A simple example will drive home my point. President Yar'Adua was a family man. While alive, he was responsible for making sure his wife and children had food to eat, clothes to wear, a house to live in, etc. How would he have known if he was doing a good job? Two options come to mind: 1. Compare aspirations to actual; 2. Compare actual to what contemporaries are doing. Nothing complicated about that. He would have set up processes and structures to ensure that he met his aspirations or outperformed his peers. He would have decided on jobs to take and investments to make with that singular purpose in mind. Would he have needed a seven-point agenda? I think not.
Nigeria does not need a seven-point agenda, a Vision 20: 2020, or any other similar government proclamations, which the authors, as well as the citizenry, know are not worth the paper they are written on. What we need is development. Plain and simple. We need our leaders to think about the country the same way they think about their families. We need our leaders to care enough about Nigeria's international reputation, and be angered that we are poster boys for lack and under-development. Am I asking for too much?
Let's return to the late president. Had he approached the management of Nigeria's affairs as he surely approached the management of his family's, what might he have done differently? Well, what would have been a good aspiration to have for his "children"? A per capita income of $10,000, which would put us at about the same standard of living as citizens of Poland, Lithuania, St. Kitts and Nevis, Libya, Chile and Seychelles. Don't laugh, there are millions of Nigerians who would gladly move to any of these countries (even Libya, with all the fighting going on!).
To achieve this target per capita income, the president would have had to find ways to get per capita GDP up to $10,000 from its present $1,118, in essence growing Nigeria's GDP to $1,400 billion ($10,000 for each of the country's 140 million people). Let's put that figure in perspective - our documented GDP for 2009 was $173 billion. Growing our GDP by 800% would put us on par with Spain, Canada and Russia. I think you would agree that these countries would be more to the liking of most Nigerians, than those listed in the last paragraph. The GDPs of the three countries place them in the top twelve economies in the world, and aside from Russia, these countries have significantly lower populations than Nigeria, meaning per capita income figures are much higher than the target suggested for Nigeria (Spain's is $31,774, while Canada's is $39,599).
Now comes the hard part - what could Umaru have done to achieve this level of development? The same thing the governments of the developed countries do:
1. Provide an enabling environment for individuals and businesses to add value locally and globally - invest in health and education (especially research), provide infrastructure, ensure access to credit so people can purchase goods and services.
2. Use political clout and muscle to ensure individuals and businesses have access to international markets - a country's citizens should be able to work anywhere in the world, if they have the right qualifications. A country's businesses should also be able to compete globally. Nigeria's reputation is not helping in this regard!
3. Get out of the way - ensure systems to foster development are in place, do not change policies at whim!
The developed world has followed this formula to a tee. That is why we have American oil companies running our oil sector. This is why we have foreign companies extracting our minerals. Also explains why we have foreigners managing our domestic airlines. Few people in Nigeria thinks twice about hiring a foreign firm or a foreign national to do important work in the country. Why? Because experience has shown they are likely to be more productive and more trust-worthy. Which explains why we have Indians running some of the biggest companies in Nigeria today (Globacom, being a key example).
Until Nigeria is conducive for business, as well as self-development and self-expression on an individual level, we will not see the kind of growth that will lift the bulk of our people out of poverty. Can you imagine a Nigeria with an economy the size of Canada's? What would major cities like Lagos and Abuja look like? You would see diverse businesses in key high-growth sectors (ICT, finance, medicine, etc.), a functional postal system, variety of on-line retailers, an abundance of private-sector owned buildings for commercial and residential purposes, a functional ports system, an active tourism sector, luxury goods retailers in high-brow areas, etc.
The picture I just painted is similar to what you see in developed countries, isn't it. Why can't it happen in Nigeria? Largely because the private sector is not productive enough and also does not invest enough, and also because the government discourages it from doing either. It's time we killed this dysfunctional co-dependency, and let each sector do what it does best, as best as it can. That should have been Umaru's focus. That should be GEJ's focus. One agenda, one focus, less hot air.
