What Tinubunomics reveal to Nigerians

Economics does not respond to tribe or religion. It responds to brilliance, patriotism and productivity.

It was about eight months ago that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as the president of Nigeria. On the podium of his inauguration, Tinubu as he told Nigerians later, he was seized with the courage to pronounce the death of fuel subsidy, a move which many previous presidents had not been able to make. Though, Tinubu attributed his action to courage, those who have read the report of the Presidential Action Committee report would have seen that the president was advised to remove fuel subsidy right from his swearing-in. However, Tinubu took the bull by the horns as he removed the controversial fuel subsidy which had become a veritable drain pipe by men and women of power. Not just fuel subsidy removal alone, Tinubu has implemented other far-reaching policies which he and his team have termed economic reforms. What have these reforms shown Nigerians about their economy?

The first revelation is that our local economists are paper-tiger slaves of the West, they read the textbooks of these intellectuals from the West, memorizing them and recommending them hook, line and sinker. Our economists are not original; they are second-rate. We had original thinkers in the days of the late Professor Sam Aluko who stood against Western economists. Our departments of economics in our universities should revamp their curriculum because their products can no longer be dependent on them for sound economic advice. They teach Bretton Woods economics which is the product of another climate that is so strange to us. Professor Charles Soludo former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria who showed evidence of originality confessed that he profited from the IMF prescription on which he wrote many papers which he had since reconsidered. General Sanni Abacha resisted IMF economics, aided by the late Professor Sam Aluko who prided himself as the "Aluko of Africa" and despite the brigandage and stealing that characterized Abacha's government, the economy was relatively stable. President Ibrahim Babangida who had Finance Minister, Dr Kalu Idika Kalu and Chief Olu Falae by his side as the secretary of his government got captured by the IMF philosophy. IBB, Kalu and Falae boasted to high heavens about IMF prescriptions but they led to high prices from which Nigeria has not recovered. IBB was a great pretender who surrounded himself with many university intellectuals but failed woefully because of their wobbly counsels and because of his deception. President Umaru Musa Yaradua brought his economic team from Ahmadu Bello University who no doubt was out to prove that everything Obasanjo, Soludo and Ngozi did was false and must be done away with. Umaru Yaradua therefore busied himself with reversing everything the government before him did until his health became bad and he could not do anything again till he died. From Yaradua a big lesson was taught to Nigerians; government is a continuum and abandoning what a previous government did is a waste of resources and time. Economic advisers must therefore jettison the idea of wanting to start again. This idea is the reason for many abandoned projects all over the country. The failure of Yaradua which is also being repeated in the current government government of Bola Tinubu teaches that constituting an economic team or any team on a tribal basis is useless and unproductive. Yaradua's economic team was northern and so also is Tinubu's current team which is Yoruba, the tribe of Tinubu. President Muhammadu Buhari, before Tinubu whose only agenda was the north failed before he started because he thought only of his Fulani people. He can't be associated with any sound economic policy except the tribal thinking of his cabal. Buhari created most of the problems the nation is facing now. I'm sure Nigerians who campaigned for Tinubu only because of his tribal and religious leaning are now biting their fingers. "Awalokan" identified with Tinubu has made it practically impossible for families to put food on their tables, except for those who have access to public till. Economics does not respond to tribe or religion. It responds to brilliance, patriotism and productivity. Naira is not going to gain from the dollar in exchange for the manipulation of figures by any economic team. Nigeria must produce what other nations need, and sell them to earn dollars.

Tinubu's economic team is essentially Yoruba and Lagos. His Finance Minister was a commissioner in his government in Lagos State, the governor of CBN was his commissioner in Lagos, his Chief of Staff is a Lagosian, and his media team was selected from those who had worked with him in Lagos. Apart from Ajuri Ngelali, all are Yoruba. Also, Tope Fasua is an economic adviser to Tinubu. You get the impression that only Yoruba are in Nigeria, whereas there is no part of the nation made up of over 250 ethnicities that have not gotten very vibrant intellectuals from which any president can choose. Only former president Olusegun Obasanjo got it right in his second term when he picked his economists mostly from the Igbo stock. Of course, nobody can deny that those gentlemen and women did very well. A nation of over 200 million citizens be short of good and skilful people from which to pick the most competent to serve. Competence is spread evenly around every tribe.

Tinubunomics has led us to see that Nigeria is import-dependent. We import virtually everything. Buhari, before justified his policy of not devaluing the naira because of this and yet he did nothing to reverse the trend. How do we get a strong naira when even the toothpick Buhari and other rich Nigerians love to use after their sumptuous meals are imported? The little we make from oil is spent on importation from China and other countries. It is the reason our naira will remain weak. The current experience at the CBN where Godwin Emefiele, former governor practically ran the bank down has shown that the nation can't trust the CBN to independence because all Nigerians have Emefiele's attitude in them. We must find a way of subjecting the bank to some authority that can quickly rescue it from any agreement with a president and a corrupt CBN governor. It also points the nation to the danger of recruiting the CBN governor by any procedure other than meritocracy. Professor Charles Soludo, who came in as governor of CBN during the time of Obasanjo was picked on merit. He had served as Obasanjo's Chief Economic Adviser and according to Obasanjo was found so good that he felt safe to send him to CBN as governor. Charles Soludo is a brilliant product of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was successful but because President Umaru Musa Yaradua wanted a northern CBN governor, Soludo was asked to go and was replaced by equally good Sanusi Lamido Sanusi whom President Goodluck Jonathan, the first Nigerian with a PhD to rule the country but the most clueless replaced with another designee. Godwin Emefiele, Jonathan's replacement for Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was a failure that Tinubunomics is trying to solve.

For as long as any old generation of Nigerians can remember, successive governments have been warned about the neglect of agriculture which was the mainstay of the economy of Nigeria till oil was found in Oloibiri, Bayelsa State. Nigeria's agriculture was subsistence, it consisted of farming for individual family consumption with little to sell. Tinubunomics has revealed the consequence of not heeding the many warnings that oil is a wasting asset that must go out of fashion. Now it has and agriculture has been abandoned. We used to think that the North was the food basket of the nation. The southerners have acquired education and have consequently left the farm. In the past, our fathers bore many children solely to assist them on the farm. In the south especially, that has stopped. Excess children who are produced have nothing to do; they join the army of the jobless. They find ready employment in alcoholism, drugs and crimes. They disguise themselves as Fulani and kidnap their kings and rich men, women and school children. Tinubu's closure of Nigeria's border with Niger has exposed to the nation that the north is no longer the nation's food basket and that our onions, pepper, beans etc come from the Niger Republic. With the closed border these food items have stopped coming causing astronomical increases in food prices. Is Tinubu wise to close that border? I don't think so. Each nation's external policies are driven by its domestic interest except Nigeria. To demonstrate Nigeria's dominance and power which only remain in theory, Tinubu closed the Nigeria/ Niger border to compel the reinstatement of Mohammed Bazoum, the disposed the president of Niger Repulic. It was a disastrous move that is causing so much pain in Nigeria and that is threatening peace in the country. The poor can put up with any deprivation but food. It is so certain that hunger will soon drive Nigerians to the streets except Tinubu urgently eats the humble pie and opens the borders so that food can come into Nigeria. It points to the nation also that we have to retrace our steps back to agriculture.

How? In a very creative way. The Nigerian youths like our fathers did must be drafted into agriculture again. They are the ones who have the requisite strength to engage in agriculture. They wouldn't go for subsistence and manual agriculture, therefore agriculture must be mechanized. Our universities and polytechnics must be charged to innovate on implements. They can copy those already available abroad and fabricate them here for use by our students. Our students must benefit personally and corporately from this scheme. For this to succeed, the nation must be restructured, it cannot be controlled from the centre as Muhammadu Buhari did. Within a year Nigeria must be self-sufficient to feed herself and within the second year must produce for export. The project must also include our cash crops, cocoa, palm kernel, groundnut, cotton etc. We must rescue our textile industries from the Chinese invasion. Our cotton must feed our textile factories.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and a pastor. He earned a Masters degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos