"Our controversies have been cluttered by squabbles"- V. I. Lenin
PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu was perceptive and candid enough to acknowledge the economic nature of the challenges facing Nigeria today when he replied to "The Patriots" demand to abrogate the 1999 Constitution, enact a new one and adopt the report of the 2014 National Conference. His position was that he was preoccupied with fixing Nigeria's economy and therefore; he would only give his attention to the "restructuring" issues after he has resolved the immediate challenges confronting his administration.
Squabbles about the "restructuring" of Nigeria and agitations around other issues, have cluttered the space and needlessly left our people confused and bewildered. Such squabbles are actually taking our country two steps back in almost every facet of national life. The real justifications for the "restructuring" of Nigeria are yet to be adduced and put forward by its proponents. Instead, they seem to skirt around issues and posit vague and evasive arguments like the need for "true federalism", "people's constitution" and "fiscal federalism" etc, which in themselves are inherently problematic propositions that hold little or no value in advancing Nigeria's democratic governance or accountability in our system.
Instead of providing evidence to support their demands, the sponsors of the "restructuring" agenda merely rake up isolated issues or incidents and exhibit them as the "real" problems with Nigeria. What the agitators seem to have forgotten or missed is the economic nature or character of the problem with Nigeria which they seldom or never highlight. The centrality of the economic factors in the social and political developments in our country and the search for corrective formulas through the "restructuring" agenda, must take cognisance of certain underlying issues in our national development efforts.
These are matters related to the control of the economic forces of the country, how these are organised and who are the principal actors or beneficiaries in this scheme of things. Central to this are issues related to the relationship between the state in Nigeria and the functions and duties of people in power in the allocation of resources. Most important of all is the extent to which the Nigerian people have been isolated or distanced from having a say in how wealth is created and distributed in their country by our current political arrangements.
The appreciation of such facts and their linkages with national governance are the fundamental premises of the 1999 constitution as reflected in Chapter 2 of that instrument. This important Chapter provides the solutions or recipes to the management of the Nigerian economy in as far as this relates to the ownership of the country's means of production and the organisation of economic activities in Nigeria.
Nothing outside the provisions of this Chapter will for now legally suffice in providing satisfactory answers to the dilemmas or challenges associated with Nigeria and the problems with "restructuring" the country. Examples can be adduced to practically test this assumption and establish the basis for the economic analysis of the dynamics of "restructuring" Nigeria. The existential crisis engendered by our laissez-faire capitalist economic system has brought about massive hemorrhaging of our national wealth leading to the backwardness of our country.
By every yardstick or standard, Nigeria's economy ought to have been performing far better than it has been doing from the 1980s to this moment. However, due to the problems associated with management as well as the relative absence of better policy frameworks, the economy has been left to stagnate and fall behind other countries whose situations were similar to those of Nigeria. Some instances should suffice in establishing the nexus between the economic performance of the country and its overall governance deficit including in the area of political and constitutional arrangements.
The most critical issues facing Nigerians today are rampant inflation that has led to heightened difficulties in families and households, growing unemployment, increasing poverty rate, growing fiscal problems for the government, increasing debt serving, infrastructure deficit especially in the power sector and railway system, inadequate urban and rural water supply, shortages in food supply, increasing cost of transportation across the country, poor healthcare and educational services and other factors that could be directly attributed to the economic situation in the country. The most fundamental issue that transcend all the above challenges is endemic corruption.
According to a report of the World Bank on Nigeria, "Weakened economic fundamentals led the country's inflation to reach a 21-years high of 31.7% in February 2024, which, in combination with sluggish growth, has pushed millions of Nigerians into poverty". Also, according to the Bank, "Over the years, the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line has risen from 70 million in 2010 to an estimated 109 million in 2023 - one of the world's largest poor populations. Nigeria ranked 161 out of 193 countries on the Human Development index (HDI) in 2022". The Bank furthermore opined that despite being the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria "offers limited opportunities to most of its citizens"
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
This unenviable situation has made Nigeria the "poverty capital" of the world, with the second highest poor-population on earth after India. Poverty therefore; is the greatest threat that faces the Nigerian nation and the harbinger of the crisis of development in the country. This has much to do with weak and haphazard micro and macro economic policies rather than with structural issues of federalism or constitutional reform. An inherently bad economic system can only be made better by its abandonment and the adoption of an alternative arrangement.
No amount of "restructuring" Nigeria can remedy this malaise within the framework of the economic system that we are operating today and the way and manner we are going about it. Capitalist economy requires discipline, managerial competence, precision in planning and observance of certain basic rules about controls over fiscal and monetary policies. In our own case, the free-for-all and all-comers mentality that underscore our economic planning and management, are directly responsible for the state of affairs in Nigeria.
It is not "restructuring" the country or replacement of the constitution that matters for now. It is the need for rethinking of the economic model that we are practicing that should be of greatest interest and concern to us all. This line of thinking will be pursued further in the next instalments of this series.
