when they proposed that government should sell off some of its assets to plug the huge gap in its revenue stream caused by the collapse in oil price and of oil production.

It is no longer news that Nigeria is in an economic recession. Inflation is officially at 17.1 percent, unemployment is said to be at over 18 per cent while more people are dropping below the poverty line for not being able to afford one dollar per day. The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been greatly

While Nigeria is heating up in its economic turmoil, the Nigerian Economic Summit couldn’t have come at a better time. Its importance in these trying times cannot be overstated. Rather, it can only be understated. Following its inauguration in 1993, the Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) is held annually and is organised by the Nigeria Economic Summit Group in alliance with the Ministry of Planning. It has continued to be the Nation’s biggest economic  policy think-tank , taking the position of  thought leadership in public –private discussion relating to the  formulation and influencing of economic policies and research for the growth and transformation of the Nigerian economy.

As voters in Edo State go out later today to elect a candidate to fill the office of Governor of Edo State for the next four (4) years, they must do the following in order to ensure that their collective will prevails and that their votes count:

Sometime in June 1983, I found myself sitting next to Chief Michael Ibru at a company retreat. Four months earlier, The Guardian on Sunday, a newspaper title under the signature of the chief’s younger brother, Alex, had debuted in Lagos.  I was on the staff.

Wherever he is at the moment, Bola Tinubu, national leader of the APC, must surely be regretting some of the choices and political decisions he has made of recent. For a man who was once described as one of the best political strategists our country has yet produced, but has obviously become outsmarted in the government he helped bring about, these are clearly not the best of times. Indeed, how are the mighty fallen!

In my previous capacity as the chairman of the technical committee of the National Council on Privatisation up until May 2015, I canvassed for the privatisation of the power sector, sale of Nitel and pushed for the sale of the refineries and the passage of the transport reform bills before time ran out on the last administration.

I have just read the wide media coverage regarding the recommendations of the National Economic Council (NEC) as well as the Senate on the ways to reboot the economy out of the current recession. Times such as this require all brains at work and all hands on deck. Consequently, I commend both institutions for their patriotic duty in advising the President. Surely, the proposals are still mere advice or recommendations, and not approval as wrongly reported by some media. Only the President can approve any of those recommendations to become policy (both NEC and Senate are advisory bodies on matters of national economic policy).

At the advent of renewed mindless attacks by Fulani herdsmen on fellow Nigerians with the height of it all coming in Agatu and Enugu where, as usual, hundreds of innocent and defenceless citizens were mowed down in cold blood, invasions which caused a huge outcry among well-meaning Nigerians and the international community, several eminent Nigerians have risen in defence of the herdsmen designated the fourth most dangerous terrorist group in the world by the Global Terror Index, claiming an alibi for them by saying that they are not Nigerians.

I do not like to delve into matters touching and concerning the APC because I am not a member. However what is happening in the ruling party today transcends partisan politics and should be a concern to us all. At the very least we can learn some very hard lessons from it.

The script remains the same. The actors too have not changed. The theatre is Nigeria where a rapacious and parasitic ruling class holds sway. They have been bleeding our country since time immemorial and they are not going to change soon. That sums up the current clamor for selling our national assets to pave the way out of recession.

“I believe the fight (against corruption) begins at the top.” - Peruvian  President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski In 1984, the celebrated Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe in his book, The Trouble With Nigeria said “Keeping an average Nigerian from being corrupt is like keeping a goat from eating yam.” That was 1984. Today, corruption in Nigeria has deepened and widened.

Once again, I am constrained to consider the University of Lagos and its increasingly intolerant attitude towards student rebellion. I have previously written on this in reference to the school’s high-handedness when it dealt with the aftermath of a student protest. I was — and still I’m — astonished by the degree of repression imposed by the university’s Senate.

All Nigerians have been challenged to think outside the box in order to get the country out of recession. We columnists have often contributed valuable ideas towards heading off a recession or even a depression, but the rulers of Nigeria have not listened. We foretold a day like this.

Baffling. That’s the word. When Mrs Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance, publicly canvassed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should lower interest rate, I was baffled. Although the CBN is theoretically independent of the executive arm of government, we are in such a delicate situation that you do not want managers of the economy to say things that could paint the picture that they are not on the same page. I was wondering: if the monetary policy committee (MPC) eventually decided not to lower the rate, what point would Adeosun have made? That she wanted a lower rate but the bad guys in MPC refused to co-operate with her?

“There is enough blame to go round but once you are in charge there is no time for blame or trying to find excuses. You do what you can. I was the minister of Abuja. I did not inherit a perfect Abuja. Those before me did many things that were not right. But I did not complain once about what they did. I looked at the situation I had on the ground and tried to fix what I could. I didn’t solve every problem. But I was not whining and crying, saying others created the problem so I can’t do anything about it. I solved the ones I could.” – Nasir el-Rufai, former FCT Minister and now the governor of Kaduna State, lashing out at the then President Goodluck Jonathan, on a TVC programme, Straight Talk, circa 2013.

Fellow Nigerians, let me start by thanking all the blogs, WhatsApp groups, Facebook and Twitter wizards who make the incredible efforts and sacrifice to mass-circulate my Pendulum column every week. I’m sincerely grateful for your abiding faith in the written word. Let me assure you that you push me to write this piece regularly no matter how tough. I must also salute all those who reach out to me via emails, SMS and telephone calls offering their appreciation of my humble contribution to nation-building. I’ve just received one such call from a businessman who believes so much in Buhari but feels the man has been encircled by desperate political jobbers who are not bothered whether he fails or succeeds. They are only interested in the allure and lucre of power, he says and he may not be far from the truth.

Last week, I tried to write about some negative effects of a cult of personality on a relatively fragile democracy like ours (see herehttps://medium.com/@clarenceonyekwere/on-the-cult-of-personality-and-its-consequences-2016-version-d310aa58de7d#.5bn775jf4 ).

The phrase “it will not happen again” ended the global conversation that started here last week. President Muhammadu Buhari used the phrase in his apology to Nigerians. What he said to President Barack Obama in New York, this week, nobody knows.

I recently read an article which queried the silence of the media on the “good work” that the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, is doing on the Sagamu-Ore end of the Lagos-Ore-Benin Expressway and a number of other federal roads.

It’s not nice to speak badly of first ladies. Not nice at all. Not because they will send you to jail or castrate you as a few of them could some time ago, but I guess there’s a quiet social taboo that just restrains us from throwing the kitchen sink at the mothers of the nation.

In the 2015 electoral year, Nigerians sought escape from the hands of the Peoples` Democratic Party (PDP), a political party that since 1999 tirelessly milked Nigeria dry while refusing to place it on the path of development. By more than sheer happenstance, Nigerians collectively placed efforts that saw the All Progressives` Congress (APC) seize power from the PDP, a scenario that rekindled the hope of many Nigerians in the project Nigeria. A year later however, this hope is being gradually dashed by the attitudes and tendencies of many a public office holder who have since May 29th last year been showing very little interest in making any difference from the way the PDP run its government in the past.

The organisers of the recent counter-march to that of the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaign in Abuja should be regarded as the real enemies of the Buhari administration. Bearing outrageous placards, the “protesters” made a spectacle of themselves. Well, it must be clearly conceded that they have the right to protest even it means absurdity on display. It is indeed astonishing that some persons could openly pick quarrel with those keeping the condition of the Chibok girls alive in the public realm.

Short answer: Yes, but only if they are also economic thinkers. Not all persons who hold degrees or certificates in economics are economic thinkers. Not all economic thinkers hold formal economics degrees. The history of the world economy and many national economies has been shaped by economic thinkers. Some of these minds are technical economists, and others are not.

Nigeria is currently engulfed in a major crisis of intergroup relations that is rooted in the politics of economic survival but which is often easily exploited by the elite. The latest theatre of such madness is in the Northwest state of Zamfara where towns and villages are attacked, almost on a daily basis, by armed bandits while the vigilante groups brought in by the helpless communities to help restore order are either being exterminated or are themselves engaging in extra judicial killings. With villages being deserted and a growing resort to self-help in the face of what looks like organized crime, there are serious threats to our national economy and security that many Nigerians are not paying adequate attention to.

Presently, it looks like the harvest from investment in education is a long-term one, a people desperate for relief from socio-economic hardship are unlikely to wait for; just as a government looking for low-hanging fruits to assuage the feeling of the people may be unlikely to adopt it as an early option.

Today is my busiest day here, so I have little time to participate in the conversations that my interventions have inspired. But here is a quick reaction to presidential spokesman Malam Garba Shehu’s response to my column and Facebook status update. As I’ve stated many times already, including in my Daily Trust on Saturday column, the allegation (actually news report) that President Buhari spent 6 million pounds to treat his ear infection has been published in Vanguard, Nigeria’s most visited news site, for more than 3 months, and has circulated widely in Nigerian cyberspace.

My Dear President: All Nigerian people are happy that you are taking the nation in a new direction after decades of a culture of impunity.  Your directive that the police respect the dignity of the human person of all our citizens could not have come at a better time. We are enamored of your directive that the police review their indiscriminate allotment of orderlies to non-state actors who are just wealthy men. I am one of the several victims of the use of the police hierarchy by a private individual in our hometown of Oraifite in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State, to humiliate, intimidate, brutalize and falsely imprison innocent citizens for several months.

Last month, The Nigerian Times reported that President Buhari was perfecting plans to sell off Nigeria’s stake in NLNG to some businessmen from the Middle East. The paper reported that this deal was been brokered by an influential northern governor.

The 'CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME' campaigns kickstarted by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari is being misunderstood as if the President is shifting the Change he promised to the doorsteps of Nigerians. The impression I get when I speak to friends or read their write-ups is that President Buhari is abdicating in his responsibility to bring the desired change his promised the people of Nigeria. They say that the 'CHANGE BEGINS WITH ME' campaigns is an attempt to divert the attention of Nigerians from the real issues. They claim that the President is blaming them for the economic crisis they never created in the first place. They are of the opinion that President Buhari should bring the change he promised.

Is anyone serious about cutting politicians’ outrageous salaries and allowance? If this recession is not enough reason to deflate an economy that was pumped up by corruption for so many years, it is very difficult to see what else it would take. Sending that message alone would have reciprocal effect on the economy, driving inflation and prices of goods and services down so that poor people at the bottom of the salary leader can increase their purchasing power with the little they make.

In the 1997 movie, Absolute Power, the President of the United States was involved in a murder. The murder had a silent witness, who, as time went on, began to do what he could to bring the President to justice. As the movie goes along, all the characters around the President do everything they can to protect both the person and the office of President. The Chief of Staff is clearly willing to take the fall, as is a Secret Service agent. That willingness to fall on one’s sword for the leader, is something missing in these parts.

I missed my flight from London to New York City. Trouble started at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos when our plane developed a sensor problem while taxiing for take off. It forced the plane to return to the gate for engineers to work at it. After enduring power outage at the airport, I was ready for anything.

In my last column, I attempted to draw attention to the importance of diversifying our understanding of the diversification of the economy beyond commodities to less tangible but more important assets of our nation. These could be summarised under education, talent, entrepreneurship, intellectual property and skills. I concluded by arguing that most modern economies leveraged knowledge to leapfrog to development, even when they have commodities like us.

1) President Buhari has promised to sanction folks who plagiarized President Obama in his “change begins with me” speech. That is a welcome development and I commend him for swiftly admitting the error. However:

The Vice-President of Nigeria,Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law and a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) combined irrational argument with evangelical exhortation in the classic preacher fashion that true change would come in the year of our Lord Twenty Thousand and Eighteen.

How much is Patience Jonathan worth? You can keep your guess.  Here is mine: Goodluck Jonathan does not know.  Some people say, he dares not ask, but that is just hearsay.

It is amusing when President Muhammadu Buhari is described to be a nationalist and, or patriot. Buhari is none of these things but a tribalist whose interest is first and foremost to those belonging to the same Fulani tribe and the Islamic faith like himself. How do I know this? By his words, but most importantly from his actions and sometimes inactions.

There are two statements that President Buhari made in the last few days that I find curious and misleading. I have read them over and over again and I am left with no other conclusion than the fact that we have a President that has no recollection of history and that has no memory.

Finally, our dear president Muhamadu Buhari has admitted that his policy actions or inactions are hurting Nigerians, at least in the interim, if not long term and he has thus appealed to them for patience during the ‘feast of sacrifice’ recently observed by Muslims.

Yesterday, as her casket was lowered into the grave and I performed the ashes-for-ashes ritual, my emotions ran riot. You can’t blame me: a bulky chapter of my life was being buried. My grandmother, Mrs Deborah Malomo Omolere Oludoyi, known variously as “Iya Kola”, “Iya Abayomi”, “Iya Idowu” and “Iya Ibeji” (but “Momo” to me), was my all-in-all in my childhood and teenage years. She was my father and mother rolled into one. She was my mentor, my philosopher, my role model. She was always cheerful. In the 1960s and 70s, her smiles earned her the moniker “Iya Eleyin Funfun” (the woman with the white teeth) in Yagbaland, where she hawked textile.

The troubling situation that we so much dreaded has come upon us. The long predicted hardship, based on which many urged President Muhammadu Buhari to hasten up on economic decisions at the inception of his administration, is here with us. And all the signs keep showing red. It is danger here, and panic there.