Something new and innovatively daring seems to be in the offing in the old east. The old Imo Formula was an economic regimen straight out of the manual of malnutrition as perfected by the old Bretton Woods institutions. It recommended excruciating belt tightening for the poor and economically disadvantaged while not having the courage to recommend same to the privileged and well-heeled.
That was almost forty years ago and the young Charles Chukwuma Soludo was still an exceptionally promising undergraduate student of Economics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. But with the installation of Soludo as the governor of Anambra State last week, a brand new formula more sterling and stirring than the Imo formula seems to be astir. Soludo has hit the ground running, and in such a fetching, business-like and admirable manner too.
It has all been hoopla and much jubilation all over the state. With his stentorian baritone and the subdued fury of an Old Testament prophet, Soludo cut the figure of an avenging redeemer. This columnist has never been a fan of Soludo’s IMF and World Bank-inspired monetarist technocracy which has been particularly injurious to developing countries.
Its insistence on rolling back state intervention, the removal of subsidies and the abolition of protectionist tariff as well as state hand out to the poor and needy are nothing but economic poison pills rammed through the throat of poor nations . Let those who cannot work not eat. And those whose parents cannot afford the fees let them not go to school. As it has been shown, this is a recipe for social upheaval and calamitous revolt.
In fairness to Soludo, the monetarist dogma was the hegemonic doctrine in his graduate and undergraduate years, the Chicago School of monetarism having won a titanic struggle against Keynesian economics. It was not unusual to find its snooty zealots dismissing old Keynesians as mere economic illiterates. Led by the impressively cerebral Milton Friedman, who was arguably the greatest economic theoretician of the late twentieth century, monetarism carried all before it.
But it does appear that in the best Hegelian tradition a new consensus is emerging which walks back some of the monetarist certitudes of old by taking on board minutely discriminated data about global inequality and the specific internal logic of metropolitan conspiracy against developing and non-western countries.
This is how human societies evolve and develop from the clash of countervailing orthodoxies. Soludo would have had plenty of time to unlearn what he has learnt and to reflect on the possibility of an indigenous model of economic development for Nigeria in particular and African nations in general. He appears mentally and intellectually equipped to do so.
Several things warm the heart about Soludo’s emergence from the bitter trenches of protracted political warfare and his landmark inauguration in Akwa last Thursday. First was his summary dispensation with prodigal frivolities and obscene display of wealth and opulence. It was a short and impressive ceremony without any gaudy frills or meretricious inanities so beloved of the regular political class.
Second was his widely referenced speech which spoke to what he calls “the peculiar structure” which has impacted on sub-national administrations in the country. This was a barely oblique reference to the structural abnormalities that have weighed heavily on political and economic development in the country and the source of an epic gridlock for its constituting nationalities.
Finally Soludo began walking his talk by unveiling a brand new INNOSON SUV as his official vehicle. This is the way to go. All sane and rational countries protect their local industry, particularly the vehicle manufacturing industry, by offering generous incentives, rebates, protectionist tariffs and massive patronage.
When Pandit Nehru was confronted with the problems of producing an indigenous car, he told his compatriots that if they could not build their own vehicles, let everybody trek. The Chinese, the South Koreans and the doughty and hardy Vietnamese leadership adopted the same draconian measures to instil in their people the virtues of discipline and self-reliance.
But there is some architecture in the ruins. In its nationalist phase, the Murtala-Obasanjo government was going in that direction with its national food sufficiency programme and adoption of locally assembled vehicles. The heart of the bureaucracy was not in it and as soon as the civilian government took over, the whole thing was jettisoned. A particular brand of Mercedes Benz became the norm. By the time Obasanjo himself returned as civilian president, a sybaritic self-indulgence had overtaken the landscape.
As Chinua Achebe will put it, it is morning yet on creation day in Anambra state.