Mohammed Liman

On My 29^th, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He inherited an economy that was grappling with high inflation, high interest rates that were stifling business, a fuel subsidy regime that was draining government revenues and enriching a cabal, a huge debt profile (both local and international) and a forex regime that was being used as a tool (very effective one) to enrich a few. These were issues that required to be tackled before the country imploded and the incoming government knew these were issues that needed to be tackled sooner, rather than later.

However, the solutions needed to be tackled delicately because contrary to popular belief, governance is like rocket science and every economy is like an engine with multiple moving parts that needed to be aligned properly for it to work effectively. Unfortunately, the government came in gung ho not appreciating that the Nigerian economy is unlike most economies due to the structural defects that make it difficult to predict how a policy will play out. It is an economy that has a foundation that is now more than ever run by corrupt practices, oil theft, insecurity, arbitrage at all levels of society that makes it near impossible to align its moving parts. It was important that all these are taken into consideration before the policies were enacted so as to ensure that the negative outcomes did not create a slew of new issues that would introduce new moving parts that would need to be realigned.

Sadly, the policies were introduced without clearly grasping these issues and the outcomes have created new issues. The initial increase in pump price of fuel was further worsened when the Naira began its free fall after government tried to merge the official and black market rates, given that importers rely on forex to import PMS, as the Naira fell the import price of PMS kept going up resulting in the landing price to reach an all-time high of N617 per litre compared to the N195 in May 2023.

There has continued to be a sense that we can rely on the market to provide the correcting mechanism required to realign the economy. This in my opinion continues to be one of the most misplaced principles that economists continue to proffer. We must understand that the market does not exist in a silo, rather it is a product of politics. The market is largely inhumane, lacking any empathy and until government injects some form of human DNA into it, it will be driven by capitalist tendencies that focus solely on maximizing profits irrespective of the effect on the populace.

Even in the United states where we can argue that the market is ‘King’ the government still plays a pivotal role in guiding the market to achieve societal goals. For Nigeria, that is still on the lower rung of market development, greater government regulation is required so as to ensure that market operators do not take advantage of the cracks within the Nigerian economy.

Policies are really about optics and trust that government knows exactly what it is doing and what the policy is meant to achieve. However, while the optics in the dual policies initially seemed positive, there has been a gradual erosion in the trust that government knows what it is doing. Government needed to clearly articulate its policy and its intended goals and also map out the expected effects, both positive and negative and how it intended to counter the negative outcomes. Prior to introducing both policies it would have been useful for government to consult widely to understand the complexities involved. Policies cannot be made on the pages of newspapers and the social media.

Address the issue of oil theft so that government could meet its budget goals of producing an average over 2 million barrels of oil per day rather than the 1.4 million which it currently does. This would help boost our reserves and ease the pressure on the Naira against the dollar. It needed to at least get one refinery up and running so that there will be less reliance on imported refine products which would further reduce the pressure on foreign exchange demands.

While we have ramped up investments in the agricultural sector, the high level of insecurity has negated any gains that could be achieved. Many farmers continue to find it hard to go to farms due to the continued high level of insecurity and fear of banditry in many of the northern states. Government has focused on boosting export crop production so as to increase non-oil export revenues but I argue that the focus should be on increasing production for local consumption, with any surplus then for export. This would ensure food security.

Diaspora inflows still have a role to play in the inflow of foreign exchange into the country and there will be a need for government to reorganize the operations of the BDCs so that small inflows can be channeled through them. This will remove their reliance on allocations from the Central Bank and enable small demands to be met through them and help ease the pressure of the Naira. We could have a system whereby the BDCs would be able to receive up to 10,000 dollars leaving larger inflows to go through the traditional financial institutions. With the NFIU and EFCC, we can still check any illegal inflows.

Finally, the government has been singing the song of palliatives but Nigerians have had bad experiences when it comes to palliatives. The National social register that is being touted as providing a foundation for identifying the poor and vulnerable in society is said to have registered 12 million households or 60 million poor Nigerians is still far short of the 133 million Nigerians (which is predicted to rise by 7 million in 2023) that are estimated to be living under conditions of multi-dimensional poverty. This is even assuming that the register is accurate. So the moving parts keep mutating and managing them is the key test for this new government.

Whenever the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) releases  its annual report on the state of the world’s women and children, I am tempted not to read it simply  because of the starkly depressing statistics that it highlights, where there seems to be an I don’t care attitude and lack of sympathy and empathy towards the plight of women and children. The reports have become an annual ritual  that seem to only feed the pockets of those carrying out the research more than finding a lasting solution to help the victims of this rather unfair world. The recent Multi-dimensional Poverty report released in Nigeria has only confirmed what we know in Nigeria; that women and children more than me, remain at the top of the poverty ladder.

The report paints a rather depressing picture of the lives of children in the country. It estimates that approximately 67.5% or 67 million of the 99 million children aged 0-17 years live in poverty, with little or no access to health services, education and are food insecure. Of this number, 19 million are aged between 0 and 5 years. It goes on to note that the picture is grimmer among girls aged 12-17  (many of them child brides), where 60% of them are poor. Importantly, the report notes even though children make up 47% of the country’s population, they make up 51% of its poor indicating that there are more poor children in the country than there are poor adults.

While adults can seek to pull themselves out of poverty, children depend on adults to get them out of the state they find themselves in and as our population keeps on rising, while living standards keep dropping, we are likely to see increases in poverty numbers by the end of the decade. Managing our children, where we ensure that they have access to shelter, education and health care should be our priority but where this continues to be ignored, we must be conscious that if we are not careful we will reach a tipping point when we will be overwhelmed by the crisis.

In major urban cities around the country, we regularly come in contact with children plying the streets begging. We are usually impatient with these children seeing them as nuisances, rather than a tool to be used to hold parents and all tiers of government accountable for the lot of children that cannot be held responsible for their plight. In Kaduna, I have engaged with many of them and when I hear their stories, I wonder how we can be so heartless, where children are left to the risks of a world where they must protect themselves as they are forced to sleep on the streets, rain or shine; forced to beg for their sustenance and are constantly physically and sexually abused and in some instances used as ritual offerings for those that need to spill some blood to get their world desires.

These children had no say in being brought into this world, yet here they are, abandoned by their parents and then also by the very state that should hold those parents responsible and accountable. The level of callousness by parents and the state is extremely disturbing and should make everyone who has an ounce of empathy speak out against this injustice.

There is always this rather false sense that social commentators can proffer solutions to all social issues, but their job is to highlight gaps in the social framework that exist, so that those tasked with policy formulation can ensure that these issues are addressed.  However, having said that, we know that policies to address these social issues already exist but implementation continues to be hampered by a lack of political will that remains the main stumbling block to generating the positive traction needed to address the problems. We see those that have been elected to provide these solutions more interested in finding ingenious ways to loot the very resources that are required to fund the policies, rather than ensure the success of the policies. We must raise our voices so that policies are properly funded and those in positions of power are held more responsible and accountable for every child that slips through the cracks into a world of poverty.

Issues around poverty, hunger and inequality have been challenges that have continued to defy global solutions. While it has been noted that extreme poverty has steadily reduced since 2015, with an estimated 83 million people lifted out of extreme poverty since 2016, this has not been the case in Africa where extreme poverty numbers continue to be on the increase, with two thirds of the world’s extreme poor living in that region. In 2018, Nigeria overtook India to become the poverty capital of the world. With the Covid 19 pandemic and the Russia Ukraine war, the situation that has disrupted global food supply chains, the number of the poor has been on the increase. As of 2019, it was estimated that 6 people move into extreme poverty every minute in Nigeria but these numbers will likely be more since then.  

Nigeria’s poverty numbers continue to increase and the government is struggling to manage the impending crisis. Prices of foodstuff continue to increase with current National Bureau of Statistics August figures showing a 23% year on year increase in food prices. Given that wages have largely remained unchanged, this has increased food insecurity and pushed more people below the poverty line. The government agency in charge of reducing poverty, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management is too focused on the distribution of food and emergency services to the needy and its cash transfer programme and these have seen to have little impact on the overall reduction of poverty numbers. While the government might have been sincere when in 2019 it declared its desire to move 100 million people out of poverty over the next ten years, there is no indication of how successful it has been in achieving this goal.

The question becomes, what are the options for reducing the number of the poor in this country? There must be an adoption of a multifaceted approach to addressing the issues around poverty reduction. This is because, access to health care, education and food security are all components of poverty that must be tackled. The issue of food security becomes more concerning as the price of foodstuff increases with most families now facing huge challenges on how to access nutritious and cheap food. The government’s strategic grains programme seems to be non-existent with little being done to increase supply through the release of grains so as to check the continued increase in food prices. Food imports which was $5.5 billion between January and June 2021, continue to increase and with the rapid depreciation of the Naira against major international currencies (from N500 to N700 to the Dollar between July and September 2022) food prices show no sign of reducing.

My main concern is on the rate of population growth with the country’s population outpacing the rate of growth of the economy. As long as our population growth rate exceeds the rate of growth of the economy, government will continue to play catch up in the provision of social services. At the current growth rate, we are expected to reach a population of 400 million by 2050 which is alarming. But managing our population growth rate is fraught with cultural and religious minefields. General Ibrahim Babangida’s government introduced a 4-child policy to tackle this issue but birth control is still seen as an anathema by most cultures in the country so any conversation around birth control is met with stiff resistance. We must thus change the narrative and this will require a reengineering of the mindset of Nigerians.

As noted, population growth impacts on government’s ability to provide social services such as health and education. In the health sector the situation is becoming dire with the outflow of health professionals. The recommended number of doctors to patients by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is 1:600 but in Nigeria, the number is 1:5000 and this is getting worse with the exodus of doctors from the country due to the poor working conditions and economic situation in the country. This must be seen as a national emergency and the National Security Adviser has said as much and this must be tackled head on.

The effect of the population growth is further manifested in the large number of out of school children which further exacerbates the poverty situation in the country. As of 2019, the number of out of school children has been hovering over the 10 million mark. Attempts by all the levels of government have yielded little or no success and with poor revenue flows, the governments have been unable to increase number of schools that are required to accommodate these children. But that is not the only issue as the families of many these children in the northern part of the country are also not keen to send their children to western based schools. Our education professionals must begin to think of alternative ways of addressing this issue.

Government must begin to think of new radical approaches that encompass improving access to health and education, checking increasing food prices and most importantly managing our population growth rate. This is the only way we can counter the increasing poverty levels. While its National Development Policy (2021-2025) has been launched there is no indication on the implementation timeline and also if there will be adequate funds to effectively implement its lofty goals to remove the country as the poverty capital of the world.