I was compelled to write this piece, and set about it, in the third week of February, 2024. That was  after the Aboki fruit seller at the road junction to my office in the suburb of Lekki , unapologetically  refused to allow me price down one unit of red apple . My Aboki friend had offered to sell one at  five hundred naira, but,  just back in December, 2023 he sold me 4 pieces of same quality  for eight hundred naira. Was I jolted! 

I however held back closing this paper until today to benefit from listening to Prof  Kingsley Moghalu OON’s, keynote speech at the Leadership Conference and Awards at Congress Hall, Transcorp Abuja  on the topic “An Economy in  Distress ; Which Way Forward.” My unorthodox thoughts after listening  to the erudite lawyer-cum-development economics professor became even more . He is the author of the seminal book : Emerging Africa ; How the Global  Economy’s Last Frontier  Can Prosper and Matter” . Since I first encountered him in his days as  Central Bank Deputy Governor  about a decade ago he has never ceased intriguing me by clarity of his original hypothesis on overcoming Afrocentric economic development challenges. 

Being a roadside economic animal, and using Prof  Moghalu as a sounding board, here is my perspective. Nigeria is only an aspirational private sector-led economy. The fundamentals that should underpin its superstructure are fragile. The structural defect  is arguably reversible . But that may only result from an intentional, sacrificial, audacious, strategic and visionary investment of appropriate resources in human, intellectual and  engineered processes  of change, across  critical sectors to achieve a competitive and  sustainable growth. By nearly all economic parameters, Nigeria is now an under-developing  economy – our year-on-year and decade-on-decade regressing GDP statistics alone say it all . Over the last one year,  Nigeria’s money supply ballooned to an all-time high of N93. 72 trillion as of January 2024, which amounts to 76% surge from the N53. 14 trillion recorded in January 2023. We prodigally created more money without producing matching quantity of goods and services to by them with. Having neither worked harder or smatter nor produced more than we previously did, there is no prize for guessing why the bubble liquidity is chasing after less than the previous year’s GDP’. This alarming statistics must be recognised as a doomsday warning. It must task  the economic managers (on the fiscal and monetary sides) to swiftly  course re-direct towards repositioning and gaining re-admission of the country  into the family of  developing countries in the medium term.

The resultant effect of this misalignment of means and end  manifests in a distorted socio-economic system which hardly responds to orthodox neo liberal western-style  management tools. The challenge has never been more starkly presented than what the country is currently experiencing - the twin fiscal and monetary policy decisions of fuel subsidy withdrawal and dollar market fusion for  pricing parity across the financial market . This is consistent with  President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s campaign promises and manifesto encapsulated in the Renewed Hope Agenda (RHA). That audacious move required to be prosecuted by thinking  outside the box to “fetch water from a dry well”. But as Prof Moghalu wrote in his referenced Book “Many development indicators are published and tracked , but as informative as they are, it is paramount for success that the portfolio of measures used to track the performance of the strategy are those that matter for understanding  progress toward the nation’s strategic destination.”

The unintended but easily predictable consequences of not following through with the required rigorous articulation and heavy lifting value creation, that should  accompany the twin policy choices  are  Galloping Inflation, Forex Volatility and vulnerability , unmanageable sovereign debt , unprecedented descent into multidimensional poverty by majority of the population; and now, lately – a jarring food insecurity and threat to peace and security posed by non-state actors. 

Time has come for a decisive, all-hands on deck, strategic plan of action to be proactively iterated and articulated. That is a move that compels unconventional urgency with intent to onboard and implement  well defined deliverables by all stakeholders. I am regrettably afraid, that we are, instead, staring at a recipe for an atrophied economy and a state tending to ultimate collapse.

With dwindling foreign reserves largely resulting from progressively contracting revenue from the nations’ mainstay - crude oil, the Nigeria is unravelling as   less self-sustaining , less-productive , less confident of its steps and less predictable for long term business plans. It is struggling, so badly, to create new opportunities for increased prosperity on a scale necessary to keep more of our people out of poverty  (rather than taking them out of that territory). This is  despite our geometrically expanding population.

The urgency of the dire situation commends exploitation of immediate low hanging homegrown opportunities ; those that we have capacity and competence to explore and  swiftly activate. It will be akin to President  Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s that rescued the  USA from its worst economic depression in history and led to her emergence as the world’s enduring  economic super power. That Deal can be contrasted with the  Marshall Plan contrived as economic reconstruction aid package for post-world war II Western Europe.  So, as  an emergency national agenda for  economic self reliance, my vote will be for the Roosevelt  Way  (aimed at rekindling our  self-belief)  rather than an aid -dependent  Marshall Plan as the preferred lead option. External support by way of foreign investment attraction  should only be a sweetener  for a country that is sinfully underutilising its enormous indigenous potentials.  The mantra should be to banish our loss of self-belief and empower Nigeria to confront our fears with daring courage ; so that, as that wheelchair-bound President Roosevelt said to his fellow Americans in their lowest moment of economic depression,  the only thing to fear … is fear is itself.

REGENERATION PROPOSAL: 

It is contended that for immediate hope-re-envisioning and impactful outcome,  the route to go is NOT by experimenting with fanciful palliatives and tokenistic programs or initiatives. The challenge calls for a roll out of audacious, visionary, focused and engineered strategic PROJECT OF FUNDAMENYAL ECONOMIC REBIRTH away from crude oil revenue dependency. This is what informs  the proposed PROJECT   3-in-3 RHA. It identifies and nominates  three strategic economic sub-sectors for game-changing reinvention in 3 years. The project will be scoped and kicked off for implementation in a matter of 3 months with full participation of a  broad spectrum of the  populace. All those  whose inputs as critical stakeholders outside of government are vital to elicit their unflinching buy-in and involvement must be brough on board.

The project is to  achieve predetermined deliverables around a  unique publicly promoted ( but not state funded)  massive investment in development of  Railway lines  (linking all state capitals), Housing ( to be a mix of quality commercial and social mortgage-ready stock,  to incrementally reduce housing deficits)   and Agriculture ( encompassing the allied cottage industries and value chain) for  recalibration and diversification of the Nigerian economic landscape. It is to be delivered in the  first phase   over three 3 years - starting from 2024- effectively from the date when the Implementation Coordination Team (ICT) (which must be corporate governance complaint)  submits  the framework that targets creation of at least 5 million (direct and indirect) new fulltime, living wage jobs  as a catalyst for reviving our fast vanishing middle class and create  two new thriving economic sectors as providers of revenue sources for reinvesting in  massive associated infrastructure assets and spin-off businesses in the second phase  replicating the proven  template.

This project will draw principally from our most underutilised but abundant domestic endowments and  capacities (with land as the pivot). The project 3-in-3RHA is to be deployed to reposition the national  economic base from consumption and overdependence on offshoring and foreign  support ; and to lessen  pressure on external reserves which may then be  reprioritised for use in funding acquisition of complex high tech machineries, know how; with preference to  those   genuinely unavailable economic inputs services that the country lacks  competitive, practical or suitable alternative domestic  substitutes for.

The broad framework will involve the following actionable tasks.

1. Constitution of Project 3-in-3 RHA Implementation Coordinating Team (ICT) with mandate to generate and submit “Project  Scope Statement of Work” within 3 months.   The team must subscribe to adherence to transparent corporate governance rules and be insulated from bureaucratic public service constraints.
2. The “Project Scope Statement of Work” must shift attention to subnational as engines of economic revitalisation by providing competitive, peer to peer capacities for states to deepen their productive economic potentials thus becoming less dependent on federally allocated revenue  and appropriations to more effectively meet their governance mandates as suits a properly structured federating states.
3. The target candidate productive sectors (Rail , Housing and Agriculture) are identified as derivatives of land surface resources (not import or forex dependent). Happily, the country has fallow land in abundance. It is still  largely socialised under the  Land Use Act, such that it can be conveniently    aggregated, mapped for use and dedicated to the project with minimal complications and constraints .
4. The three project sectors are outside of exclusive federal control and mandate-  this makes for flexible empowerment and diversified  intervention by sub-national governments and private sectors under federal overarching coordination as the prime  fiscal and monetary policy enabler .   
5. States and local governments as anchor implementers are to leverage on their control of land assets as dead capital for conversion into credit for creating cost effective financing scheme to fund the Project 3-in-3 RHA. The aim is to convert their dead capital into financial resources for investment in productive ,   high impact , fast trackable  sectors of the economy.  My simplified descriptive  term for dead capital, first coined by the Peruvian Economist , Hernando de Soto Polar is Idle Asset. In the hands of the rich it must be appropriately taxed; and in other respects it must be mobilised and invested for optimal return.
6. The tripodal economic course re-direction project must be productivity focused, value- and merit-driven; insulated from legacy cultural constraints of prebendal political patronage syndrome and with preeminent participation of the street level private sector  players and segmentation to accommodate different level of business models and sophistication for micro-small and medium enterprises . For this reason, the Project  must leave out big players who can crowd out the targeted sectors that need the empowerment and grooming. It  should  embrace an  all-inclusive , and party-neutral paradigm.    
7. Affordable credit guarantees on the back of predictable and credible data-driven inventories and receivables for off-takers of the commercial outputs and services from the projects by leveraging on a robust application of Secured Transaction In Movable Assets Act, of 2017, boosting consumer credit and  enhanced financial inclusion to restore peoples inflation-eroded purchasing power and support domestic demands for the sectors’ outputs.
8. The federal Government will have to commit to commission a broad implementation framework, templates and targets to be  adapted by each sub-national to suit their local circumstances ; and also provide seed credit guarantee through securitisation of inventories and receivables from Project 3-in-3 RHA to raise sovereign bonds in the capital market at  market rated (but government subsided single digit)  medium tenor interest rates to the tune of  TWENTY TRILLION NAIRA  (=N=20,000,000,000,000.00) for disbursement in predetermined  tranches through commercial banks  to support sectoral milestones over the project timeline.
9. The interest subsidies on the bond will cease after the initial five  years by which time they will be priced and traded on competitive capital market rates without government underwriting.  It is intended to be a creative avenue for mopping excess liquidity driving extant galloping inflation in the economy and to  reinvest those idle funds in the ring-fenced  productive sectors  targeted under the  project with the attendant multiplier effects in the subnational space. The expected short term outcome is that the project will turn  the entire 774 local government areas in the 36 states of the country into satellite of productive and quality work sites thus boosting their economies simultaneously. In the medium terms it should serve to reverse the uneconomic internal migration of unemployed, unskilled  and unemployable demographics at   state capitals and urban centres in search of perceived opportunities that do not exist . These are the marginalised , hapless citizens feeding crimes and creating  antisocial army of recruits posing  security threats across the country.    

• Federal Government will at the same time facilitate a credible audit of accessible domestic and open source technical research resources immediately usable to drive the project in collaboration with states across relevant research sources and institutions in the respective states.
• There is need to produce and issue a presidential executive order for mandatory collaboration and  patronage of indigenous  academic and research bodies imbued with resources and relevant consultancy expertise in close proximity to operational bases of eligible entities . This should be incentivised by its stipulation as a prequalification requirement to access or draw  on Federal Government  supported credits, grants,  subsidies or procurements related to the respective areas of focus under the Project . The added benefit is to facilitate the creation of functional and structured interface between town and  gown in the candidate sectors as model templates  for eventual adoption generally in other segments of the economy. It is anticipated that this strategic innovation will lead to better  appreciation of  scientific imperative of a workable plan for national development as the economy expands in sophistication and depth  in line with the goal of  the Project.  It is unimaginable that any well conceived plan to revive the country premised on indigenous effort and self reliance  will not assign a crucial role for our centres of knowledge and research to play as development partners and facilitators . 
• Deliberate effort must be made to reverse the Brain-Drain conundrum’ and retain, in-country, our best and brightest for the new phase of socio -economic revitalisation. As at 2023, Nigeria  had 170 universities comprising  federal-, state-, and privately-owned  in a ratio of  43, 48 and 79, respectively . Similarly, there are  over 160 accredited polytechnics ; they are  spread all over the country producing technical and vocational professionals with adaptable skills and competences in the three candidate sectors of the Project 3-in3 RHA. Considerable proportion of the products of these institutions are presently engaged in flexible online jobs as trollers, content creators, skit makers, bloggers, data miners,  or awaiting their emigration papers to “japa” with their underutilised skills and youthful creative minds. 

THE PROJECT THESIS :

What  Project 3-in-3 RHA proposal seeks to deliver is to extract latent value in the states-owned dead capital (Land vested in states as trustees under the Land Use Act),  and use it by way of adaptation of the   financial engineering technique in the oil and gas industry to fund and  bail out Nigeria from its desperate existential economic crisis that entered steroids territory in 2023.  The Project is conceived to deploy , subnational idle and under-utilized asset – LAND- as substitute for proven reserves applied in the  oil and gas industry for Reserve-Based Lending (RBL) as axtra-budgetary  financing mechanism to raise economic revitalisation investment capital. The model will finance the Project 3-in3 RHA by mimicking the financing technique that oil exploration and production businesses deploy for huge project funding. The designated land as a  readily available collateral asset is to be aggregated and committed in place of   RBL as a “borrowing-base” type of loan, sized on the basis of the projected Net Present Value (NPV) of cash flows to be generated by the underlying assets and investments under the Project  3-in-3 RHA  business plan.  

By this strategy, the Land Use Act provides a diamond in the raw which can be converted into a unique asset class available to  states for productive  investment  as against the constraining role it has played for so long in stultifying efficient exploitation of land for real estate value amplification since its promulgation in 1978. It is  comparable to the hidden value recently unlocked by the  NNPC Limited in structuring and collaterising its forward sale to secure lending from Afreximbank  in the region of  $3.5 Billion dollars for  advance dividend payment to the Federal Government. In the present proposal, a fairly long-term funding is to be originated, structured to be repaid from domestic economy that is not dollar denominated. It will nevertheless be priced attractively enough to whet appetite of even Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPI), as repository for repatriated/laundered  funds ,  as well as add to investment baskets of diaspora remittances.

While RBL financing exploits extractive resource  vested exclusively in the Federal Government under the constitution (mineral oil); the target asset in this Project is surface right over land vested exclusively in the sub-nationals - the 36 federating states that are performing sub-optimally relative to their true potential as economic enablers . With the exception of Lagos State, being the 5^th largest economy in the continent, most of the states are cost centers feeding off federal grants  sustained through burgeoning  and unsustainable ways and means- while their humongous internal potentials for wealth creation are left unharnessed.

PROOF OF CONCEPT:

The audacious Eko Atlantic City in Victoria Island and the Dangote Refinery Complex Corridor at Ibeju Lekki, both erected on expensively reclaimed land from the sea in collaboration with the host state government as their landlord are examples of how viable the  land-asset-backed Project may prove to be against the backdrop of land that is ready and available for use from get- go across the 36 states of the federation. The replication of such bold, ingenuous, rigorous  and gusty creative thinking that birthed those signature multi- billion dollars projects in Lagos ,  is what the present circumstances of Nigeria nation needs at this desperate time. But it must now be one  that has diversified sectoral application designed to positively impact  the fortunes of the entire federation , in order that the country may escape a looming economic collapse .

EXPECTED OUTCOME :

Igniting the subnational economic potentials by optimizing their  dead capital to reflate and recalibrate their economies productively while taming cost-push, and  forex speculation-driven inflation.  In addition, it is to provide a robust  foundation for a new economic base. Project 3-in-3 RHA, promises  validation and seamless  translation of the Renewed Hope  Agenda for real value  creation vide state-backed strategic investment in Railways, Housing and Agriculture over the next three years. It will constitute the nucleus of a new productive economy. It is from its base that other critical economic sectors now struggling or moribund are to be jump-started and resume flourishing for ultimate restoration of the country on the path of sustainable prosperity. 

PROSCRIPT: 

The second part of this thesis will address options for de-dollarizing the Nigerian economy with a view to optimally benefiting  from the wider and fairer international trade currency  regimes free apron strings of  the dollar for settlement of cross border and multilateral financial obligations. The ultimate goal is to create  a respected Nigerian convertible currency tied  to a basket of foreign convertible currencies most connected to the Nigerian balance of trade objectives.

In the intricate realm of governance and statecraft, stability stands as the cornerstone. It is the bedrock upon which reformed institutions and structural engineering are built. Leadership, therefore, plays a pivotal role in catalyzing these reforms, steering the ship of democracy towards a stable and prosperous horizon.

At the helm of Akwa Ibom State, His Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno, embodies this vision of transformative leadership. His administration, anchored on the A.R.I.S.E Agenda, is a beacon of economic development for the citizens of Akwa Ibom State.

For Governor Umo Eno, political stability is not a mere concept, but an actionable commitment and an embodiment of his character and persona. His outreach to fellow politicians across party lines, welcoming them back into the fold of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is a testament to his dedication to unity and progress; an inclusivity that paves way for peace and continued economic advancement.

With the understanding that security is the foundation of all development, Pastor Umo Eno has shown great commitment towards ensuring that we Akwa Ibomites live in a safe environment. The state's flourishing peace and order attests to this. Safe to say that the legacy of security, upheld by successive administrations, finds new vigour under Pastor Umo Eno's governance. The establishment of the Ministry of Internal Security and Waterways is a clear indication of his unwavering commitment to safeguarding the state against any form of threat.

In the face of economic challenges such as the removal of fuel subsidies and currency fluctuations, Governor Umo Eno has taken decisive steps to shield the people of Akwa Ibom from the harsh tides of poverty. To this end, the Governor introduced two pivotal executive bills:

1. The Infrastructure and Assets Management and Maintenance Bill: This legislation aims to create an agency responsible for the upkeep and sustainability of the state's infrastructure, ensuring that public assets continue to serve the community effectively.

2. The Bulk Purchase Agency Bill: With the goal of stabilizing and subsidizing food prices, this bill seeks to establish an agency that will oversee the procurement and distribution of food commodities, thereby securing food availability and affordability for all residents.

On establishment, the Agency shall be saddled with the responsibility of procuring, distributing, stabilizing and subsidizing food prices in the state with the aim of making food available and affordable for all in the state. The Agency shall have as its Chairman, the State Chief Executive, His Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno, alongside other economic advisory and management team at supervisory roles to undertake the onerous task of repositioning the state in a drive to ensure food security.

These initiatives reflect a profound understanding that infrastructure is the lifeblood of societal function, encompassing essential sectors such as health, education, and agriculture. By prioritizing maintenance and management, Governor Umo Eno is not only preserving the state's achievements, but also instilling a culture of sustainability.

As we await the manifestations of the benefit of these initiatives, it is clear that Pastor Umo Eno's leadership is a guiding light towards a stable and prosperous Akwa Ibom State.

Tony Johnson, MNARC, is the Lead Team at Leadership Security and Development Hub.

Apart from being a strategy against defective memory, diary-keeping is an extraordinary tool in literary craftsmanship. One, it infuses writing with greater realism or a deeper breath of reality if you like. In English literature of the early twentieth century, the technique was popularised by writers like Bruce Cummings, who adopted the pen name, Nero Barbellion, and his major work is entitled, “The Journal of a Disappointed Man.”

As the title suggests, “The Journal of a Disappointed Man” is a bitter-sweet account of a provincial young man who arrives London to start a career in science, then he becomes disillusioned, and begins to stumble from one unhappy love affair to another. His emotional misery is soon compounded by the onset of ill-health which searing pains he details meticulously until the approach of death.

Sadly, Cummings died at the age of 30 in 1919.

Back home, we see the technique of diary deployed by our own Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in his prison memoirs entitled, “The Man Died”. To his jailers who sought to break his spirit by starving him of reading and writing materials for more than two years, “Eni-Ogun” overcame by scribbling his thoughts on toilet-sheets and other forms of improvisation while in prison.

But unlike Soyinka’s case that dwells on the Nigerian civil war, the diary is, of course, implicated in a bitter love story many of us are familiar with, which is documented by one of the former spouses of a one-time Nigerian leader. In a language of spite, the grand old lady chronicles a riveting love story that initially sizzled on British soil, only to devolve into bouts of domestic fisticuff after the couple returned to Nigeria.

Of course, someone took the position of First Lady when her former husband eventually became two-time Nigerian leader. But never mind. To those who might be gloating at hijacking the fruits of someone else’s labour, she reveals some dark secrets. In her tell-all, she details, in black and white, how the future commander-in-chief used to diligently launder, not with washing machine, but bare hands her dirty undergarments in the winter cold of London back in the day.

As if to remind the new mistresses that what they now claim to possess is not exactly factory new, but a fairly-used vessel.

However, Sam Omatseye’s own book is neither about estranged lovers nor forsaken love. “Beating All Odds: Diaries and Essays on How Bola Tinubu Became President” is a meticulous chronicle of events preceding and following arguably the most divisive election in Nigeria’s history. It gives context and content to a phrase recently enrolled in our political lexicon — “EMILOKAN”.

Sam’s book is divided into two parts — the diary section and the other a potpourri of essays published as column in The Nation newspaper. The diary opens on the nineteenth of August, 2022 after the presidential flag-bearer of APC had emerged, and was now arrayed against the candidates of PDP, Labour and NNPP ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The diary closes on the seventeenth of February, 2023, a week to the elections.

In Part 1 of the book, Sam vividly captures the dramatic twists and turns, the high and low moments of the electioneering season. From the insurgency of pastors against APC’ Muslim/Muslim ticket, to the intifada of northern hegemons paranoid at the prospects of the north relinquishing power to the South after Buhari’s eight years at the Presidential Villa. From the feral rampage of Labour’s online trolls, to the unprecedented absurdity of a former Central Bank Governor practically draining the national economy of cash in a desperate maneuver to rig the electoral outcome against Bola Tinubu, the reader is confronted with the prospects of a macabre drama.
Sam’s entries also do not exclude the comedies of Wike’s mocking dance-steps and the accompanying guttural lyrics of “As e dey pain dem, e go dey sweet us” and “Yemdeba… Yemdeba… Yemdeba… Yemdeba.” Nor the leak of the illicit invocation of “Yes Daddy” by one of the candidates in what was supposed to be a nocturnal chat with his spiritual godfather, in the pursuit of a sectarian agenda.

In PDP, we are reminded of how the flag-bearer called the five insurgent Governors “traitors” who don’t respect elders and the accused in turn call Atiku a “prodigal father” blinded by inordinate ambition for 30 years.

In the media, we see top journalists engaged in foul exchanges in the pursuit of conflicting interests until the media elders imposed a ceasefire.

Of course, Sam’s radar also captures the audio apparition of a former leader — one of the so-called “Owners of Nigeria”, a great granddad for sure and prolific, all-knowing letter-writer camped close to Olumo Rock, inciting unsuspecting youths to march on the streets of Lagos and Abuja when early results indicated his anointed candidate was losing, not minding if they ended up as a sacrificial lamb in possible crossfire, all in a last-ditch attempt to truncate democracy and set Nigeria back on the road of June 12.

In a way, this is also a book of vindication that is not just poetic in cadence, but also prophetic in prognosis. The great romantic poet, Percy Shelley, tells us that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”. With an uncommon prescience, most of what Sam said came to pass indeed. The man he pitched for won. How prophetic his essay entitled, “Again, a Lagos Original”, published on February 20, barely five days to the much-anticipated D-Day, turned out.

Hear the author: “He (Tinubu) is rich. He is powerful. He has influence. He has changed lives. He transformed a city. Made men and women. Yet he attracts quite a few adversaries. The scriptures say when Isaac roared into success, the Philistines envied him.

“They deny him the right to be human. When he is sick, some wish him dead or eternally crippled. When he is not seen, some conjure his ghost as a dead soul. When he reappears, they won’t even credit him as a revenant, a man who came back from the dead. Rather, they wait for another date with the grave – in their imagination. Through the primaries, he gulped up mileage against his opponents’ little acreage. In the elections season, he bounded from huge crowd to huge crowd with breathtaking regularity. His opponents, including the ‘youth’ among them, waited to take a breath and measure the breadth before the next flight.”

As for those who pronounced a “fatwa” on the writer for exercising a poetic license in coining “Obi-tuarists” in August 2022, Sam could be said to have had the last laugh when the ballots were tallied in March 2023.
For four months, we learnt that Sam was advised, as a precaution, to stay completely off the radar while Obi’s supporters preached hate in what evoked the dark memories of Salman Rushdie’s ordeal after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeni pronounced a fatwa on his “Satanic Verses”. But, alas, the bullies grew limp and desolate once their idol lost.

But rather than gloat, in an essay entitled “I Pardon All” published on June 19, 2023, conciliatory Sam writes: “It was a pun but they did not see the fun. Yet, I am not writing in jest, but to follow the rhetorical footprints of President Bola Tinubu in his inaugural speech that echoed another great man, Abraham Lincoln. I write, as this essayist has always done, with ‘malice towards none.’

“When I wrote the piece, Obi-tuary, there was a tempest in the land… It was a hectic time for me and my loved ones. I did not go to the office for four months. I was a hermit, except my trips for TVC Breakfast show, and I had got here in disguise. I attended no parties, no public events, and restaurants. I was as Americans say a home buddy. But I forgive all. I forgive them who did not understand English enough to know that I was using a figure of speech.”

Again, the central banker Sam pooh-poohed yesterday is now today’s butt of national joke for presiding over a criminal enterprise. Long before Godwin Emefiele fell on his sword of fiscal perfidy, Sam had seen it coming in a satirical piece entitled “Mefy’s beauty”, published on November 7, 2022. Listen to him: “Godwin Emefiele must think himself a great economist and stylist. Or maybe he sees himself as a sort of reincarnation of Steve Jobs, the Apple avatar who brought design to the service of technology. Mefi, as his acolytes call him, must believe he wants to bring style to the service of the economy.

“So, to do this, he goes to the president, and tells him it is an elixir of good news. Mop up the naira and the politicians who stashed away money will groan. It will smoke out bandits from their barricades. The naira will neigh like robust horse. Inflation will bow. The common folk will renew ‘Sai baba’ chants. His unsung legacy on song.”

As prophesied, Emefiele only ended wrecking a national economy he was hired to nurture. Of course, while the great magician performed all sort of abracadabra at the exchequer, he was egged on by a tribe of media contractors who often outdid themselves in declaring him either “Banker of the Year” or “Banker of the Decade” regularly. But following a raft of serious charges brought against Emefiele in court, the media praise-singers have since lost their voices.
When Emefiele’s campaign posters first appeared on the streets, Sam was one of the few courageous columnists who bucked the conspiracy of silence in the media by voicing outrage against the sacrilege in a piece entitled “Here We Go”.

Here him:
“An abuse of office is going on with Godwin Emefiele. His so-called committee of friends failed to protect the CBN governor. Rallies are around town. Posters are everywhere. He is still mum. If he wants to run for president, he should resign his office. He should not hide under pieties about God or Muhammadu Buhari.

“He wants to have his dollar and pounds in one transaction. He should either run and resign, or stop an amorphous group from trumpeting an ambition for a man whose only image outside of banking is a kneeling posture to some oligarchs.

“It is an abuse of office to enable a shadowy crowd of friends fretting in public over questions of the CBN chief who is stumbling to segue from a technocrat to a democrat. The so-called committee of friends was a shadow show.
“It was a limp exhibition, whose prose called for better editing. Emefiele has a spokesman officially. That is the only voice that counts, not a camaraderie of cowardice hiding under a coterie of friends.”

Unperturbed and unashamed, Mefy’s hired flutists doubled down in a rejoinder splashed in a sponsored two-page advertorial in The Nation newspaper.

Without a doubt, this book is significant because it is the first attempt at documenting a momentous period in our recent history. As many will now agree, never in living memory has the nation found herself dragged into an electoral contest where religion and region were brazenly weaponised.

Nor has the nation ever witnessed an aberration where the sitting administration was viewed, rightly or wrongly, as working energetically and transparently against the victory of the candidate of its own party in a national election.

One remarkable thing about the diary Sam kept for seven months is the sense of great suspense, dark foreboding expressed by the writer as the nation tottered dangerously near the precipice.

For instance, hear Sam’s suspense-filled entry on the seventeenth of February, 2023:
“The week before the election shaped out very tense, especially for the ruling party. It seems obvious that the worries that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu expressed about efforts to scuttle his path to victory have never been better revealed than when the president went on television and defied the Supreme Court ruling.

“The president gave ammunition to the other contestants because his decision energised the rage against his government and the APC. He decided against the suggestions of the Council of State, against the ruling of the Supreme Court, against the judgment of the governors and many people in the political class and civil society. His decision was in lockstep with that of the CBN chief, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate Peter Obi and PDP counterpart Atiku Abubakar.”

Overall, there is no disputing that Sam writes with the fragrance of a much-decorated poet and the gravitas of the nation’s most garlanded, most consistent columnist in the last two decades. As The Nation’s columnist in the last eighteen years, not once has Sam failed to deliver every Monday. His multidisciplinary depth surely shines through this chronicle. But even more evident is the authority Sam brings. As a senior editor with vast network of contacts in high places, he surely knows, smells and hears things not open to small players.

However, it must be said that, here, Sam is not a neutral chronicler. Indeed, in Nigeria’s literary community, only a few can be said to be as invested as Sam in Nigeria’s democratic struggle when the cost was most prohibitive. To ignore the history of the popular struggle against military despotism of the 90s is to, therefore, completely miss the spirit that feeds Sam’s muscular metaphors.

Not many will remember that, as Concord editor in 1997, the writer narrowly escaped being captured by then rampaging Abacha goons at the Muritala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. He and Tunji Bello, his inseparable ideological twin brother, had turned Sunday Concord newspaper into a thorn in Sani Abacha’s flesh. Of course, that close shave with the death squad of the military regime marked the beginning of Sam’s ten-year self-exile in the U.S.

Well, Aristotle said we are all political animals. The difference with Sam is that he does not hide his bias in a sophistry. His partisanship is undoubtedly for Bola Tinubu, a key player in the pro-democracy struggle of the 90s. No wonder, in this book, Sam is unsparing of those he considers traitors to Asiwaju. And they are quite many. From those who climbed on Tinubu’s back to power in Abuja and later denied the help, to those who disowned him in his own hour of political need. They know themselves.

Overall, contrarians are likely to find Sam’s language rather offensive or maybe exaggerated sometimes. But like Khalil Gibran tells us, exaggeration is only a truth that has lost its temper.

However, as magnificent as it appears, Sam’s offering is not without its own production infelicities which border largely on the infiltration of non-English words or phrases. They permeate the entire work. But Sam must be reminded that not everyone speaks or understands Yoruba or his native Itshekiri. Conventionally, such words are italicized or put in inverted comas. These can corrected in the next issue of the book.

All said, the book is, in my view, a razor-sharp snapshot of Nigeria at a critical moment. I strongly recommend you get a copy and read.

Thanks for listening.

Against the run of play, Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago of Niger State ruffled feathers with his speech at the 2023 annual Leadership Newspaper Conference and Awards held in Abuja last week. This speech was an instant hit online and trended at different times on both Instagram and X (Twitter). Governor Bago’s arguments in his speech can be summarised in three ways: First, as a nation, Nigeria cannot achieve economic freedom and eradicate poverty without being productive, especially in agriculture, where we have a comparative advantage.

Second, it is indefensible for a nation with an estimated arable land of 40 million hectares and a reasonable youth population to accept grain donation in whatever guise from war-torn Ukraine; and third, because of natural and human endowment, Nigeria can feed the people and export the excess to other countries. There is nothing Governor Bago said that we do not already know, but as a nation, we have egotistically refused to accept these truths or act on them. These arguments are significant because they were made by a serving Nigerian governor, a member of the powerful club that has enjoyed the monthly sharing arrangement called the Federation Account Allocation Committee( FAAC).

Governor Bago ended his speech by throwing a challenge against the federal government’s promise to deploy and distribute 42,000MT of grains from the strategic reserve, that the Niger State Government will deliver and distribute 100,000MT of grain by June 2025. Make no mistake about it, Governor Bago was not just exercising his bragging right; he was marketing his strategic plan to rescue Niger state from the sharing mentality, economic doldrums, poverty, unemployment, and criminality. A quick review of what the Niger state government is doing to accomplish the vision of food sufficiency might give us a better perspective. Niger state, over the next year, plans to cultivate one million hectares of farmland, inclusive of a 50,000 hectares fully irrigated food production hub. Over 500 large-capacity tractors, 1000 pieces of irrigation and agricultural equipment, 2000 power tillers for smallholder farmers, 2000 petrol water pumps, 3000 solar pumps, and 5000 tube wells to support dry season farming have been delivered. Besides, the government has acquired about 100,000 bags of fertilisers, plus herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides have also been obtained. Governor Bago’s commitment to this agricultural revolution in Niger state is self-evident and realistic.

Governor Bago’s challenge in his speech and what he is doing in Niger state is founded on solid historical precedence and economic reasoning. Before we discovered crude oil in commercial quantity and started depending on it as a mono-product, which made us lazy in thinking, diminished the value of hard work, and elevated monthly sharing of FAAC to a religion of sorts, sub-national governments (regional governments) relied solely on agriculture to develop the regions. Some of the iconic infrastructure projects were executed with money realised from groundnut, cocoa and palm oil trade. The choice of agriculture as an engine of economic growth was because of its multiplier effect. It has an excellent capacity to create employment and wealth. Those reasons are still valid today. The neglect of agriculture and the food production supply chain led Nigeria into many of the economic malaise we are suffering today – from food insecurity, unemployment, criminality and poverty to a shortage of foreign exchange. Some countries that were our contemporaries developed their food production and supply, which became the mainstay of their economy.

Governor Bago’s speech represents a significant shift in thinking in recent times, giving some hope. Some state governments have started working towards creating a clear vision of increased productivity, providing an enabling environment for such productivity, and building on this productivity to improve their internal revenue generation. These governors are using food security in Nigeria as fuel to engage in food production in a way that has not been done in Nigeria for a long time. They understand that the question of food security in Nigeria starts with food production, then food processing, food distribution and food commercialisation, both locally and abroad. But first and foremost, ramping up food production is the first step in tackling the food insecurity conundrum. It is a matter of how much food Nigeria produces. It is determined by what individual states bring to the table. In that regard, the message of self-reliance from the Niger governor is on point. Production of food for local consumption and export is vital for Nigeria’s economy because it solves two significant problems that have recently thrown Nigeria’s economy into a wild spine – food inflation and scarcity of foreign exchange.

Increasing our production capacity and, by extension, enhancing our internally generated revenue is imperative. States waiting to go to Abuja to pick up peanuts monthly is not sustainable. States, by the design of the 1999 constitution, ought to be growth centres – actively participating in creating the institutional framework, structures, and environment to make this possible. However, only a few states have taken advantage of this vantage position to lift their people out of poverty. Most states function as salary payment centres. This must change if any meaningful development strides will take place in Nigeria.

The era of states becoming a leech on the centre, milking the Nigerian state dry, is over. Every state must look inward and decide the best path to economic progress. Each state must have the mentality that if the tap of crude oil is switched off today, how will it become sustainable? This calls for chief executive officers of the states (governors) to wear their thinking caps now, holistically review their productive comparative advantages, develop an audacious strategic plan, and execute such to achieve a clear vision for the state. Anything less than this is not acceptable to Nigerians.

The idea that consistent productivity at the sub-national level is one critical ingredient among many ingredients that will get us out of the economic mess we found ourselves in is more germane today than ever. The significance of this statement is that state governments are responsible for figuring out the best strategy to make their states viable and contribute to wealth creation and employment generation. Each state must tap into their comparative and competitive advantage to contribute to the national food basket.

A strategy for economic viability will require dealing with internal security issues coupled with medium- and long-term planning. The most crucial short-term action critical to agricultural production presently is to provide security and a safe environment for such economic activities to occur. The states must make farming safe and allow farmers to return to their farms without fear of attacks from bandits or terrorists. Insecurity is a great headwind against agricultural productivity.

Agro-industrialisation is crucial in massive food production and increases local revenue and foreign exchange generation. We are embracing new agro-technology and jettisoning old agricultural practices that have provided suboptimal productivity over the years. This is also a time to bring real entrepreneurs into the food production and processing value chain. State governments should leverage various public-private partnership investments available to bring in seasoned investors and ‘agropreneurs’ to work together to put in place modern mechanised agricultural facilities for the mass production and processing of food. Recently, I had a long discussion with the governments of Edo, Jigawa, Nasarawa and Akwa Ibom State who are leading in this new PPP arrangement and are collaborating heavily with the private sector (both local and foreign) to produce food for all and revenue to the state and our economy. I could feel a new mindset away from the “sharing mentality”.

Still on agro-industrialisation, agricultural exports accounted for about 90% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings in 1960. In quarter one of 2023, three products alone, Cocoa seed, sesame, and cashew seed, even without maximising our potential, gave the country N297 billion. In 2022, Malaysia’s gross domestic product from palm oil export was estimated to be 36 billion Malaysian ringgit (approximately $8 billion).

Governor Bago has thrown an open challenge to the federal government and his fellow state governors. There is a need for constructive engagement and healthy competition around subnational food productivity. Most importantly, the food imperative allows some states to improve their domestic revenue situation. Agricultural productivity has become an economic lifeline for the states, especially in the north. Kofi Annan argued that “Food security is not only a moral issue but also a strategic one: without food, people have only three options – they riot, they emigrate, or they die. None of these are acceptable options”.

The fight against poverty, unemployment, hunger and malnutrition is one of the most significant challenges of our time, and it’s a challenge that can be won in Nigeria. Nigeria can work towards achieving food security by applying the essential spirit of Bago’s challenge. Quality and affordable food is the fundamental to Nigeria’s development. We must take care of the basics before travelling to the moon. Nigeria’s development hinges on this!