NATIONALISATION

A speech given in the House of Representatives, Lagos, on 21st November, 1960.

It is written that market value or fair compensation amount to the same thing. If a capital was invested here ten years ago, £1 at that time may be worth £2, £4 or £5 today. That is the market value today and that will be the fair compensation to the investor. On the other hand, the business might have been so mis-managed that the £1 of ten years is not worth more than ten shillings now; that is what will be paid to that particular investor; that of course would be the fair compensation.

Now this policy of not ruling out nationalisation in our national economy is not peculiar to Nigeria. There is a publication of the United Nations Organisation entitled ‘Foreign Investors Law and Regulations of the countries of Asia and the South.’ I commend the study of this publication to the Ministry of Finance because there it will be found that the countries of India, Burma, Siam and Indonesia and so on and so forth all believe that nationalisation is part and parcel of their national economy. As a matter of fact India has already nationalised insurance, and shipping is a state monopoly in India. In spite of the fact that insurance has been nationalised by India and that shipping is a state monopoly, investors still flock into that country, Ceylon. The Ceylonese Government made a law whereby no foreigner would run a hotel in that country. Ceylon also made a law whereby the state would monopolise the importation of sugar and rice because these two commodities bring a lot of profit to the country.

Similarly Ceylon also passed a law whereby only nationals of Ceylon can export tea from that country to any other country with the result that all the tea plantations in Ceylon which were previously owned by investors are today owned by Ceylonese.

They have cocoa, they have copra. The climate of Ceylon is the same as the climate of Nigeria. In spite of this policy of the Ceylonese Government, foreign investors still flock to the place. May we remind ourselves that investors, foreign investors, do not come to this country for the love of Nigeria, they come to this country for the love of themselves and in furtherance of their profit motive.

Furthermore, it must be clearly recognised, it must be borne in mind, that all the so-called civilised countries in the Western Democracies have now recognised that under-developed countries must of necessity be given aid by them. If they fail in these days of ideological conflict between the Western Democracies and the Eastern Democracies, or the Eastern Bloc, then they will lose whatever foothold they may have had in this place in the past. And consequently the country had nothing to fear at all by discussing nationalisation and by saying or declaring that nationalisation cannot be ruled out of our national economy. It is difficult to understand the reason for the present hue and cry. In the government publication ‘Economic Survey of 1959’, it is clearly stated that nationalisation will not be ruled out in the future. That was what was quoted by the Minister of Finance himself.

Why are these foreign investors raising the hue and cry now? The reason, in my view, Mr. Speaker, Sir, is that the foreign investors, now that they have discovered that we are politically independent, want to brow-beat us to surrendering to their economic stranglehold. They want to remain here in perpetuity and that is what this country will resist to the best of its ability. Public ownership, which is also called nationalisation, is not anything strange to this country. The coal mines at Enugu are publicly owned; the railways, the ECN, the Nkalagu Cement Factory is 90 per cent publicly owned, and so are the Kaduna Textiles.

The other day when the Minister of Finance spoke, he tried to make it appear that only public utilities, would be nationalised, but coal mines are not public utilities and the Nkalagu Cement Factory and the Kaduna Textiles are not by any means public utilities, so that we already have it in our national policy that nationalisation or public ownership of industries would not be ruled out in the future, which is all we say.

It is obvious from the utterances of government spokesmen that the government is mortally afraid of the growth and spread of communism or communist doctrine in this country, but you do not keep the bugbear of communism out of your door by branding your critics communists, by embarking on witch-hunting, or bullying the hungry masses. Communism is a philosophy which grows automatically on the soil of much poverty and much discontent, to use the pregnant words of Bacon. At the moment our country suffers terribly from the malady of abject poverty and disease and rampant discontent.

Unemployment – the community of the unemployed people is growing fast, Mr. Speaker, Sir. The peasantry of this country are wallowing in abject poverty, ignorance and disease. 95 per cent of the foreign trade of this country is in the hands of foreigners. Our finances are in a very low state in spite of the recent windfall from the West African Currency Board, and the country continues to be run on a deficit because the-balance of payments continues to run adversely against us. The urgent task, Mr. Speaker, Sir, to which the government must address itself, is not to go about Red-hunting, but to make a comprehensive plan for our national economy; to introduce and execute a bold programme which is designed for the welfare and happiness of all our people. In pursuance of this, I repeat my previous suggestion, Mr. Speaker. It is imperative and urgent that a planning commission, consisting of Nigerian economists, should be set up. To bring an Indian into this country to advise – I do not know whom – is a waste of time and money. What is essential is the setting up of a commission, a planning commission consisting of Nigerian economic experts. Furthermore, it is also imperative and urgent that the government should give serious consideration to the suggestion which I made here before, that Shipping, the airways and Insurance should be nationalised without delay. The nationalisation of these three businesses will help to allay the discontent of the people and in addition will help considerably to improve the exchequer of the government of the federation.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

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