National goal cannot be achieved with ease and simplicity

A call for a powerful national motivation. This is the text of a speech delivered to the Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Mines of Nigeria at its First Annual Conference.

Iwant to assure you that the Federal Military Government accepts the right of the people and of your Association and its members to be consulted, before any important measure or legislation (other than certain aspects of fiscal and monetary measures), which is likely to affect your interests, is introduced. I also want to assure you that this policy will come into full playas soon as the present civil war is over.

But in order to encourage the Government in its pursuit of this policy, and in order to make the dealings between the Government and your Association and its members effective and satisfactory, the members of your Association, both as corporate units and as individual businessmen, will have to act in concert and as a united team. Already, there is an incipient hiatus which illustrates what your Association has to do, from time to time, in order to establish itself as an effective channel between the Government and the entire business community.

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In their recent memorandum, the Small Business Committee called upon the Government to intervene in matters normally regarded as falling within the primary jurisdiction of the private sector. The Small Businessmen urged that the banking system’ is inflexible in the formulation of its credit policy’ towards them; that the NIDB, which incidentally is regarded by the Government as belonging to the private sector, has not assisted their businesses; that Government should ‘take direct participation in new industrial ventures as a means of encouraging foreign investment’ (a curious demand from such a body); that there is no harmonious relationship between local manufacturers and indigenous distributors; and that expatriate quotas should be more restricted. As a matter of fact, this memorandum raised only two issues which directly concern the Government, namely: the request that Government shares in successful business should be sold to ‘indigenous distributors with the appropriate ability and integrity’, and the point that Government should reserve sub-contracts and certain businesses ‘exclusively for Nigerians where competent ones are available’. I have quoted from this memorandum merely to illustrate the kind of problems which you have to solve in order to strengthen your Association for the benefits of all the sections of the business community. For, a situation in which one section of your Association is denouncing Government interference, whilst the other is saying the opposite, cannot conduce to the establishment of a smooth-working consultative machinery. I must emphasise, however, that I am not insisting that all the members of your Association can or should reach unanimity on all issues, small and big. But I do want to stress that if there are sharp, divergent, and irreconcilable views within your Association, the efforts of the Government at consultation and co-operation will be made ever so difficult.

You, Mr. President, and your eminent colleagues are the architects of this important Association, and it would be presumptuous for anyone to proffer advice on how you can make it work for the benefit of all concerned. But, from the point of view of the Government, there are a few things which we would like to see done.

In order to resolve the kind of problems posed by the Small Businessmen, it should be possible for the richer members of your Association to assist the weaker ones by conceding at least some of their requests. It is, I think important, that the educative and research arms of your Association should be strengthened to enable it to assist the petty traders and market women, where they are organised, on how to improve the wholesale and the retail trade with a view to increasing effective demand. In order to put the Government in a state of constant receptivity, your Association will have to shun politics, and refrain from open speculation on sensitive political issues. In making representations on or raising objections to any measures or legislative proposals, it should avoid vague generalisations, and support its case with objective facts and figures. Above all, your Association and its leading members must, in word and deed, demonstrate that they are conscious of and sympathetic towards Nigeria’s national objectives and aspirations.

Having said this much to admonish you, I am in honesty bound to say that the Federal Government is not unmindful of its own need for self-admonition and self-improvement, in order to inspire confidence that future dealings with us will be conducted with despatch, and that mutual consultations will be worthwhile and effective. We need to assure you of a Public Service which is alert and efficient, and can pay urgent attention to the multifarious requirements of commerce and industry. The complaint is rampant, persistent, and not without foundation, that Government agencies are too slow and too slovenly to deal with matters requiring immediate attention, with the result that the business community suffer severe losses, in time and money. It is the resolve of the Federal

Military Government to see to it that the causes of this perennial complaint shall cease, and that the Pubic Service plays its role with blameless credit and despatch in the tasks that lie ahead. Your other grievances are known; the Government will endeavour to redress them.