The unfortunate economic retrogression presently being witnessed in the sovereign project called Nigeria, after six decades of Independence (1960) mind boggling and disturbingly hard to believe. That the nation’s economy could degenerate from better in the ‘60s to worse after sixty three years of self rule and national struggles for better statehood could never have been the expectations of ordinary good citizens of Nigeria. This is because the country is bountifully blessed and stupendously endowed with quality stock of human and natural resources.
Nigeria is, indeed, a nation that is wired to do exploits by virtue of her content and capacity. Unfortunately, however, the characteristic nature of those piloting the affairs of governance, with their operational modes, is imbued with a systemic, corruptly configured routine that is not patriotic towards the wellbeing of the state. This clearly manifests in the stagnancy and failures observed in the performance records of the nationhood.
The founding fathers of Nigeria’s independence – the Awolowos, Balewas and Azikiwes – meant well for the economic wellbeing of the nascent sovereign state in the ‘60s. It’s no wonder, therefore, that the original national economic plan for growth and development was zoned and independently manned by the regions who were driven by very healthy economic competitiveness. Rapid economic growth was achieved in different areas of economic and commercial activities across the three regional, independently managed economies for collective national growth and development.
The healthy economic competitiveness significantly hinged on comparative advantages of their several and respective natural/agricultural resources. In the Western region, cocoa was the major export produce. In the Northern region, groundnut was the major export produce; while in the Eastern region, palm oil was the major export produce. Productivity or the gross domestic product (GDP) of the economy was high in terms of the recorded nationals economic efficiency. This economic efficiency, which was achieved by design, amounts to the nation’s GDP or her productivity. It includes government expenditure, consumer expenditure, investments and imports. It is the true reflection of the national economic performance with respect to international trade (imports and exports) with other nations; that provides the annual scorecard of the financial performance in the nation’s current account that usually shows the trade balance (whether surplus or deficit). The economic variables that determine economic efficiency have a lone negative variable, which is “imports”. The rest, represented by government expenditure, consumer expenditure and investments, are positive variables in determining the productivity status (whether “high” or “low”).
The nation’s economic trajectory in the 1960s consistently and favourably recorded surplus income in the nation’s annual trade balance (in other words, high economic efficiency). The import element was always outweighed by the activities that went on within the economy. That is to say that the total value of the overall imports then, was insignificant compared to the total sum of the three positive elements (government expenditure, consumer expenditure and investments) of our nation’s economic efficiency. This position puts the economy on a very favourable pedestal in terms of economic growth.
We need to remind ourselves that the crude oil exports of the upstream subsector of the nation’s oil industry wasn’t in the picture at this time, yet Nigeria was favourably in surplus balance in her annual international trade position. The exciting observation of this period must direct our focus towards noting that every excellent performance on export goods revolved majorly around agriculture. The evidence was very clear with the visible performances of the founding fathers; for instance, the 19 storey “Cocoa House” in Ibadan; the edifices constructed in the North, including “Arewa House” in Kaduna, achieved through the entrepreneurial exploit in the groundnut pyramids in Kano; and in the East (both at Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar) through sales of palm oil that resulted in the setting up of very impressive and imposing edifices that were constructed by the regional government. The country’s currency, therefore, had no overwhelming foreign exchange overload for imports, based on the comfortable lead and surplus balances as a result of the high productivity profile of the nation as a result of its economic efficiency, then. This can be contrasted with the contemporary excessive pressure and ever increasing stress being mounted against the local currency (naira) exchange rate today, due to massive imports of virtually everything one can think of especially the refined products that brought about the petrol subsidy scandal that sapped the nation’s foreign reserves and the treasury; without meaningful export elements to cushion such significant imports effects in the economy. This shows the many disadvantages of being a consumer nation, compared with the advantages of having a high productivity economy.
Neocolonialism is one of the many evils of imperialist rule that is continuing in disguise, with imposition by colonial power over former colonies especially on the African continent. This is what the country is largely suffering from currently in the hands of the international financial organisations, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Reducing a nation to an object of exploitation is the power dynamic these financial institutions have subjected Nigeria to since 1986 when they ill advised the nation to devalue Nigeria’s local currency, the Naira, every week for another 32 years, through the structural adjustment programme (SAP). This was what former minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, lamented over sometime ago, describing it as “the tragedy of Nigeria”, noting that the naira was $1.5 when he was in school. Today, we have witnessed the exchange rate of naira as low as N2,000/$. This economic woe must be reversed by those in government, doing the needful patriotically, since Nigeria has the potential, content and capacity to turn things around in her favour, without undue external influence any longer.
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