Discontinuance is the missing word

By Anthony Kila

Anthony Kila is a Jean Monnet professor of Strategy and Development. He is currently Centre Director at CIAPS; the  Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies, Lagos, Nigeria. He is a regular commentator on the BBC and he works with various organisations on International Development projects across Europe, Africa and the USA. He tweets @anthonykila, and can be reached at anthonykila@ciaps.org

Let us make some considerations around the speech by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the economic situation in the country. The speech was delivered on 31st July 2023 for the records. The intent of the speech was to explain reasons for the policy and measures the president has taken and intends to take to combat the serious economic challenges the country is grappling with. The president termed the challenges as “challenges this nation has long faced.” The president chose to do it in simple terms without economic jargons, that is an indication that he wanted to speak to the most.

There is no other way to put it, those who totally reject the speech in terms of content, and even idea, are wrong. They are wrong because it is a good thing for the president to directly, with his face and voice, come out to explain the rationale for his decisions and to acknowledge the situation in the country. Doing so is an indication that the president is connected to and cares about the people of the land. It is also a symbol of the president considering himself and his office accountable to the citizens of the country he is charged to govern. This might seem basic and expected, yes, it is, but if we cast our minds back to the bad days of the immediate past president, it will be clear that little big things like communication matters. One who knows how to think will also know how to be thankful.

Appreciation for little or much that is good should not and does not however deprive us of our ability and duty to dissent from some reasonings. Contrary to what the president and many are proposing, it is neither natural nor logical nor a given that fuel subsidy must go. Some of us, I don’t know how many of us left these days, but some still argue that the real issues of the fuel subsidy regime were the abuse, mismanagement and outright fraud that corrupted the regime. It is my strongly held view that in the face of a situation where a very few are mismanaging, abusing and looting a commonwealth facility created for the benefit of the very many, the appropriate response should be to sanitise the system with the aim of getting rid of its destructive parasites not shut down the whole facility.

We cannot say because there are thieves in the market or kitchen, we are going to stop cooking for and feeding our children. Do we have to keep cooking for and feeding a child forever? No, not unless the child grows with some sort of disability. When do we then remove the fuel subsidy, if ever, you may be asking? My position is that we make the fuel subsidy redundant by making fuel available at local prices (creation of refineries), by reducing and diversifying our demand of fuel (investment in alternative sources of energy, investment in mass transportation), increasing value and revenue through export of refined not crude oil. All these were to be done whilst managing the regime of fuel subsidy. This was my position in 2012 and it is still my position in 2023. On a personal note, it is worth restating here that my participation in the Occupy Nigeria Movement was nothing personal nor partisan against the government of President Goodluck Jonathan but a matter of principle, knowledge and conscience. I have nothing to fear from the “God of Jonathan” as invoked by Reuben Abati, those who have changed their positions today will have their conscience and history to deal with.

Save for something extraordinary, like a miracle, to occur, it is difficult to foresee a return to the fuel subsidy regime, it is however pertinent for future actions and policies for us to examine and document why we have had to stop the regime. Are we removing the fuel subsidy because for long we have been against it like the president says he is? Such reasoning will be an ideology-led thinking process and conclusion. Are we removing the subsidy simply because it was being “funnelled into the deep pockets and lavish bank accounts of a select group of individuals?” Such reasoning will be an indication that corruption and various forms of other crimes are more harmful to the country than we care to admit and this will be notwithstanding all the noise we already make about corruption. Are we removing the fuel subsidy simply because we are broke and cannot afford the bill? That will reveal sheer incompetence, maladministration and lack of foresight on the part of past administrations. They ate the cookie jar dry without thinking of baking or calling those that can bake.

We are where we are today so what is to be done?

A good place to start towards an effective and efficient policy process that will yield positive, progressive and prosperous political and economic outcomes for the country is for the new president to adopt “discontinuance” as a keyword. Unlike the past administrations that have tried to appease, accommodate but eventually abdicated to the corruption filled and ethically challenged elite that has amassed so much wealth and power that they have become a serious threat to the fairness of our economy and the integrity of our democratic governance, let the new administration take the fight to them and boldly say “there is a new sheriff in town”. The new administration, if it truly wants to fruitfully serve the people of this country, needs to in words and deed let the guilty and innocent know that those strong privileged few that have taken food out of the mouth of the many, the young and the weak, to feed their insatiable and depraved appetite will cough it and they will not be allowed near the cookie jars any more.

The president in his message made reference to investing here and there, making available funds for this and that; these plans are clearly aimed at reducing the economic woes of the country. How can one fault such intentions? These are noble intentions of someone or people who care and show they care about the pain of citizens. The speech is a sign that the president and those working around him are neither totally lost in a bubble nor prone to defending the undefendable like some of their supporters and followers outside office try to do. These proposed solutions are, however, patently weak, where not outrightly wrong and worse still, similar to what has been done in the past.

Enough of this obsession of government investing in ventures, let businesses do business. Role of government is to attract, facilitate and guarantee returns for private investment, this is done by creating an enabling environment. Let the government focus on investing in security, education, health, infrastructure and maybe the arts, but not business. Enough of giving out funds. If we want to ease the economic burden of people, let the government curtail its revenue by freezing taxes and putting a moratorium on levies, duties and other charges they put on transactions and properties and transactions. Let us even reduce VAT and suspend land use charges while working towards building a truly credit society wherein your status as a taxpayer and an employed citizen is what guarantees you a living, not your ability to grovel or support.