The tragedy of the Okada generation

The most important resource to a nation is the human capital. This is because with it other resources can be harnessed for growth and development with ease. This is why most countries the world over strive to put in place policies that will have their citizens achieve goals in life through education in the first instance, with such other opportunities that will guarantee professionalism in a chosen careers. In some cases, the state puts a tab on their growth and progress, particularly the young ones, who, in most cases, form the largest part of the population from among whom leaders emerge to administer the country in the near future.

The importance of youths made them command reasonable attention to discerning minds so much so that both governments and non-govermental organizations, world institutions like UNESCO, including those institutions that we sometimes view with suspicion and disdain as the IMF and the World Bank, gladly make provisions for the development and education of this segment of the population. Even the scripture backed this position with the Lord himself decreeing that we should not despise the children “for the kingdom of God is for such like ones.”

It is arguable that beyond the politically expedient rhetoric, this country has no plan for her youths. This is evident in the education sector that has gone comatose with no signs of something concrete and positive happening in that sector so soon. Neither is there alternative to having some semblance of what will enable our active sector of the population contribute to our development process.

In all areas of human index, this country has progressively failed to measure up, while yearly we always come up with policies that will see to it that our youth, who are supposed to be the hope of our tomorrow, are further pushed down the rung of the ladder of poverty and deprivation. If we are not increasing prices of very essential items that will ensure that few factories gasping for breath are finished up and worsen the unemployment situation, as was the case with Obasanjo of the better forgotten era, we will be engaging in bizarre activities on the very day of the new year thus ensuring that Nigerians begin the new year on a sad and confusing note. It is Nigerian.

At the start of 2009, we all woke up to be confronted by a new decree from The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), compelling ‘Okada Riders’ and their passengers to wear crash helmet by way of guaranteeing safety of the head in case of accident. And the Lagos state authorities had since latched on this to collect the revenue it believes is due it, asking operators of Okada to come and procure it from the state at a cheap rate upon presentation of a tax receipt. Smart idea.

While not against the FRSC intentions, and particularly, not against Lagos State for collecting its taxes, something that must be done by any one who earns an income, I am worried about our legitimizing the use of Okada as a means of commercial transport with all the health and social implications. I am also wondering if the use of Okada is allowed in our carriage laws as one for commercial purpose.

What I can not understand is the decision to reduce the value of our youths who struggled to go through hell that our higher institutions represent to graduates only to be condemned to Okada riding. Worst still is the fact that the state is not thinking of how best to engage these young vibrant ‘hands productively other than to expose their lives to avoidable danger as in riding Okada along with all the health implications.

Often we promote policies that help run other economies to our own disadvantage as in the rush for crash-helmet. While the manufacturers in Asian countries are smiling to the bank with money being milked from Nigeria, our factories are groaning under very unfriendly and hash economic environment as a result of the nation’s inability to get its bearing right. It seems we have chosen to remain an import dependent country and remain a dumping ground perpetually.

Nothing seems to work here. Not when the presidency has given up on NEPA by budgeting for generators for 2009, an amount that looks very scandalous. The states and local governments are yet to make public their provisions for energy power for 2009.

The fact that some of our citizens are dead on account of inhaling fumes from the generating sets imported from our new found friends in Asia does not worry our President nor did he see it as a motivating factor to compel to act on PHCN. No.

We must continue groping endlessly in search of an Eldorado that we did not plan for in 2020, a mere 11 years away.

SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL

Government is no doubt the biggest business in Nigeria, so it is in countries around the world. Exception is that in more economically developed lands, especially those that are inclined to the capitalist economic model, rather than government to directly engage in the economic arena, they provide an environment where individuals play the economy in pursuit of personal benefit for the good of society in accord with the policies and philosophy of government.

The Nigerian situation won’t pass the test of a capitalist model, what with the confusion that defines government roles in the productive and service sectors that had left public utilities in vicious spasm of a slow death.

The failure of the Nigerian government in business and provision of society’s essentials like potable water and electricity power is no longer controvertible, Nigerians have generally given up on their expectations from government in this regard, it is, however, troubling that government and its agencies now garb economic policy positions and thrusts with odious subterfuge and double speak.

Moments after, the economies of the United States of America and the United Kingdom went into a tailspin, even the most economically ignorant was able to conjecture that the global economy was on its way to a storm which consequences may surpass the storied damnation of the Great Depression that commenced in 1929. But officials of Nigerian government would rather see no evil, hear no evil. The two finance ministers and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria assured that the country was immune to the vagaries of the devastation that had begun to shake the economic foundations of the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

Yet, signs of malevolent economic change were becoming obvious. Price of crude oil, the nation’s mainstay natural resource suddenly took a dive southward from high in the $150 per barrel of crude oil to $44. Reason for this is obvious, one needs not be a Keynesian to rationalize that developed economies that are the major consumers of crude oil disciplined their appetite for crude oil which in turn reduced the pressure on the demand with attendant fall in price. For Nigeria the implication is grievous, reduced revenue collection, cut down in GDP growth projection, a cascading fall in value of the naira, the national currency, the direct deployment of the $58.11 billion foreign reserve as intervention to save an imperiled economy. And eventually, a life of further distress for the average Nigerian. You don’t need to be a professor of economics to anticipate this turn in the economic sphere.

Already, the scenarios are playing out, the national budget for 2009 is a deficit budget due to anticipated reduction in revenue, three weeks ago, the Naira took a hiding from speculators and others when it lost more than ten per cent of its value to the Dollar in three days; just as there are discomfiting indications of distresses in financial institutions.

The CBN, after its Monetary Policy Committee meeting announced it was going to intervene directly in the daily two way quote foreign exchange market with fund from the nation’s foreign reserve.

Apparently, government and its agencies lack economic anticipatory skill. Soon after the first sign of trouble in the west emerged, a more focused government and its agencies would have cobbled a fiscal and monetary policy position targeted at the eventual impact of the roiling global economic scene on the country.

It is not too late, rather than the piece meal attention to specific worrisome spectre of economic emergency, it is better for the CBN, finance ministry and whoever, to evolve policies and measures with strong anticipatory ingredient to address likely troublesome financial and economic scenarios that may impact the country in the next 12 months.

As it is, we lost the opportunity to seize the initiative of building a bulwark against the negative consequences of the global economic downturn by acting the ostrich with its head in the sand even as trouble raged.

Certainly, responsible and responsive countries around the world are girding their loins in anticipation of a long tenor of battling with the economic crises. For Nigeria, the consequences of the global economic troubles are yet to fully manifest in the country, it would, indeed, be a matter of common sense to put together measures and policies that can help stave the negatives of the eventual infiltration of the global economic crises. This is a better option than to continue to beat the chest in the assurance of the community enjoying certain immunity from the global crises.

We all know that Nigeria is not exactly blessed with enduring economic structures and initiatives that have the capabilities to self correct in the face of a crisis that slowly but inevitably heads toward the country.