The Nation Newspaper

Tag: economic

  • Nigeria’s growing economic relations with China

    Nigeria’s growing economic relations with China

    President Jonathan has just concluded a five-day official visit to China. The highlight of his visit was the signing of a Chinese loan of $1.5 billion for the development of infrastructure in Nigeria, including the expansion of four airports at Lagos, Kano, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. The official visit was reportedly marked by a lot of conviviality and cordiality on both sides with the large Nigerian official delegation been treated to the fabled Chinese hospitality and excellent cuisine.

    Sino-Nigerian relations have developed rather slowly over the years. It is now gathering some momentum. It was General Gowon who, as military head of state, first paid an official visit to China in 1972 shortly after the Nigerian civil war. When his brutal military regime faced international criticism and isolation General Abacha also decided to go to China for support. This was in the wake of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing that led to China’s international isolation as well. In 1997, the Chinese premier, Li Peng, visited Nigeria too to boost China’s renewed interest in Africa, aimed at reversing the decline in China’s trade with Africa. Nigeria’s trade with China actually fell from $57 million in 1980 to only $7 million in 1985, recovering somewhat to $35 million in 1989. Thereafter, Nigeria-China trade grew from $35 million to $97 million in 1993, and reached $327 million by 1997. It is currently estimated at $13 billion.

    President Jonathan’s visit to China is significant as it underlines Nigeria’s growing economic relations with China. From the Nigerian perspective, closer economic ties with China have become imperative. The new Chinese loan of $1.5billion brings to a total of nearly $15 billion China’s investments and loans to Nigeria in recent years, including the $2.5billion investment in the newly refurbished Lagos-Kano rail line. Nigeria’s share of Chinese investment in Africa has increased to over 30 per cent. In 2012, total Chinese investment in Nigeria was $13.3 billion. In contrast total US FDI in Nigeria was $8 billion. To counter the growing economic relations between China and Africa, President Obama announced during his recent hurried visit to Africa an offer of $7 billion infrastructure loan to Africa. Some cynics will consider this offer as too late and too little. Financial commitments by the World Bank and the IMF are far less than Chinese loans to Nigeria. African countries are turning increasingly to China as an alternative source for infrastructure loans badly needed.

    Both countries now realise the importance of economic cooperation between them. China, the most populous country in the world, with the fastest global economic growth in the last three decades, averaging 10 percent annually, has emerged a leading player in the global economy. Its national economy is now bigger than that of Japan, or the EU countries combined. Within a few decades, China has lifted some 300 million of its people from abject poverty, a feat without any precedent in the annals of economic development. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with vast reserves of oil and gas, needs China’s financial and technical assistance in the development of its decaying infrastructure. China too needs Nigeria’s oil and gas to fuel its growing industry. In addition, Nigeria is, potentially, the largest market for China’s industrial products in Africa. Nigeria’s imports from China account for over a third of its total trade with West Africa.

    As President Jonathan was reported as saying in Beijing, the increasing exploitation of shale gas and other energy alternatives by the US and other Western states has made the need for the diversification of the Nigerian economy away from oil more urgent. Increasing Chinese oil imports will make up for the slack in oil exports to the US. In 2005, China accounted for 40 per cent of the global demand for oil. Over 30 per cent of China’s oil supply is imported, with the country becoming the world’s second largest consumer of oil after the US. So, closer economic co-operation is in the mutual interest of both countries. But there is a pitfall here which Nigeria has to watch very closely. There is a chronic and growing trade imbalance between the two countries in favour of China. Nigeria should seek to reduce this vast trade imbalance by increasing its non-oil exports to China. China’s exports to Nigeria are currently estimated at $3 billion, while Nigeria’s exports are estimated at only $1 billion, a trade gap of $2 billion. This trade deficit, a concern to Nigerian leaders and its private sector, is being discussed by the Nigeria-China Joint Planning Commission. Nigeria should be wary of being used by China as a dumping ground for cheap Chinese exports, particularly textiles, as this will increase the existing trade imbalance between the two countries in favour of China and lead to more job losses for Nigeria. For instance, in 2006, South Africa imposed two-year import restrictions on some Chinese textiles. In this regard, the Nigerian authorities are beginning to take some limited action against cheap and fake Chinese exports. In 2006, NAFDAC banned pharmaceutical imports from some Chinese and Indian companies.

    China has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world some of which is being invested in Africa where growth prospects are becoming increasingly attractive. Nigeria is eager to diversify its trade relations by reducing its trade dependence on the Western industrial countries. China, with its horde of foreign reserves, is one of the few countries in the world today that can assist Nigeria with its huge financing gap, particularly for infrastructure development, in such critical sectors as roads, the railways, bridges, airports, and public transportation in which Nigeria is hugely deficient. Nigeria will not achieve its huge economic potential unless it modernises its infrastructure. China can offer Nigeria such assistance with loans and investments in the critical sectors of the Nigerian economy. In April 2006, President Obasanjo observed, while addressing the visiting Chinese President, Hu Jintao, in Lagos, that “This 21st century is the century for China to lead the world. And when you are leading the world, we (meaning Nigeria) want to be close behind you.” It was the most effusive compliment to China by a Nigerian leader and demonstrated Nigeria’s eagerness to expand its economic relations with China.

    Until recently, relations between the two countries were tepid and took some time to develop. At its independence in 1960, Nigerian leaders knew very little about Communist China, a remote country, with its turbulent political history and frequent upheavals. Western influence in Nigeria was very strong and the Western media gave Communist China a bad press all over Africa, decrying its lack of respect for human rights and its authoritarian -style of government. Culturally, the Communist style of government had little or no appeal for African leaders. In fact, like many other states in Africa, Nigeria refused to even recognise the existence of China and did not enter into diplomatic relations with her until after the Nigerian civil war in 1970. At the UN Nigeria voted routinely along with the Western powers to deny China admission to the UN. Instead, Taiwan, which the Chinese regard as a ‘renegade’ province of China, was given China’s seat at the UN. China was badly isolated globally. During the years of the Cultural Revolution China turned its back on the rest of the world, including Africa. Before then, during the cold war era, it had tried unsuccessfully to get a foothold in Africa but it encountered strong opposition from the West as well as the Soviet Union with which it had fallen out. Its interests then in Africa were basically strategic and consisted mainly of challenging both Soviet and Western dominance in Africa during the cold war.

    To counter Western influence China encouraged wars of liberation in Africa and was supporting armed anti-colonial struggles in some 24 African countries, including South Africa. China’s main aim was to reduce Africa’s economic dependence on the West by offering long-term low interest loans to Africa and promoting the so-called ‘benevolent trade’ such as by buying up large coffee and tobacco surpluses from Tanzania. By 1976, China was already giving Africa more aid than the Soviet Union. It achieved a major breakthrough in Africa by financing and constructing the Tanzam railway that gave it access and some limited political influence in central Africa. Beijing’s involvement in the African liberation wars paid off when many African governments, including Nigeria, provided critical support on the UN General Assembly resolution admitting China as a member in October, 1971, and replacing Taiwan. Relations between Nigeria and China also began to improve dramatically. China had supported the secessionists during the Nigerian civil war and is believed to have sent Biafra some limited arms through Tanzania. The secessionist leader, Ojukwu, actually wrote Chairman Mao, seeking Chinese assistance ‘in our struggle against Anglo-American imperialism and Soviet revisionism to achieve a socialist revolution in Biafra’ and Africa. But China secured Nigeria’s recognition in October 1971, after which the two states began building modest bilateral ties based on terms of co-operation agreed between them in 1972 during Gowon’s official visit to Beijing.

    Predictably, the growing economic relations between China and Africa have caused some concerns in the Western countries, particularly in the US. In 2005, during a Congressional hearing in Washington, the chairman of the Africa sub-committee warned that ‘China is playing an increasingly influential role in Africa, and that the Chinese intend to aid and abet African dictators, gain a stranglehold on precious African natural resources, and undo much of the progress that has been made on democracy and governance in the last 15 years’. There were complaints from the US as well when a satellite launch deal was signed in 2005 by Nigeria and the China Great Wall Industry Corporation. But Africa needs to develop rapidly and, if necessary, will engage other powers to achieve its economic and technological goals. Africa cannot remain the economic preserve of the Western powers alone. It must diversify its economic relations in line with the process of economic globalisation. It is not China that is responsible for dictatorships in Africa, but the Western powers that, for long, supported African dictators, and refused to support liberation wars in Africa. There is no real danger of the Chinese exporting Communism to Africa. The Soviets did not succeed in doing so. If they tried, it is less likely that the Chinese would succeed where the Soviets failed.

    The Chinese have no interest in exporting their Communist ideology to Africa. Like Africa, China was, for centuries, the victim of invasion and colonialism by the Western countries. It has no colonial past or imperialist ambitions in Africa that can stand in the way of increasing economic co-operation between the two. China has no military bases in Africa or anywhere else outside its own territory. It is unlikely to use force to advance its economic interests in Africa What China wants, like any other foreign power, is access to Africa’s huge natural resources, particularly its oil, and new markets for its industrial products. Africa is more mature now and should ignore unjustified foreign concerns about its new economic relations with China. In its economic engagement with China, it should, collectively, be able to protect its own economic interests.

  • Nigeria to exhibit art works at Economic Forum

    Nigeria will create a one-stop cultural village that will exhibit quality artworks when it hosts the World Economic Forum (WEF) next year, Tourism, Culture and National Orientation Minister Chief Edem Duke has said.

    He said the works that would make the forum would emerge from this year’s African Art and Craft Expo (AFAC), which opened on Monday at the Eagles Square, Abuja, with the theme: Leveraging on the arts and crafts industry for job creation and economic empowerment.

    “At AFAC, we are going to keep our eyes open for those whose exhibits will be world class for the exhibition at the World Economic Forum holding next year. This will provide exposure, new audience and market for the exhibitors,” he said.

    The minister told reporters in Abuja that no fewer than 17 foreign countries and 250 foreign exhibitors will participate in this year’s African Art and Crafts Expo, which was declared open by wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience. The countries include Gambia, Cameroon, Senegal, Ghana, Egypt, Niger, Mali, Republic of Benin, Togo and Guinea Conakry.

    Others are Cote D’Ivoire, Pakistan, South Korea, China, Sudan, Chad, and Liberia. Almost all the states of the federation and local government areas are expected to showcase their works at the expo that will run till June 15.

    Duke said the expo is to showcase talent and creativity in the areas of product design, finishing, packaging and presentation.

    “The expo is bringing together artists and craftsmen within the African region and beyond on a platform on which they can expand and grow the business of the art s and crafts industry. It is also to share ideas and network with other practitioners in areas that relate to their competence such as production, marketing, packaging and presentation techniques; and meet with prospective investors among other benefits,” he added.

  • Intellectual fraud is stealing your economic future

    Intellectual fraud is stealing your economic future

    •  The rich purchase the truth; the mighty take it; the poor must suffer it.

    War and ideas are the primary factors determining the cast and color of human history. A bad idea is often more dangerous than an army. A terrible idea, widely accepted, can inflict damage no weapon can achieve. To achieve military victory, an army must assert itself to subdue the foe. One who plants a wrong idea in the head of an adversary need not spend a drop of sweat. He can enjoy the luxury of watching his victim self-destruct.

    Because of the minatory quality of erroneous economic concepts, this column often focuses on this theme to warn against the indoctrination the world attempts against you. Money Power, the global elite, claims it wants you to prosper. They lie. Your prosperity would require they forget their economic mastery of you. Forfeiting their mastery means to forfeiting their profits and exalted station. Why would people whose economic creed is the utility of greed suddenly turn selfless to benefit weak and imperfect strangers? They preach you may reach prosperity only if you do as they say. They hire smart people to write books and craft elaborate theories to convince you about the veracity of their assertions. What they neglect to tell you is that the advice they provide you was not the advice they followed. The books and theorems they recommend you digest are such that you eating this select diet will nourish them more than it does you.

    In 2009, Ivy League economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff authored a book This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. They also wrote a paper Growth in a Time of Debt. Both works contend slow economic growth always plagues nations with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 90 percent. Put another way, economic growth depends on national governments running no or low deficits. Their work becoming an intellectual chevron for the conservative elite worldwide, the two authors were instant darlings of the corporate media, the establishment intelligentsia, and international financial institutions.

    The authors proudly hawked their wares on CNN and other stations. The book received the 2011 Gold Medal Award from the Council of Foreign Relations, America’s most prestigious foreign affairs organization that heavily influences government policy. The book garnered accolades from USA Today as “One of the Best Books to Make Sense of the Financial Crisis.” Moreover, their paper has become one of the most cited economic short pieces of the past quarter century.

    The fanfare would not have been so disastrous had it been limited to this intellectual exhibitionism. Purporting to expose and explain financial folly, their works would be used to justify financial policy folly worse than any since the 1930s Great Depression. The IMF and EU would seize upon their work to cram fiscal austerity down the throats of the member states along the northern tier of the Mediterranean. England would voluntarily minister the loopy tonic to itself courtesy of a Tory government with the flinty predilection for believing anything that imposes hardship on the poor must be good. Governments around the world slashed budgets, believing this exercise in “fiscal consolidation” would miraculously unleash growth. They were correct.

    Several economic indicators did grow. The length of unemployment lines grew. The number of people living in poverty’s harsh domain grew. Business failures grew. The number of people who went without food, school and medical care grew. The number of people made homeless grew. The number of people who tossed themselves from windows or put guns to their head from sheer financial hopelessness grew. The living conditions of most residents in the austerity nations grew worse. These were the growth aspects of the Reinhart-Rogoff principle. In other words, the fiscal austerity their conclusion supported also caused the list of nations suffering economic recession or depression to grow.

    While the two authors raked in handsome payoffs for their work, people suffered and died because of their twisted contribution to economic alchemy. In an earlier column, I offered a brief critique of this and related economic works that seem to celebrate the prospect of cutting off money to the poor.

    First, the authors likely inverted the causal relationship between growth and debt. High debt ratios are not the likely causes of low growth. Low growth causes high debt more so than the obverse. If the authors had embraced the more accurate cause and effect relationship they would have arrived at policy recommendations materially different from the austerity they came to espouse. A more accurate view of causality would have led to the conclusion that high growth is the predicate to debt reduction. Sustained growth becomes unattainable when government spending is slashed at a time when the private sector remains too frail and fragile to expand by its own accord.

    Second, their research was dubious because they failed to differentiate between eras when nations were constrained by the gold standard and the modern era based on national currencies with flexible exchange rates. Today, most sovereign money is fiat currency. This currency is not pegged to gold. Nations have an unlimited ability to issue currency. Insolvency and default are not their problems. Such nations can always pay provided their bills are denominated in local money. Sovereign debt ratios may have been important in earlier times but are less important today. Thus, the USA Today award crediting the duo with explaining the recent financial crisis is a demonstration of well-heeled ignorance. If this duo adequately explained any financial crisis, it was not the one of a few years ago. It was one of a few centuries ago. Their book has little relevance to modern economics. At best, it is a work of economic history. As you read further, you might conclude it belongs to that arcane, little known literary genre, economic fiction. As a manual for modern economics it constitutes the abysmal triumph of prejudice and bias over truth and objectivity. Its solutions are akin to caring for a hemophiliac by bleeding him with leeches.

    Third, designating a 90 percent debt ratio as the breaking point smacked of intellectual caprice. No empirical evidence warrants this designation. This designation was not an objective finding intended to illuminate how things work. It was an arbitrary decision meant to advance a subjective purpose.

    These flaws render their influential work suspect. However, a more detailed analysis of their mathematics expose the work as an emblem of gross incompetence or outright fraud. After writing their book, Reinhart and Rogoff were highly reluctant to release their data. Today, the two probably wish they had behaved more like seasoned confidence artists who always destroy the incriminating paper trail. Had they not begrudgingly released their data, they might have gotten away with their delinquency.

    A few weeks ago, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) of the University of Massachusetts published a document titled Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff. After a thorough scrubbing of the data, PERI concluded the duo’s thesis contradicts the information used to support it. In their work, the tandem asserted nations with debt ratios exceeding the 90 percent threshold suffered -0.1 percent negative GDP growth. In recalculating the data, PERI found Reinhart/Rogoff were wrong to the point of indecency.

    Reinhart/Rogoff’s research stumbled upon data showing high growth but highly indebted nations. The authors merely ignored these nations and tossed aside the associated data. This allowed the writers to continue on their merry way to the conclusion they preordained. Include these inconvenient nations in the analytic mix as PERI did, the tale is a different one. Nations exceeding a 90 percent ratio attained 2.2 percent growth rates. This pace approximated the rate for nations below the contrived threshold. In short, the threshold is a meaningless contrivance. The Reinhart/Rogoff thesis is good for nothing except to fill a waste receptacle.

    Truth has been revealed but will quickly be ignored because those who control the truth don’t want you to learn of it. Reinhart/Rogoff’s work will still be widely cited by the establishment and its agents. They want you to accept an untruth as truth. They want you to live by it although there is no real life to it or in it. Their work is a dead letter masquerading as a parade. Conversely, the astute PERI refutation will not make the front page. Its authors will not be guests on internationally televised talk shows. At most, their findings will be a short-run ticker at the bottom of the television screen. In the main, it will never be considered by policy makers who remain committed to Reinhart/Rogoff notwithstanding that the duo represents financial scholarship’s equivalent of Typhoid Mary and Blackbeard.

    For the damage done, the couple should be run out of town. Had they been physicians, they would be in court on charges of negligence. Instead, they still participate in the elite cocktail circuit as respected academicians.

    Their misconduct is not a fluke. It is part of a systematic distortion of the truth in the service of a financialist elite and ideology that abetted the destitution of billions of human beings in order to elevate the profits of a few hundred thousand people. In its paper Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers, even the IMF finally admitted austerity was a draconian cloud with a jaundiced lining.

    Following the Reinhart/Rogoff postulate, the IMF forced nations into austerity, claiming reduced governmental expenditures would stimulate growth. Reality has forced the IMF into a semi-public mea culpa. In this recent paper, the Fund acknowledged its woeful underestimation of government expenditures multiplier effect on economic growth. Due to its ideological bias, the IMF arbitrarily assumed a dollar of government spending would contribute less than a dollar to economic growth. This fiction enabled the IMF to press governments to cut their budgets. Under this scenario, budget reductions would not impair economic growth. Sadly, this scenario existed only in the IMF’s mind. It had no place in reality. The multiplier effect of government spending was of a magnitude significantly higher than the IMF’s assumption. Now, the IMF admits to a government spending multiplier of 1.5, meaning every dollar of government spending produces $1.50 dollars in growth. By any standard, this reveals government spending as an effective catalyst for economic growth. It also means reduced government spending would cause overall GDP to drop more precipitously than the cut in government expenditure. Thus, when the IMF muscled nations to reduce government spending, GDP growth would not occur. The tactic would precipitate a downward spiral, immersing whole nations in recession or worse.

    The EU apparently did not want to be outdone by the IMF and the Reinhart/Rogoff tag team. When shoving the misnamed “bailout” down the Cypriot throat, the EU claimed the impact would be negative growth of -4.9 percent over two years for the island nation. With the bitter pill now swallowed, the EU readjusted it forecast. The new two- year projection is negative growth of -12.6 percent. The difference is jarring. The first is staunch hardship. The second is sheer doom. To call this a rescue package is to invest in the humor of the gallows. The Cypriot economy will be compressed like an overripe pea smashed by a falling anvil.

    Objectively, the victims of this grand theft should be in hot revolt. Instead, they accept it as fate inescapable. They believe what they have been taught without realizing what they have learned enchains their minds with the densest of fetters.

    Despite the ample economic wreckage visible all around, most people embrace the elite fiction. Africa’s leaders are most taken by the formulas and theories of this mean elite. Too many of our people want to be accepted into the international club. They will sell both soul and nation for a rear seat at the festivities. They want to appear to understand the events vaticinated by the financial world’s high priests and their missionaries stationed in our nations. The extent to which we believe the disciples of austerity is the extent to which we have been led to lead ourselves to the slaughterhouse. To do what we are told is to seal our fate to its worst version.

    A fundamental economic truth is that nations with weak, collapsing private sectors must resort to government deficit spending to pull them from deflation’s gravitational pull. Innovative, targeted government deficit spending is the best and almost only resort for nations where the bulk of the population suffers chronic recession and high employment. It is an inanity to believe less money and reduced aggregate demand will blossom into greater economic growth. This only happens in books written by the like of Reinhart/ Rogoff. However, we don’t live in books. We exist in the real world. Until we learn this key lesson, real world prosperity will evade us just as much as the truth evades Reinhart/Rogoff, the IMF and EU.

     

    08060340825 (sms only)

     

  • WEF, NESG to conduct economic survey

    The World Economic Forum (WEF) in partnership with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) will conduct the Executive Opinion Survey 2013 in Nigeria between February and April 2013.

    In a statement, the NESG said the Executive Opinion Survey, “The Voice of the Business Community” is a major component of The Global Competitiveness Report and provides the key ingredient that turns the Report into a representative annual measure of a nation’s economic environment and its ability to achieve sustained growth.

    The Survey gathers valuable information on a broad range of variables for which hard data sources are scarce or non-existent. “Starting Monday, 18 February 2013, NESG Survey Administrators will administer questionnaires to a sample of high level business executives operating in Nigeria, to capture their opinions on the business environment in which they operate,” it said.

    Given that only a sample of company executives in Nigeria will be engaged in this important and confidential survey, the NESG stressed that it was essential for each executive sampled to complete the survey to ensure that Nigeria has accurate and reliable data in the Report.

    The Global Competitiveness Report has been the World Economic Forum’s flagship publication since 1979 and is widely recognized as the world’s leading cross-country comparison of factors affecting economic competitiveness and growth.

  • Nigeria, US to boost economic, bilateral trade ties

    Nigeria and the United States yesterday renewed their commitments to increase economic, trade and investment relationship between both countries, especially in non-oil exports.

    The Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, said given the current global economic meltdown, trade and investment remained the only potent tool for achieving sustainable and inclusive economic growth globally.

    Aganga, who spoke at the Seventh US-Nigeria Trade and Investment Agreement Council Meeting in Abuja, said there was a need for Nigeria and the US to deepen their trade and investment relations, especially in the areas where both countries have comparative and competitive advantage.

    The US-Nigeria Trade and Investment Agreement (TIFA ) was signed in 2000. It established the framework for structured dialogue on Trade; Intellectual Property Rights; flow of investment, as well as partnership for cooperation between the economic operators of the two countries.

    Aganga said: “All over the world, presidents and policy makers have agreed that there is only one tool that can lead to sustainable and inclusive economic growth. That tool, is trade and investment.

  • Way out of our economic woes, by Senator

    Way out of our economic woes, by Senator

    Senator Emmanuel Bwacha is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. He represents Taraba South District in the National Assembly. A lawyer, he was once a member of the House of Representatives where he was Chairman, Committee on Police Affairs commissioner and Majority Leader of the state Assembly. In this interview with  the lawmaker speaks on various issues. 

     

     

    For a decade now, you have been politically relevant both in your state and at the national level. What have you done for Taraba and Nigeria so far?

    You are right. I was elected in the State House of Assembly in 1999; first, during the Sani Abacha transition period that collapsed, and during the Abdulsalami Abubakar administration that handed over to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.  I served briefly as Majority Leader of the House. I played a key role in the emergence of the leadership of that Assembly. The Governor then, Rev. Jolly Nyame approached me to serve in his cabinet. Those who know about Nyame’s emergence will testify that some of us were at the centre of most of the political events. Crisis almost tore the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apart, after Barrister Baba Adi did not have the opportunity to fly the banner of the party at the general election. For those of us who were the key members of the Bibinu Campaign Organisation, I couldn’t understand why the former governor asked me to be part of his administration. But when he approached me, I obliged. Of course, having been elected a member of the House of Assembly, it was indeed relegation, going to serve as commissioner. So, I sought the opinion of my constituents in Donga. I told them that they elected me as a legislator in the State Assembly but the governor wanted me to serve in the executive cabinet as commissioner.  All who mattered in the politics of my local government gave me the nod to go and serve as commissioner, and that, if I ran into any trouble, I should come back to them.  I found their position very encouraging. That was how I became the Commissioner of Agriculture in the Nyame administration. In that capacity, I was instrumental to the formation of corporative societies across the state. It was a medium for reaching out to the grassroots people. I was also instrumental to the procurement of about 80 tractors, which were distributed to farmers, through these cooperative societies, to encourage farmers at the grassroots. This increased agricultural productivity in Taraba state during the period. In 2003, I contested for the House of Representatives for the Takum, Donga, Ussa and Yangtu federal constituency. I won the election and was appointed Chairman, House Committee on Police Affairs. I served in that capacity for four years in the Fifth Assembly, and we made tremendous impacts in the Nigerian police. We made proposals for the increment of police salaries in this country.

    What have you been doing in the 7th Assembly?

    I am the senate committee chairman on agriculture. Most of our youths barely have any regard for farming in this 21st century. But agriculture had been the bedrock of our economy. Through agriculture, many of us made it to be what we are today. We are faced with a lot of challenges because of the many problems associated with the oil-driven economy. The present security challenges and the political quagmire we are going through are direct negative products of the oil boom, which has encouraged laziness; people no longer want to work, people want to cut corners, make cheap money and that is where we are today.  What we are doing now is to ensure that we restore the dignity of agriculture. As the giant of Africa, as we preach, we have not been able to take the lead. So, we are pushing to see how the Nigerian government can improve and make supplementary budget for the agricultural sector, so that, we as a nation could be able to restore the lost glory and dignity of agriculture, as it was the case in the past. For my state, having been assigned to oversee this critical sector, I put a machinery to restore the famous agriculture show we use to know in our community. We are already partnering with the various local government council chairmen to see how we can revive the famous agricultural show, where farmers will be expected to display their agricultural products. We will institute a prize mechanism, to reward farmers that excel out of such exercises. I believe that this will go a long way in boosting farmers’ morale in agricultural activity. This is outside the scholarship scheme which I initiated to touch the lives of needy students spread over our tertiary institutions across the country.

    You stood against your kinsman, Obadiah Ando, when his name was submitted for Senate screening for a ministerial appointment. Why?

    Beside the reason by everybody that my elder brother, Obadiah Ando was not accessible, it was clearly known by all that my elder brother did not work for the ruling party at the various elections held.  I remember at a certain instance, he did mention that you can vote for the president but all other elections you can vote for Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). That for me was not even a desire for the president to succeed. This is because if the president wins and the parliament is dominated by the opposition from the ACN, then the president will never succeed, eventually, he might be removed from office. So, I don’t see that as expressing passion or loyalty to the president.  We also feel, as a party, that it wasn’t good for such people to be given positions in the cabinet. It is true that General TY Danjuma nominated Obadiah Ando. We went to explain things to him and he reasoned with us by nominating another person, Darius, who is now the Minister.

    In Taraba State, everywhere you turn, the name Emmanuel Bwacha is being touted as the governor to be in 2015. Did you give them that impression?

    I have never told anybody that I wish to contest for the governorship position in my state. To me, 2015 is still very far. I need to concentrate on my service in the senate. That was the mandate given to me at the 2011 poll.  I don’t know why people tend to infer certain things or meanings on my relationship with Governor Suntai, whom I am very loyal to. I admire him (Suntai), not because he is our governor, but because of the refinement he has introduced in the art of modern politics in Taraba State. This is largely the reason I have decided to be so close to him.  It is not because I have any ambition to succeed him and I am courting him for favour, as people are saying.

    It is an open secret that the relationship between you and your senator colleagues from Taraba has been frosty. What went wrong, is it a crack in the state PDP?

    My disagreement with my Senator colleagues is largely political. I get so worried when people interpret this to mean hatred, as if we are sworn enemies. In politics, you agree to disagree, until when interests change. As I speak, they have their own interest different from mine. This does not make us enemies, but we have maturely agreed to disagree. They have their own way of looking at political issues, and I also have mine.

    What do you think is the panacea for the lingering security challenge in the country?

    I want to believe that the security challenge we are faced with is informed by political differences. Those elements detonating bombs everywhere and killing people indiscriminately have grievances that are largely traceable to politics. People are only using religion to have justification for what they are doing. No religion preaches violence. The Bible has never encouraged violence, and I don’t know of any religion that cheers violence or bloodshed. I am a Christian, and I know what it is to kill. Killers will pay back on the Day of Judgment. So, I call on security operatives not to relent in their efforts. They have to put in their best.

    Do you think establishing the state police could be a solution the security challenge?

    No country in the world that has adopted federalism or presidential system of government (which we are copying) without adopting the state police. In our case, we thought we would grow over the years, and I think about 13 years is enough in our democratic process for us to commence certain experiments that could catapult us to an appreciable level, particularly about the police. If you are talking of having autonomy for the states, as prescribed in the concept of federalism, each state should be able to access its own security outfits. I have a typical example in some states; the governor is towing a different line and the commissioner of police is towing another because of conflicting interest or orders from above. For our democracy to grow, we must allow a level of autonomy or independence for all the federating units. These are the indices that give a country a federal structure, with all its federating units melting together. Otherwise, if you say, let the centre be controlling the states continually because governors are going to abuse the state police, the president is not an angel, he is also a human being like you and I. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.  That is my take on the issue of state police. If you say a governor can abuse the police, the president could as well abuse the structure of the security. It is therefore, better to let state police be. I know the feelings from certain quarters; they have tried to politicise the concept of the state police, which is not supposed to be the case.

     

  • NACCIMA blames govt for economic woes

    NACCIMA blames govt for economic woes

    The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), the umbrella organisation for the Organised Private Sector (OPS) has said the Federal Government was responsible for most of the challenges facing the manufacturing sector. The association blamed the government for the economic woes the country is currently facing.

    Its President, Dr. Ademola Ajayi, said the government has not been able to provide the enabling environment that would encourage productive development, adding that without adequate infrastructure and access to funds, creation of jobs which is one of the priority areas would not be achieved.

    Ajayi described emerging challenges to include rising insecurity, especially the Boko Haram insurgency and the new electricity tariff introduced by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and corruption.

    He said the state of insecurity has reached an alarming stage that serious and concerted efforts must be made to provide solutions, adding that a proactive approach to security issues would guarantee a peaceful polity in which businesses would thrive and investors would be encouraged to come and invest.

    He urged the citizenry to be security conscious, adding government should embrace technology in providing security.

    “The time is virtually over for a security system that depends solely on men clutching guns and looking around. In advanced countries, including Israel and the Us, technology provides the tool for security agents to work with. It is also important for all of us to be security conscious,” he stated.

    Ajayi, also said the recent increase in electricity tariff should be revisited.

    The NACCIMA boss decried the discrepancies, querying the parameters used in determining who the rich and the poor were, especially where they were lumped together in different social environment.

    “For instance, an average man who happened to have secured a landed property in Ikoyi years back and built his house there among the rich, would the new tariff be fair to him? he queried.

    He said although NACCIMA is not opposed to the new tariff, what needs to be done, he stated, is for PHCN to have floated a six-month pilot operating scheme for the new structure.

     

  • Economic growth driving Nigeria’s foreign policy, says Jonathan

    Economic growth driving Nigeria’s foreign policy, says Jonathan

    Nigeria’s foreign policy focus is on how to attract greater foreign direct investment to accelerate domestic growth and create jobs President Goodluck Jonathan has said.

    He spoke Wednesday in New York at a dinner organised in his honour by the Corporate Council on Africa.

    The President is attending the 67th United Nations General Assembly Session.

    Jonathan, according to a statement by his spokesman Dr. Reuben Abati, said his administration is wholly committed to promoting the development of a knowledge-economy that will enhance the security of lives and property, thereby accelerating growth to provide more employment and reduce youth restiveness.

    The President told the gathering of leading American businessmen and investors that attracting foreign investment to support the realisation of the Federal Government’s Agenda for National Transformation is the topmost priority of Nigeria’s diplomacy abroad.

    “Let me restate here that Nigeria’s foreign policy is now anchored on the realisation of this Transformation Agenda through the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment. Under the new policy thrust, our Diplomatic Missions abroad have been directed to focus more on attracting investment to support the domestic programmes of government with a view to achieving not only our Vision 20: 2020, but to bequeathing an enduring legacy of economic  prosperity,” he said.

    President Jonathan assured guests at the dinner that adequate safety nets has been established to protect all foreign investors in Nigeria. Such measures, he said, included the establishment and strengthening of the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission and the Bureau of Public Procurement.

    The President said his Administration is dealing decisively with Nigeria’s security challenges. “We have some security challenges now, but let me assure you that the Nigerian Government is on top of it. We are dealing with the issue decisively; it will soon be a thing of the past.

    “Opportunities abound for would-be investors with capital and technical know-how in key areas of Nigeria’s economy with a high rate of return on investment. I invite our friends in the United States to take advantage of existing incentives and invest more in Nigeria. I am confident that by the year 2015, Nigeria would have witnessed transformation in all sectors to the benefit of not only its citizens, but also those who have an interest in Nigeria,” President Jonathan concluded.

    Welcoming President Jonathan to the dinner earlier, the United States Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, pledged that the Obama Administration will continue to support Nigeria’s efforts to attract greater foreign investment.

    Noting that Nigeria is already a very important destination for American companies and the second highest recipient of American direct private sector investment in Africa, Mr. Carson said he is optimistic that Nigeria could become  a great economic success over the next decade.

    The Assistant Secretary of State announced that the US-Nigeria Bi-National Commission, which has been established as a primary platform for the promotion of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, will meet again in Nigeria next month.

    President Jonathan’s other engagements in New York on Wednesday included meetings with President Sauli Ministo of Finland and the President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.

    The President also met with President Francois Hollande of France, the Emir of Qatar and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. He also received representatives of the over 200 Nigerians who work for the United Nations and its agencies.

    President Jonathan and Prime-Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway with whom he serves as Co-Chairperson of the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children also participated at an event to promote its work. Guests at the event included former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

  • I’m for economic rebirth, says Oke

    The Ondo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Chief Olusola Oke, has said his administration would usher in an economic rebirth of the state, if elected in the October 20 election.

    Oke spoke at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre in Akure, the state capital, during an interactive forum organised by the chairmen of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) chapter and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic (RUGIPO), Owo, chapter.

    The forum was under the auspices of Intellectual Platform.

    The former PDP Legal Adviser said Ondo State needs an economic rebirth.

    He said the state should have a deliberate economic agenda that would create opportunities, generate employment and ensure a secured future against likely external financial crisis.

    AAUA ASUU Chairman Dr Busuyi Mekusi, and his RUGIPO counterpart, Mr Olabamiji Kumuyi, said members of the academic community need to participate in the process that would bring quality leadership.

     

  • Labour market defies economic slump

    THE LABOUR market in the UK continued to recover strongly in the three months to July/August, despite the double dip recession, the Office for National Statistics revealed on Friday.

    Employment rose 236,000 in May to July, compared to the February to April period, putting the total at 29.56m, just 11,000 below its all-time peak in early 2008.
    The unemployment picture also improved, edging down 7,000 during May to July on the labour force survey measure, and slipping 15,000 on the claimant count measure for August, also released.

    Big increases in population, and 181,000 fewer economically inactive individuals aged 16-64 compared to the previous three months – the largest decrease since records began in 1977 – account for the fact unemployment is basically flat despite rapid job growth.

    Of the close to a quarter of million gaining jobs, 102,000 were full-time employees, and 134,000 part-time. Self-employment hit a new all-time high at 4.2m, with 52,000 extra people officially working for themselves.

    The rise in jobs has not come from ministerial fiat. Excluding the reclassification of institutions providing further and higher education, the public sector shed 39,000 staff in the second quarter, while the private sector increased employment by 275,000. Although this data is one month in arrears compared to the rest of the data, it fits in well with the overall trend.

    But some analysts said that the employment picture was too good to last in such a gloomy overall economic climate. “The economy would have to be growing in excess of trend rates to sustain these levels of job creation, so we must expect some payback in the form of falling employment levels in the months ahead,” said Andrew Goodwin at the Item Club.

    Average weekly earnings were just 1.4 per cent up in the three months to July, compared to the year before, despite consumer prices going up 2.6 per cent, meaning workers took a real wage cut. The upshot of a real wage cut is that workers look more attractive to employers, potentially helping to explain the employment boost.