26th October, 2015
Temitope Oshikoya**
After a
four-month hiatus, the ministerial orchestral band of thirty seven noisemakers
finally arrives on the stage. The Ministerial list is a mix of professionals
and politicians; party loyalists and non-party members. There are eleven
lawyers, 5 former governors, three medical doctors, and three academicians. In
the context of the President’s campaign platform of security, economy, and
corruption (SEC), the issue of the economy appears to be the least favoured on
the ministerial band.
What lessons
can the fresh noisemakers on the musical stage learn from the previous noise
makers of the immediate erstwhile administration? First, the new noisemakers should
avoid serenading us with their ministerial megaphone melodramatic melody. The
clowns or leading lights of the previous administration, especially the
handlers of the economy certainly enjoyed running a circus. They serenaded us with outlandish claims about
the economy and inputs, never mind that under their watch the domestic debt
quadrupled to 11 trillion naira. But their outputs clearly showed tangible
deliverables in growing the misery, poverty and unemployment indices for the
vast majority of Nigerians.
Second, the
new noisemakers must avoid waxing us with the lyrics of blissful ignorance. With
their mastery of colourful graphic and gimmick presentations, the previous
clowns were very adept at hiding the icebergs that the economic titanic was
heading towards. This much was exposed in January of this Year in an article
titled: How not to manage the economy.
Standards & Poor’s ratings, JP Morgan Index, and international media, which
they initially carefully cultivated, later revealed their folly and economic
ignoramus.
Third and more
importantly, the new noisemakers must play their melody with a somber tune. The
previous clowns were not only blissfully ignorant, they were absurdly arrogant.
As Tony Marinho wrote in The Nation, they displayed the disease of “Ministerial
Arrogance and Delusions of Grandiosity.” They certainly like to go about
blowing their trumpets as the self-acclaimed “leading lights” of the previous
administration.
Nigeria has
several heroes at home and in the Diaspora in various professional fields in international
public institutions and in the private sector. In particular, there have been
Nigerians who have served as Head of the Commonwealth, Under Secretary General
of the United Nations (UN), Head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Head
of IFAD, Executive Director of UNFPA, and Secretary General of OPEC. There are
others in the private sector, including a Nigerian serving on the board of
Goldman Sachs.
Unlike these
silent heroes, the clowns like to go the extra miles to convince us that they
are the greatest things ever since sliced bread. They want us to believe that the former
Director General (DG) of Budget has been appointed by the African Development
Bank (AfDB) because of his performance in that prior role. Hogwash, we all know
how far Nigeria’s budget, especially 2015 budget, has been widely off the mark
and how fiscal leakages are now being plugged. This appears to be simply part
of the attempts by the former Minister of Finance, who nominated the DG to
serve as Nigeria’s executive director, ambassador or representative to the AfDB,
to provide a soft landing to cronies just before a new administration was set
to take over.
They also want
us to believe that the current AfDB’s President got the position solely on the
strengths of his expertise, experience, and exposure as a Minister of
Agriculture in the previous administration. As this writer has noted in an
article in the Guardian in April, 2015 on The
Race for the AfDB Presidency,”more importantly, and beyond professional
expertise, experience, and vision statement, the election of the AfDB’s
President is a high-powered political affair reflecting an extension of
countries’ foreign policy and commercial interest and sub-regional rotation.”
For instance,
there was no way Nigeria’s candidate who was head of OPEC in 1995 would have
been allowed to take up the headship of the AfDB under former Head of State,
General Sanni Abacha. By the same token, if the March 2015 democratic elections
had gone awry or the current Nigerian President did not come out to support Nigeria’s
candidate, the Presidency of the AfDB would have eluded us!
Fourth, the
new orchestra band noisemakers must avoid the revolving doors of the vaudeville
theater hall. Some have raised concerns about former government officials being
connected with their new employers. Some have been asking what role Lazard and
its subsidiary played during Nigeria’s debt negotiations with the Paris Club. In the USA, a prominent Senator has being
championing the case against revolving doors by Wall Street bankers into
government and vice versa. Specifically, earlier this year, the appointment of
a former Lazard’s banker into a high profile US Treasury position was blocked
as part of efforts to control the use of revolving doors.
All of which
brings us to issues of moral hazards, which in economics imply people making
the decision about taking risks knowing that others will bear the costs and
burden of those risks. In this context, is it the case that the clowns and merchants
of misery are bailing out after leaving majority of Nigerians with rotten
apples of misery deriving from their economic mismanagement? Finally, the new noisemakers must avoid the antics of the clowns and their town criers who think their clowns are meant to serve only their clans. With these musical musings, we wish the new noisemakers well in their new roles as Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
**Dr. Temitope Oshikoya, an economist, writes from Lagos.
