NIGERIA: The Cost Of Instability

By Reuben Abati

A qualitative if not quantitative measurement of the cost of the protracted instability in which Nigeria appears currently trapped offers a bird's eye view of the seriousness of our national circumstances. There is already an international consensus that Nigeria is an unstable country. The last time we enjoyed any form of stability within the polity was ironically during the Obasanjo administration. For a long while under the Obasanjo Presidency, there was a lot that the people could be hopeful about. We looked forward to tomorrow, and the government in spite of its many shortcomings kept promising us that it was laying the foundation for a better future. Being such a religious people, and being all so enthusiastic about democracy, we looked forward to that tomorrow. Many Nigerians in diaspora returned home to be part of a process of renewal. Obasanjo could not solve the problem of power supply or roads, but he gave Nigerians the telecommunication revolution which ten years later has transformed our lives in every manner.

Then, there was the EFCC and the ICPC, two anti-corruption agencies which under Obasanjo gave hell to corrupt elements in the corridors of power. The achievements of the two agencies may appear mixed and uneven, but there was a strong awareness in the land about the need for probity and integrity. Openly, people talked about how the fear of the EFCC had become the "beginning of wisdom." With Dora Akunyili in NAFDAC, the determined war which she waged against fake drugs and their peddlers also struck a special resonance among the people. Nigeria also regained its stature in the international community. Obasanjo enjoyed foreign policy adventures and he worked hard to reposition Nigeria internationally. In retrospect, there was stability also because there was a President that people could relate to, a Presidency that appeared to be working, an Obasanjo that took his assignment seriously if not too seriously. Love or hate him, you could not ignore Obasanjo with his rambunctiousness. People admire a strong, healthy President, not a weak, ailing one. Obasanjo lost much of the mileage and the goodwill of his presidency, however, when he gambled with the idea of a Third Term in office. That singular event shook the country and the people's confidence in the future; Obasanjo further worsened his track record when he imposed an ailing President on the country.

But since President Yar'Adua's assumption of office, this country has been stumbling. The instability that has overtaken the land is at great cost to Nigeria and its people. The first dimension is the sovereign cost. The uncertainty in Nigeria has eroded its stature in the international community. In the eyes of the world, we are the country that nobody can be so sure about its future. Political developments and policy directions in the county have assumed a monthly or yearly cycle. Nothing is certain. The world could not see the Nigerian President even when he was said to be in good health, now that he is ill, he has become completely invisible. Not only does government reverse its own policies, it appears unsure of where the country should be heading. There is no greater advertisement of this uncertainty than the country's failure to hold credible elections. The unpredictability of the political sphere makes planning near impossible for every stakeholder in the Nigerian economy. For sure, the economy has been reduced to a play ground for speculators. Apart from the oil and gas sector which will remain attractive for as long as the oil wells are fruitful, the major investment that still comes to Nigeria is portfolio investment that is short-term investments. This is real to the extent that some of the so-called big businesses coming from South Africa, China, and lately the Middle East, have no real structures on the ground. The average investor in the Nigerian economy under the regime of instability is interested only in quick gains. The failure of the administrative system has created so many loopholes which such buccaneer investors can exploit. They bribe their way through the system, they make sure that there is nothing concrete that can hold them down, they violate laid down rules and they make their profits which they promptly expatriate. They may not even pay tax. They are not called to order because nobody is paying enough attention to the rules. When such buccaneers are caught out and they are sanctioned, which is rare occurrence, they simply play the Nigerian game that they have mastered so well; in due course, there will be a favourable court judgement declaring that they have the right to do business in Nigeria on their own terms! Foreign or local investors cannot play such games in countries where there is a certainty of the rule of law.

The second major cost of instability is the infrastructural deficit. Government being so preoccupied with politics has not been able to provide the necessary infrastructure that will turn Nigeria into an enabling environment for business. No regular power supply. No railway. No good roads. This drives up the cost of doing business. The cost is passed on to the consumer and where the company can no longer cope, we have had cases of companies and other institutions relocating away from Nigeria to other countries. So much money is often allocated for infrastructural development, in fact at nearly every meeting of the Executive Council of the Federation in the last two years, contracts have been awarded for the implementation of this or that project, but there has been little evidence of performance. So distracted is the administration that unspent funds are returned to the treasury every year. Political stability is so critical because government is the biggest player in the Nigerian economy. Constant changes at the top, absenteeism and conflicting signals destabilize the polity. It should come as no surprise that many of the Nigerians in diaspora who rushed back to the country with the return to civilian rule in 1999, have gradually returned abroad. Others who still wish to return to the fatherland are carefully studying the situation at home and hoping that Nigeria will begin to solve its many problems of power supply, insecurity and so on. What they are responding to naturally and negatively is the instability at home. The uncertainty at home translates into the uncertainty of their own future should they return.

There is, third, the productivity cost. The country has lost its capacity for competitiveness. Labour is often said to be cheap in Nigeria, with the average worker earning less than $1, 000 per month, but the truth also is that the maintenance of labour in the country is very expensive. Too many Nigerian workers do not really work. They are a burden unto the establishments they claim to be working for. Because of their poor pay and lack of discipline, many Nigerian workers are perpetually distracted. They are trapped in the cycle of survival. Overworked and underpaid, they further exert themselves endlessly in search of other means of survival, and this has been at personal cost. In many establishments, half of the work-force is nursing one ailment or the other, and if we are to go by the high temperature of everyday language, most Nigerians are suffering from clinical depression. Nigerians don't know how to discuss, they shout! They don't know how to disagree, they rave! The country's disease profile is on the rise, what with the country having one of the highest rates in the world with regard to maternal mortality and infant mortality.

The work culture is in jeopardy in part because the gross instability in the land has made it difficult for the appropriate authorities to address issues of national competitiveness. What is happening in the education sector is especially tragic. Educational institutions produce the strategic manpower for the country, but the level of productivity in this sector has been terrible. It is an unstable sector, bogged down by incessant labour strikes, sabotaged by inadequate funding and over-politicized through official interference. Many of our graduates today can neither write properly nor articulate any position in their chosen professions. Where is the same Nigerian education system that produced the likes of Odia Ofeimun and Peter Enahoro? It no longer exists and that is why when a company like Access Bank puts out an advert for new recruits from Nigerian universities, it doesn't hide the fact that it intends to look for the very best that can be found out of the "best" that presents its credentials. Even that so-called "best" will still have to be trained and retrained. Don't be surprised, many Nigerian academics are also caught in the survival trap, and so there is little time or incentive to help the country build a productive and competitive class.

Fourth, there is the standard of living index of instability. The fact of Nigeria's instability can be found in every street corner, in the poverty that stalks the land, and in the tragic collapse of values. The collapse of living standards has also resulted in the erosion of morals: too many parents these days look the other way when their daughters sell their bodies for cash or school grades, too many parents aid and abet examination malpractices, too many religious leaders are no better than common felons. With the failure of social institutions once considered sacred, the family and religious groups in particular, the land is bound to be unstable. This is not a new problem but it is getting worse by the day, more so as there is nothing any more restraining the people. Under President Yar'Adua, against the background of his sickness and invisibility, hope has taken a flight from our land. Does anyone know where Nigeria would be and what it would be like in the next six months? No one can be too sure. All the promises of the Obasanjo years that the policies of that period will begin to yield great dividends by 2007 and beyond have failed, even all the promises made by President Yar'Adua have now become unimportant. Who is still talking about the seven-point agenda?

If anything the pervasive instability and uncertainty within the polity have strengthened the culture of impunity. With government at the centre violating the Constitution, and explaining it away as the doctrine of necessity, it has become fashionable for other Nigerians to resort to expediency as well and claim protection under the doctrine of necessity. The Boko Haram insurgents considered their rebellion against the state necessary, didn't they? The murderers in the killing fields of Jos have all claimed that they were left with no option but to apply the old law of vengeance: an eye for an eye as the determinant of relationship with persons of other ethnic and religious extraction. Hundreds of people are slaughtered and nobody is brought to justice. It is needless painting a picture of the economy of Jos and its missed potentials.

What should be done? We only need to step back in history and ask the question: what were those things that used to give us hope in this country? What was it about this country once upon a time that attracted outsiders to it, including foreign students? What has gone so terribly wrong that it is difficult to find foreign students in any Nigerian university today? In my days as a student, there were many foreign students on campus, both white and black. They came to Nigeria to seek knowledge. But who wants to seek knowledge in a country where the smart ones are the kidnappers, armed robbers and murderers and the political leadership cadre is populated by mischief-makers? The other questions are as follows: what kind of country do we want? What future do we want for Nigeria? Where do we want this country to be in the next 50 years? It is 50 years since Nigeria got flag independence, yet it remains a country in search of direction. These are questions for all Nigerians but also particularly for Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, on whose shoulders now rests a heavy burden. It is possible for him to go through the motions of being a President; merely going through the motions is the easiest way to do nothing substantial: he can appoint persons into positions, allocate oil blocs, receive visitors, appear on television, and generally give offence to nobody. But it is also possible to be the matador and lay the bull of Nigeria's instability to rest, by creating fresh opportunities for hope. We are a nation that is now in desperate need of hope.