Nigeria has had many plans and budgets since independence in 1960. But they have always lacked growth elements. So the 2017 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) lacks growth elements. Nigeria had four National Development Plans in the period 1962-1985: 1962-68, 1970-74, 1975-80 and 1980-85. Nigeria also adopted the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and its Rolling Plans in 1986. SAP remains the main programme Nigeria is implementing today, because the principal elements, philosophy and ideological inclination in 1986 have not changed; they have been the bases of managing the Nigerian economy.
Nigerian government officials claimed to have been implementing reforms, NEEDS, 9-point Agenda, Vision 20:2020 and Transformation Agenda, and now ERGP (the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, 2017). However, SAP’s elements: the mandatory currency devaluation machinery (the foreign exchange market) now known by various names, privatization of public enterprises and adoption of deregulation (frequent increase in petroleum product prices) as the economic philosophy for managing public projects and activities and technology transfer strategy remain the principal features of the Nigerian economy.
Some Nigerians and their foreign friends, the World Bank and IMF who have been influencing Nigeria’s economic policy over the decades, like to deceive the ignorant public that it is the name of a programme that counts, rather than the elements. They are wrong. It is the elements of a programme that determine its impact on the people. Nigeria has been achieving growth without development (GWD) for decades because Nigeria’s planning and budgeting processes lack growth elements.
Consequently, unemployment, poverty and high crime wave have been worsening. Also there are no physical structures to show for the trillions of naira budgets announced every year and the rapidly growing national debts. Nigerian governments have merely been wasting resources and imposing unnecessary and untold hardship on the ignorant and unsuspecting citizenry. Growth elements must be introduced into Nigeria’s planning, if the nation is to make progress.
The purpose of this article is to explain how the missing growth elements can be introduced into Nigeria’s planning and budgeting processes to promote growth that makes positive impact on the people, growth that promotes competence-building (or growth that increases individual and national capabilities for solve problems including production) and growth that promotes the transformation of the Nigerian economy from its agricultural status into an industrialized one with a view to eliminating mass unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and high crime wave.
Nigerian governments have always emphasized capital investment and erection of complex infrastructure. These do not and cannot promote the desired growth. Economists measure changes in GDP every year. But it is not mere changes in GDP that Nigeria and other African nations need. The industrialized European and Asian nations and the United States of America were like African nations of today, a long time ago. That is, they had agricultural economies and were unable to produce/ manufacture scientific products. However, they learnt over the centuries and acquired the knowledge, skills and competences (KSCs) they now use in solving problems including manufacturing. It is for this understanding that learning is the primary basis of industrialization that virtually all nations in the world have educational institutions today. Sadly, still, Western education (economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, etc., and related fields like accounting, management, banking, law, etc.) does not understand the human development process. Economists and others whose expertise derive from acquiring Western education and related fields were brought up to believe that mere capital investment promotes sustainable economic growth and industrialization, so they throw money at all problems. They do not understand what the scientific transformation of an economy from its agricultural status into an industrialized one entails.
All persons are born as crying babies. The baby soon begins to babble (learns how to talk), acquires the competences to talk and talks. The baby who could not babble grows up to be a dumb adult. Talking or speaking is a skill. The child must also learn how to read and write, otherwise, it grows up to be an illiterate. No one or nation is born with the skills to produce scientific products. All knowledge, skills and competences are acquired through learning. One who wishes to be a good dancer must learn how to dance. A nation which hopes to manufacture many products must develop the people to manufacture them. The talented pianist must play the ordinary tunes before using his talents to compose extra-ordinary tunes. Learning and acquiring new knowledge, skills and competences and applying these in solving problems including production, are the primary sources of achieving sustainable economic growth and industrialization. Nigeria is stagnating because it has been neglecting learning activities.
Learning and building KSCs for solving problems including production go beyond establishing educational systems and running them grudgingly. Education should always be considered a part of the learning process . Quite often, educationists view education as an end by itself. Viewed this way, many nations have educational systems because others nations have; education is seen as a social burden which every nation bears. Also, education viewed this way co-exists with mass unemployment and poverty as it has been the situations in Africa and Latin-America nations for decades.
The duality of nature – up/down, man/woman, night/day, right/left, etc., suggests that there are two sides to learning, education and training. An individual may acquire education (fundamental principles) or training (practical skills), alone or combined. Anyone who acquires either theory or practical skills, alone, is a mediocre person. The versatile individual is one who acquires both theory and practical skills to appreciable levels. Nigeria has a mediocre and illiterate work force.
In any nation, all workers including the artisans and craftsmen are also involved in learning. In Nigeria and all other nations in Africa, there is no linkage between those learning in educational institutions and the rest of the economy. Lack of linkage brings weakness to a system, whereas linkage creates strength (because the system enjoys economies of scale, using the economists’ concept). So, the Nigerian learning system virtually does not exist, weakened for lack of linkage and because the learning people either acquiring theoretical principles, alone, or a small quantity of practical skills alone. Virtually all the 300,000 graduates armed with a lot of theoretical principles produced by the university system in Nigeria, join the unemployment queue every year.
Nigeria can introduce growth elements into its planning and budgeting processes through the following thoughts and activities: 1) accept and adopt the proven theory that learning is the primary basis of promoting KSCs-build-up and industrialization; 2) set up a standing training framework to ensure that all graduates of educational institutions must acquire curriculum-based complementary practical skill for sufficiently long times (4-5 years for the university graduate) to possess necessary competence; and 3) ensure all necessary linkages within learning groups and between learning groups are established. This is how Nigeria can promote rapid industrialization as solution to unemployment, low productivity, poverty, indiscipline, high crime wave, hopelessness, etc.
