Abdullahi Y. Bello, Suleiman M. Odapu & Idris Ahmed
11 October 2008
opinion
The three-day Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit (NEIS) has ended. The challenge that remains is how to get the proper mix of potions that will constitute an effective and lasting cure to the North's socio-economic ailment. Weekly Trust reports.
The North is sick, it has contracted a strange kind of virus that is proving highly contagious such that when it sneezes the whole nation catches cold. Doctors have proffered different kinds of diagnosis for this strange ailment but the cure seems so far off. As for the pathologists, they are still in the laboratory hunched over their microscope trying to isolate the different strains of the virus that seem to be mutating by the day. The south is not finding all this funny; they have come out to protest that the North is turning parasitic, feeding on them and probably trying to infect them too.
The insults and snide remarks probably did it and suddenly the north has had enough. Now the dominant discourse in the region is how to arrest and reverse the stride of this strange ailment and once again help the north reclaim its superior standing as the economic power house of Nigeria. The economic doctors and pathologists say it has done it before and it could still do it again as all the medicinal potions it needs are still on ground: vast human and material resources that include high population and rich mineral deposits, vast tracts of arable land that will sustain commercial agriculture, a shared history, culture and identity between its peoples and one of the nation's most enlightened political cultures.
The doctors are now putting their money where their mouth is as evidenced by the three days Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit organised by the Conference of Northern States Chambers of Commerce, Mines and Agriculture (CONSCCIMMA). The challenge now, as gleaned from the submissions of experts, is how to get the proper mix of potions that will constitute an effective and lasting cure. The doctors are divided on the method to go about this: there are some who think the cure is in entrenching a private sector-led economy for the north that will be free from government meddling while some think simply handing the economy of the region to the private sector will be inimical. Others advocate a third way that combines the virtues of the two, which is a partnership between the public and private sector. The last seem to be the best received and most advocated by experts and participants at the summit.
But the private sector been referred to here is the home-spun investor, not some investor that needed to be begged, Obasanjo-style, to come and invest. The foreign investor is expected to come in too, however, but he will be doing so willingly and when the business climate is competitive and properly set. Chairman of CONSCCIMA, Jani Ibrahim told Weekly Trust: "The more of us that can go into these businesses the more confidence building mechanism we are putting in place for foreigners and other Nigerians to come to our place. It is not about going round the whole world asking people; they want to see examples on ground: who has done it and it is working, that is what they want to follow."
But for business to thrive the doctors say the human and financial capital has to be in place. Also important is the presence of basic infrastructures like energy, water, sustainable environment, roads and the like. Here, it must be admitted the north, just like the rest of the country has kwashiorkor. But the northern strain of the disease is more deadly. While the south could be said to have made some progress in improving its human capital bank by the high rate of school enrolment and low drop-out rate, the north seem to be going nowhere. This failure to address the region's educational backwardness could undermine all its efforts at developing. The reason is quite simple: "We are now in a knowledge based world and any part of the world that would not educate its population cannot develop," says Professor of Business Administration, Mike Kwanashi, at the north's premier university, Ahmadu Bello University. Professor J.D Amin, immediate former vice-chancellor of the University of Maiduguri told weekly trust all the economic palliatives should wait as a matter of fact until the proper dosage of educational oxygen has been breathed into the north. "We need to devote a great deal of our resources to education and anything can wait," he says. "Education can solve almost all our problem in the north...education is key and the most important sector in the system." He says even the globally approved 25% of national budgets that governments are advised to invest in education will not do for the north, suggesting that "40 to 50% of the national budget should go into education."
The high toll the north's educational backwardness is exacting on its economic and social well being is not just a prophecy of doom that is far off and unlikely. Its vestiges are very much in the corner. Take the laudable initiative by the Kano state government for instance to introduce an Information Technology Park that will help to attract ICT companies into the state, which is the north's commercial nerve centre, to create ICT goods and services. The initiative faces serious challenges that could threaten its success in the absence of trained manpower to run it. A hitherto poor country like India, whose poverty rate at a time is probably worse than what obtains in the north today had with the aid of trained manpower and investment in ICT education swiftly turned around its economy. It is predicted to surpass the American economy by 2050. Kano and Jigawa states in contrast, while setting up ICT centres are greatly hampered by the poor educational capabilities of their populations. "Because the north is very weak educationally, it also goes on logically that the north is also going to be weak in terms of ICT," says Prof. Bashir Galadanci of the Bayero University Kano and coordinator of the Kano ICT Park project in an interview with Weekly Trust. "So you have a situation whereby most of our schools are not teaching ICT and even when they were how many of our children are going to school?"
Closely tied with poor human capital is the problem of financial capital. Here the disease is self-inflicted in some ways and in some other ways a creation from an unfavourable government policy that caught the north napping. Of the 25 mega banks in the country, only one, Unity Bank, has a Northerner controlling majority shares. The region's premier banking institution, Bank of the North set up specifically as a financing arm for its projects and investments, was so much battered by poor management that when the policy for banks to recapitalise to the tune of N25billion came on stream it couldn't make the mark and had to merge with other banks. Now, economic doctors say the north has been deprived of a vital source of blood that will give it a fresh injection of life. Banks now operate under more stringent rules and despite recapitalisation seem reluctant to finance long term projects.
The Northern Nigerian Development Company (NDDC), the regions investment arm now has to go cap in hand to the governors of the 19 northern states to seek financial aid to float some of its businesses. The NDDC's managing director, Alhaji Aliyu Alkali says the company's major challenge now is how to recapitalise and shore up its capital base to enable it invest in the kind of project that will bring in the best returns for investors. He is optimistic that the governors will bail out the company. He says: "As soon as the next meeting of the governors take place we will have their approval and the payment of the recapitalisation." Should it succeed, Alkali says they will be floating an oil and gas company, Nasara oil and gas and be looking at viable investments even outside the country that will act as additional sources of revenue for the northern states.
But while experts encourage big investments another regular suggestion is the setting up of microfinance banks to act as sources of finance to the poor who basically inhabit the rural areas. They say also that whatever developmental model the north chooses to adopt it must be one that puts the poor, especially those in the rural areas at the centre of its plan and implementation. "It is easier to go to the rural areas," says Ibrahim of CONSCIMMA. "We shall make sure this is our area of focus...what can the housewife do to contribute to wealth creation? These are some of the dynamics we are going to implement. With that we will see massive results coming out. And that will improve their lives, improve their purchasing power, empower them and in the process they will be able to appreciate the need to educate their children and to guide them so that they will be useful to their community and the nation at large."
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