Names Prof Ojetunji Aboyade, Prof Ikenna Nzimiro, Michael Omolayole, Professor Akin Mabogunje, Dr Chu Okongwu, Chief Olu Falae, Dr Kalu Idika Kalu as top economists, technocrats tapped for economic agenda
FORMER military president, General Ibrahim Babangida has provided details of how his regime gathered top Nigerian economists and technocrats to salvage the nation’s economy during his time as head of state.
Babangida, who named top economists and technocrats including Prof Ojetunji Aboyade, Prof Ikenna Nzimiro, Michael Omolayole, Professor Akin Mabogunje, Dr Chu Okongwu, Chief Olu Falae, Dr.Kalu Idika Kalu as some of the top economists and technocrats tapped by his regime to structure the nation’s economy, said that the regime was certain the economy needed reforms.
He also justified the decision of his administration to deploy state cohesive power in crushing the riots embarked upon by Nigerians following the economic hardship caused by the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) introduced by his regime.
The details were contained in Chapter 7 of his autobiography titled: A Journey in Service presented to the public last Thursday in Abuja, a gathering that attracted President Bola Tinubu, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and other past presidents and heads of state of the country.
The former military ruler dealt extensively on the economic agenda of his administration, how he was able to assemble renowned professionals and experts to prepare the blueprint of the administration, as well as the adoption of SAP in an effort aimed at rescuing the country’s economy from a quagmire.
He said he and his colleagues were not only convinced that economy was in bad shape but that Nigeria possessed the resources and human capital to chart a new path of reform.
He said: “Even before assuming office, I was of the view that we needed to reform the economy along free market lines to free the energies of our people and begin to realise the full potential of our economic endowments. Over the years, I had made extensive acquaintances with knowledgeable and experienced Nigerians in various fields. I reached out to as many renowned Nigerian thinkers and persons of knowledge as possible, especially in business, finance and economics.
“I naturally started my consultations with those I had met and had practical contact with over the years. In this regard, I reached out to Professor Gabriel Olusanya, whose intellect and experience had impressed me greatly during my tenure at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). “Through him, I expanded the group of reputable Nigerians to consult on how best to design an appropriate economic reform agenda. In this regard, I contacted Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, Professor Ikenna Nzimiro, Mr Michael Omolayole, Professor Akin Mabogunje and Dr Chu Okongwu. We could rely on the technocratic expertise and vast bureaucratic experience of men like Olu Falae.
“Through Ike Nwachukwu, who had been the military governor of Imo State, I engaged and incorporated Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, who had done impressive work on the state’s economy.
“Before that, he had worked at the World Bank and served on the Asia Desk, where he garnered extensive knowledge on what became the Asian Tigers. In particular, his creative approach to rescuing the economy of Imo State made a positive impression on me.
“Under the famed ‘Imo Formula,’ he excited me, and I brought him to the federal level to help us with the economics of spending only what you have. Such prudent management and economic realism was what, in my view, our desperate economic situation required.
“What I found exciting about working with these outstanding intellectuals, men of ideas and experience, was that they were a community of ideas. They knew and respected each other. With each one you consulted and brought on board, he had a string of other colleagues with similar expertise to bring along.
“In little or no time, we had a virtual faculty of people with extensive ideas, vast experience and diverse backgrounds. We interacted through a series of dialogues and consultations in very enlightening sessions.
“We became more like a community of friends and colleagues. But we were united by our shared commitment to making Nigeria self-sufficient and workable. We had endless brainstorming sessions on different aspects of national life, especially the economy.
“I found our brainstorming sessions very enlightening and refreshing. People brought their vast experiences to bear on the problems that faced us then. In particular, I recall the insights of Professor Ikenna Nzimiro, who brought a lot of life to our sessions by relating our present problems to his experiences from the past. He would, for instance, jovially ask me how old I was when he was active in the Zikist movement!
“In assembling our economic team, I was careful to strike an ideological mix without allowing our sessions to become a contest of ideologies. I aimed to get the diversity of perspectives into a pragmatic set of solutions for our urgent national economic problems.
“Through these discussion sessions, some of which lasted for a few hours, we struck a consensus that the Armed Forces Ruling Council shared. We agreed that our most urgent priority was to rescue the national economy by putting it on a new footing of an open market.
“A clear and urgent reality was that we needed to act decisively to bring back the economy from the brink of an abyss.
“The economic crisis, one of the main reasons for our initial intervention in 1983 against the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, had worsened from a crisis to a virtual urgent catastrophe.
“In the immediate post-Shagari military government, there was a shared consensus among the military leadership that our people needed to be saved from the prospect of a failed economy and state. A nation of our size with a failed economy would be a significant strategic threat to the West African sub-region, if not all of Africa.
He said many government-owned and controlled companies “were all loss-making and wasteful,” because the government was the sole driver of the economy, adding: “We were determined to change that system but through a policy switch.
“An essential part of our reform agenda was to divest government interest from too many enterprises. We were determined to privatise the economy by selling government interests in virtually all the non-strategic enterprises it had invested in. We set up the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC) headed by Hamza Zayyad. The committee’s work was to document all the government-owned enterprises and recommend those that qualified for outright privatisation and those that would be commercialised for greater efficiency and commercial viability. It was a massive exercise, and it dawned on us for the first time the sheer quantum of wealth and assets that had been wasting away, locked up under government ownership of enterprises,” Babangida stated.
“Some enterprises that were privatised then were transformed by their new owners into thriving concerns. Some achieved success by entering into partnerships with foreign concerns. Others did so by engaging innovative Nigerian management and recapitalisation. Sadly, many privatised entities have either been grounded and wound up or have had their assets stripped to bare bones by their irresponsible new owners whose original interest was to strip assets and sell off the carcass of these enterprises,” he added.
Writing about the massive protests that rocked the nation as a result of the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme, Babangida noted that though his government had envisaged a public outcry over the tough economic measures, the administration could not brook the stiff opposition being a military regime.
“As an administration, we naturally regarded the SAP riots as orchestrated and politically motivated opposition.
“However, people, especially the elite, tended to forget that we were not a civilian administration that could be cowed by opportunistic political pressure.
“We were, first and foremost, a military government. One feature of the military group psychology is never to appear weak in the face of civil pressure.
“We would naturally resist and seek to conquer the adversary before retreating to reflect on the fact that our opponents are also compatriots who could mean well.
“Therefore, the SAP riots came to us first as an attempt by politically motivated civilian forces to discredit us and destabilise the nation.
“In the military mindset, there are only two types of people: enemies or friends. Our political opponents were, therefore, primarily ‘enemy forces’ before they were fellow Nigerians.
“Consequently, we had to quell the opposition before they destabilised our hold on power by discrediting us.
“That is the natural survival instinct and doctrine of a military regime. After that, we could consider the merits of the arguments marshalled by the opponents of SAP. That is precisely what we did.
“The principal contention of the anti-SAP forces was the need to deploy greater compassion to ameliorate the policy’s more adverse effects. No one questioned the programme’s efficacy or appropriateness, but many argued that people needed to live long enough to see a better tomorrow. We recognised this.
“It will be recalled that very prominent citizens criticised SAP by insisting that the policy may have been sound but lacked a ‘human face.’
“We needed to accept the implications of a fundamental change in our economic system. It was evident that when you suddenly migrate from a subsidised mixed-economy model to a free-market one, the forces of economic competition are bound to force some of the populace to the fringes.”
Babangida said his government resolved to initiate the stringent reform as according to him, the economy was in the woods due to the shortcomings of the preceding regime of General Muhammadu Buhari, which he said was initially brought to power through a palace coup in 1983 to clear the Aegean’s table.
“Therefore, privatisation of public enterprises, the issue of obtaining a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), introducing SAP and other matters were considered as possible way forward for Nigeria,” Babangida said.
On why his regime decided to embrace a home-grown economic solution, the former leader stated: “The acceptance of IMF conditionalities meant the tacit adoption of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) package, which the IMF and the World Bank were marketing to third-world countries in similar economic trouble.
“Adopting the conditionalities stipulated by the IMF meant restructuring our economy in many ways. The elements of economic restructuring included privatisation of public enterprises, commercialisation in cases where outright privatisation was not feasible, deregulation of general economic sectors and processes and reduction of overall government presence in the economy.
“The IMF and World Bank had also encapsulated some of these elements as a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which came to be imposed on countries worldwide seeking IMF and World Bank bailouts for their ailing economies.
“Our SAP was self-inflicted, which meant more difficult options as we took on the hard choices without cushioning loan support. On our own, we added other sensible policies as dictated by our economic conditions.”
Accordingly, he said Nigeria adopted a SAP programme of its own making and design,” based on the “the peculiarities of our economy, bearing in mind the needs of our people and our socio-cultural setting.”
The ex-military president accused some politicians of using the SAP and economic reforms to blackmail his government, especially among the less perceptive citizens of the country.
“People who had been used to being fed fat by government-subsidised companies felt short-changed. An elite used to government patronage through appointments to boards of unprofitable government enterprises felt severely dislocated.
“There was bound to be a political backlash. Politicians newly dislodged from open partisan politicking aligned with elite of beneficiaries from government patronage to weaponise SAP. Government efforts to drive home the lessons, benefits and challenges of SAP were effectively counterbalanced by a campaign against SAP, the IMF and the World Bank.
“Even innocent students on campuses who hardly understood the nexus between the international institutions and our specific SAP policies were drafted into disruptive demonstrations against SAP. Thus was born the so-called SAP riots, which caused tremendous disruptions on university campuses and some urban centres.
“I dare say that these riots and demonstrations were the handiwork of disgruntled politicians, ill-informed academics and misguided students and youths. Happily, these protests did not, in any way, substantially distract our attention from realising the benefits of our economic reform.”
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