How Tinubu can rescue Nigeria from further decline —Ademu, Economics professor

Ademu Attah, professor of Development Economics at the University of Jos, Plateau State, speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on Nigeria’s high public debt and measures the current administration can take to address the situation.

 

Nigeria’s public debt, in the last three months, has jumped to about N87 trillion according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). In your own assessment, what do you think has got the country to this high debt profile?

Yes, the country is not producing and it is just relying only on the oil and gas sector to survive. So with this, there is no way the country can earn additional revenue. As you know, in a country that runs an expensive government like ours, with many ministers and governors having hundreds of aides with fleets of cars, the only way to sustain this costly politics is to keep borrowing. Globally, it is known that Nigeria does not produce anything. This is made even worse by the downturn and total collapsed state of its manufacturing sector.

Worst still, its agricultural sector is plagued by worsening insecurity. All the country just does is borrow to survive and use almost its entire revenue to service the debt that is domiciled in foreign currencies. Again, look at the mineral sector, the minerals are daily being mined illegally, not even by Nigerians, but by foreigners. The fact is we have what it takes to enlarge our revenue base, but the Nigerian government is not a serious one. And that has been the reason the country is stagnating in its current state. The point I am making is that as long as you don’t generate enough internal revenue and make determined efforts to earn income, you will keep depending on borrowing.

 

In line with the issue of expensive governance that you raised, the current administration has the highest number of ministries in Nigeria’s history. Don’t you think this will inflate the already high cost of governance in the country?

The fact is it will only worsen our situation. We are talking of a country that has no money, a country that is generating very little and expending the largest chunk of its income on debt servicing, yet you are creating more ministries that will put more people in government even when they are not very qualified and will end up just sitting in the government offices and parasiting on the little income that the country generates. These new ministers and their aides as well as officers will get bogus allowances and expensive jeeps, all from the same depleting income of the country. This will really not help matters at all.

 

But still speaking on the debt profile, the DMO has said the fluctuations of the Naira have partly contributed to the increase in the country’s external debt, how possible could this be?

When you dollarise your economy, that is what you will eventually get. Why must foreign countries not trade with us in our naira? Why must we be quoting anything or even accepting certain services in dollars? Nigeria is not an appendix to the United States economy for goodness sake. So, if anybody is buying anything from us, let them pay us in naira. If you pay us naira, it means you must have to buy naira before you can pay us in the same naira. It just further drives home the point that we need to transact businesses in naira more than in dollars. Let anybody who wants to buy whatever we have to pay us in naira. By doing this, the value of naira will increase. Take for instance, what is stopping the NNPCL from selling the crude in naira? Why must the payment be always quoted and given in dollars? Is it the person who wants to buy something from you that should determine the country he or she will pay in? This is commonsensical. But as I have said, we just have to produce; else, we will keep sinking deeper into this damaging debt hole.

 

So, how do you think the government can sustain the current debt and not increase it, especially considering the fact that the current administration will want to do some capital projects next year?

The fact is that you don’t just jump into building capital projects. You can’t cut your coat beyond your size. Let us revitalize the economy first. Let us expand the revenue base first. Let us go into manufacturing and mining our own minerals. Let us also go into farming and tiling our own lands. When we are able to produce, sell, and increase our revenue base, then, this overdependence on the oil sector will be reduced, because it was what sank our country to the current place it is. Corruption has been a major issue in the oil sector. The sector is what we greatly depend on, but it has been saturated with corruption, such that nobody has an accurate knowledge of how many barrels are sold in a day. Nobody knows what comes in or goes out.

Beyond that, look at the level of theft in the Nigeria Delta. Who are the people stealing? Is it the farmers? It is the same people reportedly fighting corruption that is corrupt and aiding it. The situation is really deteriorating. I just feel that Tinubu’s government should urgently consider the manufacturing sector and reactivate it. It should also endeavour to promote agricultural production and participation in terms of policy formulation. Any other move different from this will improve the country’s food security. It will just mean the government is okay with the country’s importation of food.

And then, we need to ask ourselves some critical questions. What has happened to the automobile industry in Nigeria? What has happened to the rubber industry? What of textiles? What happened? These used to be very viable and productive in the country in the past. But now, they are wasting and rotting away. So why the new government can’t go back and revive them? The fact is a resurgence of this moribund sector will greatly reduce the country’s ever-increasing rate of unemployment because many people will be gainfully employed again and earn appreciable income. But we are in a very sorry state now as the country import even toothpick when there are trees that could be used to make something like that.

And then again, the current government should cut down greatly on this issue of medical tourism. Almost all political office holders now in the country go abroad for medical check-ups, wasting the national treasury while our own hospitals are seriously down. The government knows we don’t have or make enough money, yet it continues to borrow to spend, not even to invest. All over the world, most countries borrow only to invest. But is this what we do here in Nigeria? We simply borrow to steal. So, if the current government is very determined enough, let it cut down the size of governance.

This is because even the foreign countries where we copied this presidential system of government do not run very costly political structures. If you go to the USA, for instance, you can’t see things like senators’ quarters, because their legislative house runs on a part-time basis. Their lawmakers only get a sitting allowance. But can you compare this with our own lawmakers and their flamboyant lifestyles? So, let our constitution be amended to decentralize that rubbish. These may not be immediate solutions, but they are long-term solutions to our high-debt cycle.

We all heard of the Oronsaye’s report. But what have successive administrations in this country done regarding the various recommendations in the report? Instead of adopting it, the Tinubu government wet ahead to jerk up its own ministerial base. Is that how to cut costs?

You talked of funding capital projects, but do you know that there are so many of them currently in shambles as we speak? So it is not a must that the current administration should embark on any at the moment or even next year. But let us go back to the basis and get a broad revenue base, instead of start jumping into what we cannot effectively fund again.

There are many services that we should get as citizens of Nigeria, but are they being provided? How many Nigerians fly in a month? How many Nigerians even ply the big-spending roads on a daily basis? Go and do your research. Check the roads and airports and let’s see who is deceiving who. Nigeria is simply servicing these sets of people who are already stealing our common goods.

There is a lot of crisis at the moment. Look at the educational sector. People who were begged and given full scholarships to go to school are the ones imposing heavy tuition fees on children of the poor masses today. What is the government doing to address this issue? So what capital projects are we talking about? The roads are already bad. The schools are in a very terrible shape. The masses are daily suffering in the country because of wrong policies of the government or even right policies with very porous implementation. And then, one government will come out and tell us about capital projects, who lives to enjoy the so-called project? Is it until more people die?

 

But the Tinubu’s government has premised the creation of new ministries on the need to effectively address the deficiency associated with the extant ministries before it came into power.

The question we should ask ourselves is: which of the sectors is moribund that the government has created a new ministry to address? Is it the Ministry of Environment, agriculture, finance, health, or even education? The point is that all the duplicated offices simply have the same functions at the end of the day. Recently, I was looking at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and I discovered that their functions are the same. There is no difference at all, except in their names and branding. The same thing goes for the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Service (DSS). All of them are being allocated funds from the national treasury, but yet they are performing similar functions, why then must we duplicate them? We have many duplications and contradictions in our political system and they are parts of the reasons we are at this level. They are seriously draining the economy and unless nothing drastic is done, we may not get out of the pit and just be simply moving in a circle.

 

Well, since the fuel subsidy was removed, there have been a series of palliatives put up by the Tinubu government. Some have come in the form of foodstuffs and cash being distributed to the state governments to give Nigerians. But against the argument that these palliatives may not even get to every Nigerian, what do you think should be the right palliatives from the government going forward?

The government should simply support the individual businesses that people are doing by creating an enabling environment for the businesses to thrive. The government should let people function on their own. The question is how many days can a bag of rice take a family? But if you give the farmers among them fertilizers, they can be able to farm well in the rainy season now and produce enough crops for their own survival or to raise funds too. But all these palliatives the government has been talking about are simply means of stealing. We were all here under the Buhari administration, where there was the Trader Moni and all, what is the result today? I think these palliatives of a thing are just a means by which those in power milk and share our commonwealth. So many unpronounced corruptions have been carried out through this scam palliative of a thing. It is just a useless way of duping the Nigerian people.

More so, the government’s idea of the palliative thing is often focused on the civil servants at the centre. It has nothing to do with the rural man. Are you going to take a vehicle to the village to help people take their produce from the farm? Which good road can you even take to do that?

 

The federal government recently proposed some loan schemes for Nigerian students. In view of this move, some federal institutions have increased their tuition, which has generated so much reaction and outrage as the students said that the loan scheme is yet to take off. But as many people have argued, do you believe that the government can completely fund university education in Nigeria?

Yes, the government can fund education. But since 1978, it is worrisome that the attitude of the government towards the education sector hasn’t been impressive. You must have heard of Ali must go. It was a result of protests over tuition. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) too it up since 1992, but there have still been no meaningful breakthroughs. Look at what happened during the last phase of Buhari’s administration. Because we agitated for adequate funding for the universities, up till now, our eight-month salary has been held. And somebody is foolishly talking about loan schemes for students. Can the government even fund student loans? Have you seen the conditions for obtaining the loans? Where will the poor man get the guarantor that will support the application? And what is even the guarantee that when applied, these loans will get to the students given the corrupt nature of Nigeria? Let the government simply buckle up and fund education. Let it make education attractive for Nigerians and provide the facilities required so that Nigerians graduates can compete globally. Have you ever even heard that a federal university will not have electricity for almost or even more than two months? Those in power simply feel their children are not in the Nigerian schools, and that is why they want those of the poor to roast to ashes. We really don’t deserve what we are facing at all.

 

READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE 

• Enugu: Police neutralise 3 IPOB/ESN hoodlums, recover firearms, cutlasses

• No coup attempt in Congo Brazzaville — Moungalla

• FG to construct super highways on Abuja-Lagos, Port Harcourt-Lagos

• Shaibu locked out from Government House

• MONDAYLINES: ‘Alaafin’s stool is not for sale’

• VIDEO: Untold story of out-of-school kids in Ibadan

• EDITORIAL: The NURTW shooting in Abuja