“But for creating a more sustainable, equitable and fulfilling future…our president must put an end to this palliative-based economy.”
In 1973, India, then with a population of 580 million was faced with a national famine occasioned by an unexpected long national drought. Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Indira was busy begging for food through soft loans or outright donations. Determined Indira Gandhi, however, promised that never shall India beg for food again. In her words, “We have no intention of failing. We are going to succeed. We shall overcome.”
Indira Gandhi laid the foundation of self-sufficiency in food production in India. Other governments have built on the foundation she laid. And, since then, India has neither suffered nor begged for bread.
But what do we have in Nigeria? We are in a situation where 132 million people are multi-dimensionally poor, food inflation went as high as 43 per cent, general inflation as high as 34 per cent and bank interest rates as high as 28 per cent. There’s hunger in the land.
We started a tradition of handouts, called palliatives. Consequent on the not-well-thought withdrawal of fuel subsidy and merger of black and bank exchange rates, poverty escalated. Hunger started a free ravaging of the land. These were consequences of choices made freely by our Civilian President.
Our panic reaction to these consequences of choices made was to promise and sometimes distribute palliatives. This became the main thing by governments at all levels, and our legislators and political leaders at all levels.
Very quickly, our churches, mosques, NGOs and networth people, called philanthropists, started their wave of palliatives. It didn’t matter that these are ordinarily proud people who will not beg. These are people who loudly and proudly sing “ME I NO GO SUFFER, I NO GO BEG FOR BREAD.”
The people became so pauperised that they begin to accept that the only survival route is through palliative. Of course, we have seen across the nation, the flow of the blood of the poor in their search for palliatives.
Can we in the name of all that is good ask these philanthropists, churches, mosques and NGOs to keep their palliatives to themselves? They must have read that simple economic theory.. DON’T GIVE ME FISH, TEACH ME HOW TO FISH. They must have heard -they can goggle -how the Tony Elumelu Foundation and Fate Foundation have been creating entrepreneurs, not only in Nigeria, but Africa. They can check how an Anglican Diocese in Imo State has been creating jobs and producing food. They can check how Professor Tolu Odugbemi, a former Vice Chancellor of UNILAG, has been assisting many churches and NGOs to be food producers.
Your handouts of ₦5k to widows and orphans should stop. And those who do such belittling things on radio should stop. Aggregate these cheap insulting palliatives into something substantial that can create perhaps a few entrepreneurs.
They may not know it. This practice of palliatives only perpetuate social and economic inequalities, as the recipients get more marginalised and vulnerable. In any case what they get from these palliatives… including trader-money, social investment through government humanitarian ministry…are never enough to make them fish on their own.
Whether by governments, organisations or individuals, palliatives create widespread unhappiness and dissatisfaction. It creates a country of parasites and economic dwarfs. Very soon, we will know that no one can build a great country on the shoulders of dwarfs.
It is important for PBAT to go and read his speech of May 29, 2023 again. In that inaugural speech, he promised a well-being economy that prioritises human well-being, social justice and economic sustainability. He promised that there will be agric-hubs and that food will be accessible and affordable. He promised that he will restructure the budgetary system without an attendant inflation. He promised that electricity will be accessible and affordable…. not one that marginalises the poor into an electricity ghetto. Subsequently we were promised 120000 hectares of maize and 100000 hectares of wheat.
PBAT certainly didn’t promise an economy based on palliatives. He certainly knows that creating millions of SMEs that employs 5-10 persons and contributing about 50 percent of the GDP will be more productive and useful.
PBAT must disembark from the current economic train he is traveling in and take the train that will make the proud Nigerians happy…but certainly not living on handouts.
I believe that PBAT can pursue this establishment of a productive economy or even fulfil his own laudable promises with the same zeal and determination with which he pursued the change of national anthem, the tax reform and the ill-advised Local Government Autonomy. Perhaps, in changing his train, he should remember that his government is chasing symptoms while refusing to deal with the foundation of the problems which is the poor, centralised and unified “federal” structure.
I am aware that what I am saying will require significant changes in individual behaviours, particularly of those in top legislative and executive positions, business practices and government practices.
But for creating a more sustainable, equitable and fulfilling future…our president must put an end to this palliative-based economy.
•Dr Farounbi was a former Ambassador of Nigeria to the Philippines.
