By Adelaja Akinlolu
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) announced the removal of fuel subsidy following no budgetary provision for the same beyond June by the previous administration. The president further explained on July 31 the reasons why fuel subsidy had to go. The endemic corruption in the subsidy regime does not help matters. That Nigeria was subsidizing petrol use in neighbouring countries had been well itemized. Same with payment of trillions of naira for non-imported fuel products.
The Nigerian economy is road-driven, hence the complaints about rising costs of food items and living expenses. The average Nigerian may understand the reasons why fuel subsidy has to go due to endemic corruption and enrichment of privileged few, but may not understand why he/she is at the receiving end for misdeeds of the economic-political elites. But then, the reality is here, and that is, fuel subsidy is no longer sustainable not because it is not beneficial but due to the endemic corruption in the subsidy regime.
Unfortunately, previous administrations did not ensure we refine crude oil in Nigeria despite several billions of naira on turn around maintenance of government owned local refineries over decades. The issues around modular refineries are also in the public domain. There have also been postulations that refining crude oil in Nigeria will also not completely resolve the issues around the subsidy regime.
Clearly, there are no quick fix solutions to arising issues of currency devaluation, inflation, increased costs of food items and related issues. What we can do now is to begin to think out of the box and move Nigeria on the fast lane towards becoming a producer nation. We need to do further restructuring of critical sectors such as education, agriculture, solid minerals etc. towards making Nigeria a producer nation. We should now come up with strategies to produce more than 60% of what we eat and drink at home. Can we also further restructure our educational curricular and faithfully implement existing curricular provisions to ensure our graduates think less of seeking jobs but more of creating jobs? Can we improvise the introduction of palliatives to the informal sector of the economy? When the purchasing power of the people increases, the circle of flow creates a more secure society with less vices and higher productivity. I provide a few suggestions.
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Strengthening vocational/technical education: I think we can introduce vocational training at secondary school level to ensure our children leave school with SSCE/WASC certificate and a vocational graduation certificate. State governments will employ roadside mechanics, carpenters, hairdressers, fashion designers as locally available to train the students. The informal sector of the economy is complaining of low patronage due to low purchasing power of the people arising from subsidy removal. With this method, there will be a direct flow of palliatives to the informal sector through this casual employment system. The students who are not too strong academically do not all have to insist on university education but can go on to earn a living with acquired vocational skill certificates or proceed to technical schools for further training. Such graduates may go on to attend mono-technics/polytechnics further strengthening local creation of technical products. Over time, the literacy level of those in the informal sector of the economy will improve for better productivity, less societal vices, better secured polity, increased money flow and purchasing power of the people.
Safety/patronage of herbal products: Whether we like it or not, several people will continue to patronize herbal products due to poor financial resources. Matters arising on efficacy and safety of herbal products can be solved in many ways. For example, the National University Commission, NUC introduction of a BSc programme on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) will be a great idea that will help stem the issues of safe production of herbal drugs as the graduates of the programme will be better educated. We need to also ensure the creation of a practical/project course requiring students of BSc CAM to produce herbal products to pass the course so they can acquire skills to provide jobs and not become job dependent. NAFDAC also needs to partner with the Ministry of Education, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIMR, universities, Herbal Practitioners Association etc. to do validation and extensive toxicological profiling of herbal products before granting any NAFDAC number. The procedure can be fast-tracked with provision of adequate human and material resources. This is the safest way to prevent exposure of our people to dangerous and sometimes irreversible side effects. Prevention is better than cure!
Adequate implementation of educational curricular across board: We need to further tie our academic programmes to required societal skills for solving our challenges. Academic programmes should only be run provided the graduates have where they fit into upon graduation. Redundant programmes can be phased out. We must also ensure diligent implementation of our existing curricular provisions. For example, students offer courses in Histochemistry, Electron Microscopy etc at undergraduate and postgraduate levels without carrying out any histochemical procedure or working with an electron microscope. The funds to purchase required materials are not there! Hence students are taught science programmes as improvised arts programmes. Graduates of such a system will be job dependent and not job creators. We can source for funds from yet available resources. For example, TETFUND complained that over 137 students sponsored abroad absconded as reported on July 19 in the Punch newspaper. Why not make use of such funds to develop existing laboratories in our institutions? We may choose universities for selective funding per geopolitical region based on their areas of strength of expertise. For example, use TETFUND sponsorship funds to develop state of art facilities in Medical Sciences at College of Health Sciences of University of Ibadan (UI) or in Agricultural Sciences at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB). All students of related programmes in the Southwest will run exchange programmes to acquire relevant skills at UI or FUNAAB. We can then ensure all courses that require practical training are conducted diligently via available human and laboratory resources.
If there is a very strong need to train personnel in emerging areas such as Robotics, let the university system select academic staff in relevant fields to go for short term training in those areas and come back to train more students and academic staff. We will then sooner or later have graduates who can produce new tools for local and international use moving Nigeria towards a producer nation.
Elevating gown-town cross-fertilization of ideas: Now with adequate human and material resources, the NUC can mandate select universities to partner with private companies to produce useful tools for local use and export. For example, universities can be asked to produce improvised tools for storage/preservation of farm products, production of final products from tomatoes, cocoa etc. At the moment, some countries are already engaged in farming under the sea due to scarce land resources! We can also think of productivity in aquaculture to generate more revenue. Gradually, we shall produce what we eat and drink at home rather than paying heavily for imported products with adverse effects on the strength of the Naira. Same applies to all other critical sectors of health, engineering, information technology etc.
The considerations of suggestions above along with further suggestions via relevant stakeholder’s forum will help move Nigeria from a consumer nation to a producer nation.