By Jaye Gaskia
Thanks to
the endless monologue of the ‘Change government’, its ‘disunited governing
party’ [remember Fela’s Beast Of No Nation – who and who unite for united
nations?], and their ‘Common sense revolution’; we now know too much about our
past and particularly our recent past; We have managed to acquire far too
little understanding of our current challenges and present hardships; and seem
to have absolutely no clarity about our future, even of the nearest future!
This seems
to me to be the most apt summation of the outcome of nearly one year of
change. Yet as the profound Africa
proverbs say, ‘the most likely outlook for Sunday can be glimpsed from how
Saturday has turned out to be.
And like
anyone who went to primary school and took the school leaving certificate exam
would know, there is nothing really common about the ‘common entrance’ exam!
Certainly not with respect to the simplicity of the exam.
So here we
are 14 months after the sweeping electoral victory; 11 months since what was
touted as the historic inauguration and handover of power by a defeated sitting
president to the elected candidate of the victorious opposition party; Here we
are about 5 months since the constitution and inauguration of the Federal
Executive Council; and after one ministerial retreat, and a second retreat of
the National Economic Council; and we still have no working budget for 2016.
But there
seems to be no direction, because the economy seems to be at best on autopilot,
and at worst under the spell of a powerful magician, the problems emanating
from the cesspool of the past keep rearing their ugly monstrous heads, becoming
ever more resilient as they expand in scope and scale.
Overwhelmed
by the scale of the rot it inherited on assumption of power, and clearly fazed
by the enormity of the task at hand, the change regime keeps reminding us at
the slightest hint of any difficulty that the humongous maladministration and
impunity of the recent past is the cause of our present problems.
This worn
out lazy excuse, has become so monotonous and routine, that each time they
speak now, they sound like broken records/audio CDs.
Of course we
know where we are coming from, we know where the rain started beating us, and
we know when the rain became a raging storm; but isn’t that why we voted out
that sorry excuse for a government? Was that not why we agreed and chorused
‘enough is enough’? Isn’t that the reason we sent that most parasitic of
governments parking from power and Aso Rock? Was that not why we embraced the
amorphous and ill-defined change?
As an
opposition party you approached the electorate, we the people, with a sonorous
cry decrying the ‘historic incompetence and barefaced and unprecedented looting
of our collective treasury’ being perpetuated and perpetrated with impunity by
the party and regime you wanted to replace.
You came to
the people fronted by ‘Mr. Integrity’ and swearing that you will end our years
of sojourn in the wilderness of waste and irresponsibility.
And the
people harkened unto your cries and voted for the so-called party of change.
The clear assumption underlying this historic choice appears to me to be very
simple and clear: Both the people and the party promising change realized and
understood the enormity of our situation, and decided something ought to be
done.
So pardon me
if I do not and cannot understand why nearly one year after the inauguration of
the new government, the government and its party continues to remind us that
the government and party that they replaced messed up the polity and the
economy.
Why do we
need to be constantly reminded of this as if this now governing party is still
an opposition party in the course of conduction an election campaign?
The election
has long since been won and lost. The next general elections are nearly three
years away. In the meantime what is sorely needed but conspicuously missing is
governance, actual governance.
But the
foundation for the present disarray had long been embedded in the nature and
character of the governing party, the APC; in the history and process of its
‘amalgamation’.
The APC,
like the PDP that it was put together to supplant from power was not really a
political party, at least not in the sense of an organized and mobilised group
of peoples and groups, with shared goals and interests; with a common, agreed
and shared vision of the society that the party aims to use the instrumentation
of governance to build and or shape; and with a shared mission in terms of an
articulated plan of action on how this social engineering might be
accomplished.
The APC like
the PDP, and nearly all of the existing ruling elite parties in Nigeria, is a
contraption cobbled together to grab power and distribute resource allocation
influence and authority.
This was why
the pre-occupation of the party in opposition and even more in power has
continued to be with the structure of the party and the consequent sharing
formula, rather than with the content and program of the party, the
articulation of its vision of society, a detailed outline of what the ‘Common
Sense Revolution’ means, and how it will, or might be achieved.
The party
was formed and announced without a program or a manifesto. Simply put, there
was no common driving vision beyond the grabbing of power.
The party
went into the general election campaigns with the promise of change, without
any articulation of what this change means for the party, and how the party is
going to use the state power it was seeking to implement this change.
It is little
wonder that the party, now the governing party has equally been governing
without a clearly articulated, common agreed and shared program of governance.
The result
is that the government has gone into panic mode over the enormity of the crisis
it has inherited; while the party is in a state of disoriented animation.
The combined
outcome of all of these is reflected in the way and manner by which the value
of the Naira and the power generation capacity of the power sector seem to be
in a state of competitive and synchronized free fall. It is also evident in the
chaos in the energy sector.
Now after
nearly one year in office, wandering about the wilderness of governance, it is
clear that all those of us who insisted long ago, and have continued to insist
since then, that neither anti-corruption, fighting insecurity, nor job creation
are economic programs.
Anti-corruption
is the about the way and manner you run your government. It is sorely needed
given where we are coming from. Every stolen Naira and Kobo must be recovered,
and every common thief who dipped their soiled fingers into our common teal
should be punished. And yes every recovered stolen money should be accounted for
in a transparent manner. Corruption will and is fighting back, and we need to
be vigilant, but all of the above will not automatically translate into
inclusive economic growth and national development, without a clearly
articulated, debated and shared economic and human development plan of action.
Likewise,
job creation is the outcome of your economic policies and programs. There is no
such project as job creation. Job is created when they economy is growing and
expanding, when opportunities are equitably distributed and can be equitably
accessed; when small scale businesses can stay in business, grow, expand,
become profitable and so can employ more hands; when new businesses can be set
up, and the environment is enhancing of their ability to survive and grow; when
labour is adequately compensated and workers welfare are enhanced making it
possible for productivity to grow, for workers to save, and for workers to
spend more to buy goods and services that have been produced; when the cost of
doing business is not prohibitive and the ease of doing business is improved.
When these
things happen, wealth is generated, meaning more revenue for public purposes,
and jobs are created.
Corruption,
insecurity, unemployment and poverty are symptoms of all embracing human
development crisis; they need to be mitigated. But the more long term solution
lies in addressing their root causes. There are structural and systemic
problems inherent in our economy and polity. What are their specific natures?
What can be done to address them? How might addressing them translate into real
change?
This is what
we expect a change government to apply itself to: the articulation through a
participatory process including public debates, of an overarching National
Economic Development Plan covering the short, to medium and long term. This
should be based on a holistic review of all existing policies with a view to
harmonising, updating, and modifying them.
But how can
this be done in a context where the government has been unable to complete the
most routine, yet most foundational process of governance; that of
articulating, enacting and implementing an annual budget?
The verdict
of history is already taking shape, time is running out, 25% of the tenure is
already nearly spent, and yet it is beginning to look like ‘the more the
changes, the more they are the same – if we are lucky, or the worse they get,
if we are unlucky’.
Nevertheless
Luck has precious little to do with this. Let me end from where I started from;
whereas the past is linked to the present, and the present to the future;
whereas understanding the past enables us to understanding the present,
nevertheless the path to the future firmly lies in front of us, not behind us,
it requires looking ahead, not getting stuck in the past; and certainly it
requires a program of action rather than body language.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please restrict your comment to the subject matter.