Nigeria is a country devastated by poverty, insecurity, corruption and terrorism. The governance challenges are immense, while much of public policies now deliver poor outcomes.
The budgeting process is a fictographic art, featuring much drama and a growing disconnect from the imperatives of development and the needs of the majority.
True to that tradition, the 2013 budget is by August still a matter of unsettled contention between the executive and legislative branches of government.
In spite of this, the nation’s savings account – the Excess Crude Account is being rapidly drawn down, probably unlawfully, such that it is likely to fall from about $11bn in February to zero by October 2013!
Yet this sorry impasse, governmental incompetence and impunity do not define Nigeria.
Our diverse peoples are an energetic, often optimistic lot trying to build our lives despite the trammels imposed by governmental incompetence and paralysis.
Ours is Africa’s largest country and second largest economy. It could easily be the continent’s largest economy and market if a congruence should emerge between politics, government action and national aspirations.
Such congruence was in the works from 2004-2007, when a variety of reform measures began to improve government finances, shrink the participation of the state in business by privatizing many state-owned enterprises, create a modern national identity system, strengthen the banking system and getting the ports to be more efficient.
Our nation was even poised to launch a national mortgage system to reverse its embarrassing 17 million units housing deficit.
A series of gas-based thermal plants were contracted to improve the patchy electric power generation levels. For the first time, a coherent roadmap for a potential boom in the solid mineral sector emerged alongside efforts to reduce the cost of governance through right-sizing and monetization of fringe benefits.
The personnel cost of the entire executive arm of the federal government was about N600bn, while the maximum running cost of 469 members of the national assembly used to be less than N50bn annually.
The pay-as-you-go pension system was reformed and transitional roadmap to a fully-funded contributory pension scheme legislated.
The success of our foreign debt relief campaign reflected the international community’s confidence in the soundness of the economic programme then being feverishly pursued.
Nigeria did not suddenly become an Eldorado. But it was clearly beginning to get to grips with its problems using solutions that were pragmatic and largely market driven; propelled by a vision that the government should provide the infrastructure, security and the guaranty of law and order that can give people confidence to invest, grow and unleash their talents.
The vision of that Obasanjo administration was to make this the last generation to merely speak of Nigeria’s potentials. We were determined to realize those potentials, confident that we had the talents to create wealth from the vast natural and human resource endowments of the country, leveraging the energies of its young people and latent assets in the Diaspora.
Why then the stasis since late 2007? We will attempt an explanation.
Political power must always be tied to national purpose. The inheritors of power post-2007 were strangers to that conception, and did not feel obliged to uphold the reforms they inherited, and where they did, did not demonstrate sufficient political will to see them through.
Even conceding to the ever changing dynamics of life, the broad thrust of the programmes our governments need to implement is obvious: the 2004-2007 reforms are unfinished.
They should constitute a new starting point for development- focused governance and the agenda for the next government.
Perhaps that will be the single agenda item for the All Progressives Congress in post-Jonathanian Nigeria, as it is clear that the current leadership is unwilling to proceed on that road less travelled.
We will nevertheless outline what obviously needs doing. It is not rocket science but requires a competent team led by a president that has been tested and transparently honest
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