The-greatest-tragedy-of-nigeria-and-africa
September 7, 2020 | News
THE GREATEST TRAGEDY OF NIGERIA AND AFRICA
I have often reiterated the need for African/Nigerian Governments to always think back before they act today in the interest of their tomorrow, so that they do not, with their very own hands, repeat the mistakes of the past, and destroy the very foundation upon which they all need to stand in the first place. As noted by Confucius (c550 – 478 BC) “STUDY THE PAST IF YOU WOULD DIVINE THE FUTURE”. Aside not learning from the past, we have also not been able to learn the right things from other nations that have succeeded in areas where we are still struggling, and have not succeeded as a people.
This fact was broadened in a viral video online of the interview of Mr. Audu Ogbe (Nigerian Politicians and former Minister of Agriculture), by Rev. George Ehusani. In the very words of Ogbe: “One of the tragedies of Africa, is that we have very little regard for history. In fact, right now it has been cancelled in our Schools. Where were we 40 years ago? 50 years ago? What have we leant from other societies like India, China and Brazil? We copy a bit too quickly and too wrongly, and that is why we are where we are today. And we also copy from the wrong sources.
“In 1986, we had this thing called the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) dumped on Nigeria and Africa. That destroyed most countries in Africa-everything. Sorry to say, I am not an economist. I was in Hong Kong visiting with a friend, when we heard on the television that the auctioning of our national currency began in April of that year. And it was N3 to $1 at that time (1986). And the economist in Nigeria said it was the only way out. And honestly, economics itself is 90% common sense. Why are you auctioning your currency? When what to do is to cut down on imports, and boost local production. Why are you shipping in rice? That one began as far back as 1982. A Task Force on the importation of rice. I was a young 34 years old man in the cabinet then. And I asked the question, why not a Task Force for the Production of rice?
“They say no, you guys in the University you don’t know anything. In the interim, let’s just import. The Bill rose to $5m a day, and remained so for nearly 30 years. We imported rice from Taiwan, from Thailand, Vietnam and even India. We just ship the money out, and ship in goods. And once the Structural Adjustment came, we added on to it, Free Trade. So, we opened our windows, our doors and roof, and any foreign good was dumped into Nigeria. Plastics that wouldn’t last an hour in the hands of a child as toys, honey, sugar, milk, tooth-paste, tooth-pick, hand-kerchief, pills on the table, etc. We produced nothing. If you go to your house and look around, practically everything is imported. What is it that is made here; practically almost nothing? And we say it was perfect because of oil and gas money!
“We ship out oil, send the proceeds to sustain other economics and bring in their goods. Along with the goods, unemployment, and poverty started and increased. So, we lost all our institutions and industries; the groundnut pyramids in the North, the Cocoa, coal, palm kennel, etc. everything went down. If you go to the South-East between 1982 and 1990, about 510 industries sprang up. I think the Igbos then decided, rather than trade, we produce. But less than 90 of these industries are still running today. The factories have closed, the owners have died. Their dreams have died. All of these is being caused by a fundamental problem. There’s a discomfort, there is discontent all over the place. So, the young people have nothing to aspire to. Young people can’t think of a day when they will marry, have a flat of their won. Own a job or business. And even if they have a job today, the wage is too low.
“Then, at the bottom of it all, is that since 1986, we’ve had the most tragic philosophy of economic management, where interest rate has stood on the average between 25% and 35%. And no one can readily invest with that kind of interest rate. And how do you borrow at 35% unless you’re into crime. May be cocaine. What do you produce with 35%, and buy your generator, and buy your diesel, and pay your tax, and pay your workers a living wage? And when you talk about it, this so-called brilliant people who read in Harvard, Yale and Oxford, would tell you that you know nothing. Where in the world are interest rate this high now?”
It is no news that it was under Ibrahim Babangida’s military era that Nigeria experienced the most devastating economic policies that changed the trajectory path on the development of the nation. Most of his economic policies, specifically the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that was powered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is said to be responsible for the downward progression of the nation’s once thriving economy. Since then, Nigeria is yet to recover from that experience. But be that as it may, Nigeria’s major challenge over the last five decades, remains leaderships’ inability to holistically transform other Sectors of the country with Nigeria’s oil and gas wealth, towards the improvement needed in the life of the average citizen. The sad part about this is that, if our political leaders, as custodians of the nation’s oil and gas wealth, do not do something fast in utilizing this wealth to stimulate and develop the rest of the economy from different sectors, and improve the lives of its citizenry and make Nigeria a global attraction to all; we seriously fear the worse when the nation’s mainstay is there no more. It is no news that the Nigerian economy, the living standards of the Nigerian people, especially that of those in the South-South of the Niger Delta region where the oil and gas wealth is produced; have greatly deteriorated, and no longer what it used to be in past decades before the discovery of oil.
In what was described as “Nigeria’s greatest problem”, a public affairs analyst, Aaron Abun, practically hit the nail on the head in a recent post, when he noted a ‘very scary, but true reality’ facing the country: that “Thirteen Boeing 747 cargo planes come to Nigeria daily. Offloading cargo then fly back ‘empty’, Sometimes, they have to use sandbags to stabilize the aircraft. Five out of every six ships that berths in Nigeria return to their base ‘empty’. The only one which leaves with cargo is filled with Charcoal, Gypsum Salt and Sesame Seeds. 180 million people eating, sleeping and contributing nothing to the world. All we do is drill oil and gas, sell it, bank the money and share the proceeds! Even the oil is drilled by foreign companies. We do nothing other than share the sales proceeds…”
Those lines hit us hard and nearly made us to want to weep for our dear nation Nigeria, especially as regards what the future holds for our young and yet-unborn-generation; if we continue like this as a people and as a nation. With empty cargo aircrafts and ships respectively leaving Nigeria’s airspace and Ports on a daily basis, it clearly shows that Nigeria is nothing but “a consumer nation” that is gradually eating and consuming itself out of existence and oblivion, without producing, manufacturing or yielding anything much to benefit the rest of the world it has been eating from. Aside the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, most of which are still carried out by International Oil Companies (IOCs) as noted above, what can we really say as a country, which we can pinpoint and boast about, that we are contributing to the rest of the world through exports, to better humanity? What can we point exactly? Let this be food for thought for those in Government at all levels, and the entire citizenry.
Zik Gbemre.
September 5, 2020.
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes
I have often reiterated the need for African/Nigerian Governments to always think back before they act today in the interest of their tomorrow, so that they do not, with their very own hands, repeat the mistakes of the past, and destroy the very foundation upon which they all need to stand in the first place. As noted by Confucius (c550 – 478 BC) “STUDY THE PAST IF YOU WOULD DIVINE THE FUTURE”. Aside not learning from the past, we have also not been able to learn the right things from other nations that have succeeded in areas where we are still struggling, and have not succeeded as a people.
This fact was broadened in a viral video online of the interview of Mr. Audu Ogbe (Nigerian Politicians and former Minister of Agriculture), by Rev. George Ehusani. In the very words of Ogbe: “One of the tragedies of Africa, is that we have very little regard for history. In fact, right now it has been cancelled in our Schools. Where were we 40 years ago? 50 years ago? What have we leant from other societies like India, China and Brazil? We copy a bit too quickly and too wrongly, and that is why we are where we are today. And we also copy from the wrong sources.
“In 1986, we had this thing called the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) dumped on Nigeria and Africa. That destroyed most countries in Africa-everything. Sorry to say, I am not an economist. I was in Hong Kong visiting with a friend, when we heard on the television that the auctioning of our national currency began in April of that year. And it was N3 to $1 at that time (1986). And the economist in Nigeria said it was the only way out. And honestly, economics itself is 90% common sense. Why are you auctioning your currency? When what to do is to cut down on imports, and boost local production. Why are you shipping in rice? That one began as far back as 1982. A Task Force on the importation of rice. I was a young 34 years old man in the cabinet then. And I asked the question, why not a Task Force for the Production of rice?
“They say no, you guys in the University you don’t know anything. In the interim, let’s just import. The Bill rose to $5m a day, and remained so for nearly 30 years. We imported rice from Taiwan, from Thailand, Vietnam and even India. We just ship the money out, and ship in goods. And once the Structural Adjustment came, we added on to it, Free Trade. So, we opened our windows, our doors and roof, and any foreign good was dumped into Nigeria. Plastics that wouldn’t last an hour in the hands of a child as toys, honey, sugar, milk, tooth-paste, tooth-pick, hand-kerchief, pills on the table, etc. We produced nothing. If you go to your house and look around, practically everything is imported. What is it that is made here; practically almost nothing? And we say it was perfect because of oil and gas money!
“We ship out oil, send the proceeds to sustain other economics and bring in their goods. Along with the goods, unemployment, and poverty started and increased. So, we lost all our institutions and industries; the groundnut pyramids in the North, the Cocoa, coal, palm kennel, etc. everything went down. If you go to the South-East between 1982 and 1990, about 510 industries sprang up. I think the Igbos then decided, rather than trade, we produce. But less than 90 of these industries are still running today. The factories have closed, the owners have died. Their dreams have died. All of these is being caused by a fundamental problem. There’s a discomfort, there is discontent all over the place. So, the young people have nothing to aspire to. Young people can’t think of a day when they will marry, have a flat of their won. Own a job or business. And even if they have a job today, the wage is too low.
“Then, at the bottom of it all, is that since 1986, we’ve had the most tragic philosophy of economic management, where interest rate has stood on the average between 25% and 35%. And no one can readily invest with that kind of interest rate. And how do you borrow at 35% unless you’re into crime. May be cocaine. What do you produce with 35%, and buy your generator, and buy your diesel, and pay your tax, and pay your workers a living wage? And when you talk about it, this so-called brilliant people who read in Harvard, Yale and Oxford, would tell you that you know nothing. Where in the world are interest rate this high now?”
It is no news that it was under Ibrahim Babangida’s military era that Nigeria experienced the most devastating economic policies that changed the trajectory path on the development of the nation. Most of his economic policies, specifically the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that was powered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is said to be responsible for the downward progression of the nation’s once thriving economy. Since then, Nigeria is yet to recover from that experience. But be that as it may, Nigeria’s major challenge over the last five decades, remains leaderships’ inability to holistically transform other Sectors of the country with Nigeria’s oil and gas wealth, towards the improvement needed in the life of the average citizen. The sad part about this is that, if our political leaders, as custodians of the nation’s oil and gas wealth, do not do something fast in utilizing this wealth to stimulate and develop the rest of the economy from different sectors, and improve the lives of its citizenry and make Nigeria a global attraction to all; we seriously fear the worse when the nation’s mainstay is there no more. It is no news that the Nigerian economy, the living standards of the Nigerian people, especially that of those in the South-South of the Niger Delta region where the oil and gas wealth is produced; have greatly deteriorated, and no longer what it used to be in past decades before the discovery of oil.
In what was described as “Nigeria’s greatest problem”, a public affairs analyst, Aaron Abun, practically hit the nail on the head in a recent post, when he noted a ‘very scary, but true reality’ facing the country: that “Thirteen Boeing 747 cargo planes come to Nigeria daily. Offloading cargo then fly back ‘empty’, Sometimes, they have to use sandbags to stabilize the aircraft. Five out of every six ships that berths in Nigeria return to their base ‘empty’. The only one which leaves with cargo is filled with Charcoal, Gypsum Salt and Sesame Seeds. 180 million people eating, sleeping and contributing nothing to the world. All we do is drill oil and gas, sell it, bank the money and share the proceeds! Even the oil is drilled by foreign companies. We do nothing other than share the sales proceeds…”
Those lines hit us hard and nearly made us to want to weep for our dear nation Nigeria, especially as regards what the future holds for our young and yet-unborn-generation; if we continue like this as a people and as a nation. With empty cargo aircrafts and ships respectively leaving Nigeria’s airspace and Ports on a daily basis, it clearly shows that Nigeria is nothing but “a consumer nation” that is gradually eating and consuming itself out of existence and oblivion, without producing, manufacturing or yielding anything much to benefit the rest of the world it has been eating from. Aside the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, most of which are still carried out by International Oil Companies (IOCs) as noted above, what can we really say as a country, which we can pinpoint and boast about, that we are contributing to the rest of the world through exports, to better humanity? What can we point exactly? Let this be food for thought for those in Government at all levels, and the entire citizenry.
Zik Gbemre.
September 5, 2020.
We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes