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Tag: paradigm shift

  • Regional integration and enhanced productivity as a recipe for paradigm shift in the Southwest (II)

    Regional integration and enhanced productivity as a recipe for paradigm shift in the Southwest (II)

    (Continued from last Friday)

    Among these include the first television station in Africa (now NTA), the first stadium in West Africa (Liberty Stadium), the first tallest building tropical Africa (Cocoa House) and the famous free education programme.

    What is most significant for me, within the context of today’s gathering and our concern, is the opportunity that these states now have to constitute a veritable model for national productivity, regional integration and other regional centres of excellence that others of the country and the continent can proudly emulate. The Schumpeterian spirits and unbridled entrepreneurship that were the building blocks of the foundation of the Old Western Region have been compromised.

    The need to reform the national productivity paradigm of Nigeria became obvious to me a long time ago in my continuous attempt to resolve the dysfunctionality of the Nigerian Civil Service. The necessity of a radical rethinking of a productivity-oriented Nigerian state has never been more compelling than now. Nigeria’s long decades of oil exploration and high growth figures have been accompanied by low productive capacity (de-industrialization), high unemployment and rising poverty and inequality. Nigeria presents a good case of a development paradox – “poverty in the midst of plenty” or “a resource curse development syndrome”. Such a paradox calls for deep rethinking and reflection on the country’s development model and paradigm. Any development paradigm that is not anchored on productive capacity and human development will remain non-inclusive and unsustainable. Such countries will not be able to effectively translate economic growth into economic development that substantially transforms the wellbeing and living conditions of citizens.

    The philosophical underpinning of the Western Region was entrepreneurship – based on building the ‘cake of development’. In the process of sharing from the ‘national cake’, the Schumpeterian spirit and professionalism have been replaced with patronage, nepotism and clientelism. Sooner than later, the region experienced a cliff, by falling from its productivity apogee to a trough.  Our ingenuity, innovativeness, and the cliché of a pace setter disappeared.  The Yoruba euphemism of ‘ajise bi Oyo laari, Oyo kiise bi omo enikankan’ turned to become a business as usual spirit – a cancer that destroyed our innovativeness and originality.

    At some point in time, the Western Region and Nigeria failed to emulate the paradigm shift that raised development frontier in the old western region. There are some of the structural factors that steadily took us to the development trough include:

    • The dynamics and operational mechanics of the relationship between productivity, performance and service delivery is not systematically managed, researched or tapped for effective policy implementation. Instead, we allowed nepotism and inefficiency to overtake productivity and performance.
    • Government remains the single largest employer of labour and provider of services in the economy with size and wage bill that is unsustainable and cry for restructuring within the logic that it will get worse before it will get better or in the language of reform, you can’t eat omelette without cracking egg. By the time we realized it, the proportion of capital expenditure at the Federal Government level fell from 41.67 percent during 1981-1990 to mere 17.77 percent during 2003-2014. The situation in some states is even worse. The resources meant for the entire population is being used to service less than 1.0 percent of the population.
    • The Nigerian economy remains mono-sectoral. The managers of the economy failed to decouple the economy and its sustenance away from oil. While countries like United Arab Emirate and Norway succeeded in decoupling their economy from oil, Nigeria became more enmeshed in the fortune and vagaries of oil. We were trapped into boom and burst of oil revenues with rising expectations from the public on government, including wage increase, subsidies going beyond capacity, and free meal at schools.

    Fiscal policy, if well managed, could be a veritable tool of development management. The Nigerian situation has proved worrisome and challenging in charting the course of development. Reversing the fiscal dependency syndrome remains a tall challenge.  The 1960s, when the Western Region was contributing to the Federal purse through the Cocoa Marketing Board, witnessed substantial regional and physical development such as the construction of the tallest house in tropical Africa and the most state of the art university (then University of Ife, known to be the second most beautiful university in Africa, after University of Alexandra in Egypt). However, when we moved from baking the cake to sharing the cake, development fortune plummeted.  The region that was setting the pace of national development in the 1960s and 1970s became a region with ‘cap-in-hand’ thereafter – relying on the Federal Government to finance its development.  State Governments barely generate about 17 percent of their total available revenues. Figure 1, shows the capacity of state government to generate internal revenues.

    How do Western States performed relative to national average in revenue generation? Using 2013, as a reference year, only three states Lagos, Ogun and Oyo performed above the national average of 15.3 percent of total revenues. Over the years, Lagos has been collecting more than 50.0 percent of its total revenues: down from 63.5 percent in 2008 to 54.9 percent in 2011 and 53.02 percent in 2013. Next is Ogun from 27.5 percent in 2008 to 31.08 percent in 2013. Oyo is also above the national average – 19.2 percent in 2013. The contiguity of these states, tends to promote fiscal policy harmonization, could be an advantage. The contiguity of the Western region therefore remains an opportunity that should rub-on on all the states of the region. This calls for regional integration and fiscal policy harmonization.  Although the fiscal power is still very low, Ondo State is one of the states with rising fiscal efforts. For instance, Ondo State ranked highest among states with an increased IGR/TR ratio from 2.1 per cent in 2010 to 8.6 per cent in 2011. This is followed by Kogi and Bauchi States.

    The level of fiscal dependence has created some fiscal inequality among states (Figure 3) – with Lagos State accounting for about 50 percent of the total internally generated revenues in the country. This is further driving inequality in wages between the centre and the periphery and, consequently deepening underdevelopment of the sub regions. This calls for mentorship and benchmarking between performing and struggling states on IGR

    The current growth and development model, built around a resource-base factor (oil) is counterproductive to the country and particularly the South West. The inability to decouple the national and state economies from oil is creating some dependency that could derail inclusive and sustain development in the Western Region. It takes little reflection to see why such a bottom-up growth trajectory automatically supports the craving for regional integration economies of scale among the states in the Southwest. Regional integration has equally been signalled as a potent factor in the economic successes of some of the advanced economic nations of the world. The story of Chinese development remains incomplete without regionalization, especially the delta cultivation.  There is no reason why the southwest would not toe this path even if it is just to advance it’s development agenda.

    The recalibration of Western Region development agenda call for some paradigm shift that allows for inclusive and sustainable development. This can be honed on two building blocks – productivity paradigm and regionalization prism. Building and enhancing productive capacity is the only long-term means of improving and sustaining national wealth. Shifting the productivity frontier calls for a new service compact between the people and government, not only in terms of service delivery but also in terms of fiscal citizenship. There is quid-pro-quo in fiscal-development conundrum. Quality services propel people to willingly pay taxes and reduce tax evasion. Inefficiency service delivery creates a wedge between the government and the governed on taxes and levies. It also calls for a compact between the Governors and the various MDAs, and between the Ministries and their various departments and agencies as well as social contract between the public and the private sector as well as the civil organizations. Moving on to the next level of development paradigm calls for a professional, agile, well-remunerated and committed public service.

    Productivity enhancement provides the link between innovation and entrepreneurship. We need to unleash drivers of productivity growth to stimulate entrepreneurship – the imperatives of new business creation. For the Western region to stimulate innovation, substantial investment is needed in research and development (R&D), patenting and creative activities, and digital information. To successfully shift development frontier in the Western Region, states and local government must invest heavily on productivity enhancement, entrepreneurship development and technological building, diffusion and transfer.

    A possible revival of regional economic cooperation through intensification of trade, implementation of regional investment projects, could foster economic growth in the Western Region.  In fact, the compelling justifications to do so also offer some strategic policy actions. Key factors that foster regionalization and development could accelerate sustainable development are:

    (i)       Networking: The States in the region should prioritize networking on policies and strategies both at the technical and strategic levels. This facilitates sound development exchange through drawing on lessons and experience sharing among states issues of strategic focus. A good example is networking in revenue generation capacity for effective revenue diversification. This reduces the region susceptibility to vagaries and vicissitude of global oil process. Lagos and Ogun States stand out (Figure 2) for benchmarking. Lagos State is a leader in terms of capacity to generate domestic revenues (Figure 3). A regional approach provides opportunity for enhanced capacity among the collaborating states in the region is vital.

    (ii)     Geographic cohesion: The compactness and contiguity of the region geographic opportunities in terms of the regional comparative advantage that could be used to unleash growth and development. This is where regional infrastructure such as rail, road, electricity generation, and irrigation and telecommunication backbones is critical.

    (iii)    Institutional and policy change: Regionalization calls for policies, practices and process to be effectively harmonized. Contradictory policies and practices are centrifugal rather than propelling centripetal forces for concrete development actions. In vesting in sectoral and strategic policy harmonization is ineluctable.

    (iv)    Adoption of fiscal harmonization calls for a regional partnership: The contiguous nature of the region makes tax and revenue harmonization an imperative. Heterogeneous taxes promote tax evasion and tax avoidance. Without a fiscal harmonization, people and companies move from states with higher tax rates to lower ones thereby reducing the tax bases of the affected states. A harmonised tax policy will increase overall revenues of the collaborating entities.

    (v)      Economic diversification is an imperative. Relying on hands out from the federal allocation would merely deepen current deleterious dependency syndromes, with catastrophic effects. To decouple each state’s revenue from oil, economic diversification is critical. The starting point is for each state to identify its comparative advantage and use such as the anchor of economic diversification. The next stage, where Lagos is now, is to diversify from primary commodities to high-end value added and high-end services—activities whose consumption grows as income grows. Harnessing resources from economic diversification could outpace revenue from oil.

    (vi)    Establishment of growth poles and economic corridors. The south-western states must reflect on activities that propel economic corridors across the partnering entities. This could be in the form of free trade zones, dry ports, transport corridors, and agricultural settlements, among other factors.

    (vii)   Setting up regional business hubs across the geopolitical zones would also serve as a big booster for trade across the region. Such trade centres could be used to encourage entrepreneurship in each state and large scale firms in various state hosted there to attract greater market access. The hubs would also serve as a one stop business start-up centre hence, making it easier for investors to do business easily. Government and private sector should be committed to supporting business and industry development, helping new businesses to establish themselves, and assisting existing industries to grow and diversify. Building the institution for capital venture and integration between formal and informal sectors are equally vital.

    (viii)  Development of Critical Infrastructure: Available data from the State Houses of Assembly shows that Lagos and Ekiti states have maintained a steady increasing commitment to developing critical infrastructure since 2010. The trend in capital expenditure for Oyo and Ondo state follows a similar pattern that suggests learning from one each other and greater linkage. Average capital budget allocation from 2009 to 2013 for the South Western states shows that Lagos accounts for 41.1% of the total capital budget allocation in the region while Ekiti state has the least. Thus, greater integration across the six (6) states would provide greater cooperation in public financial management that would strengthen resilience in the SW region. This would help to grow their economy and deepen development in infrastructure.

    (ix)     Deep-seated institutional reengineering: There is a compelling need to restructure the machinery of government to realign the capital-overhead-personnel budget structure in a remodelling that is rooted in a deep role of government redefinition with strong sensitivity to mystery index. This would have implication for staff strength, wage bill, number of MDAs, number of Special Advisers/Assistants, scope of support to government functionaries, service delivery approaches that is much more aligned to PPP alternatives, waste reduction strategy that is linked to a new maintenance management policy and a new asset efficiency scheme around redefined guiding principles, gradual move from lifetime career-based to flexible employment policies that is rooted in performance management, productivity bargaining industrial relation practices and contractual obligations in service delivery, etc.

    (x)      Establishment of regional development fund: Absence of sustainable funding of regionalization often lead to collapse of such partnerships. This could be sourced from states and local government contributions, bond issuance, Diaspora Bond as was the case in Ethiopia and private sector funding via build-operate and transfer and any other form of equity financing.  The states should decide the strategic areas this fund should be allocated to.

    Conclusion

     What we are pushing here is not going to be a day’s job, and it is not going to be easy. It will take persistent political will and persistent commitment by succeeding governments to achieve. The experience of ensuring that the European Union and the Eurozone work as a buffer area that enables the member states to achieve regional strength in economic and political matters, is a very good example. It demonstrates the dogged attempt at making sure that the European member states stay together under one banner. It also demonstrates the immense benefits that accrue to each member state.

    The consolation is that the South-western states will not be starting from a historical scratch. They have the historical legacy of the Western Region as the framework around which to build a collective dream of prudent fiscal management, critical infrastructural development, rapid industrialization, strengthened service sector, an enviable regional business hub, and so on. All these constitute a veritable bulwark against future economic recession and global oil downturn and severe fluctuation in revenue allocation.

  • Nigeria: A paradigm shift from the past

    It was Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers and logicians, who noted that “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”. This statement, perhaps, applies to the present situation in the country as we begin a new phase in our bourgeoning democracy and history.

    Africa has, over the years, had challenges of transition, especially transfer of power from a ruling party to opposition. Given the paradigm set by former President Goodluck Jonathan, the notion that a sitting president cannot be unseated has now been completely punctured and this is a good omen for citizens of a continent that has witnessed the most flawed electoral processes in the history of humanity.

    Prior to the swearing in of President Muhammadu Buhari, there was palpable tension and anxiety among the populace, with many predicting violence and war. But, the diplomacy and statesmanship of the outgoing president set a good precedent and it showed that personal interest and desire to stick tenaciously to power at all cost can only blow an ill-wind across the country.

    This is evidence that Africa can get it right if leaders can sacrifice their personal wishes for general wellbeing of their people. This is why Africa must congratulate Nigeria for this precedent.

    The Buhari administration rode to power, singing the gospel of ‘change’ to bring about a paradigm shift in governance and public accountability. This paradigm shift, of course, is a huge responsibility on the part of those elected into political offices to show the world that African politics has passed the Rubicon of ethnicity and bickering.

    Let there be an end to the notion that, nobody is untouchable or too big to be made to be accountable for his deeds or misdeeds. It will take doggedness, determination and stepping on toes to keep the nation on its feet.

    Our new president has promised to change the direction of governance. He promised to revitalise virtually all sectors of economy and oversee a new Nigeria where justice, honesty, equity and transparency would reign, while corruption would remain a deplorable vice.

    This commitment and enthusiasm should, therefore, be matched proportionately with actions to win the trust of Nigerians, who stood long hours under the scorching sun to vote for paradigm shift.

    The youth, users of the new media and untapped human resources, have bigger expectation from the new administration, because many of them believe that the long awaited saviour has finally come their way. Many of them are quick to point to the fact that the new administration has promised not just to create jobs for the unemployed among them, but also to engage them in vocations that will boost their entrepreneurial skills.

    What is fundamental to job creation and skill acquisition programme of the Buhari government is the appropriation of up to 20 per cent of the nation’s annual budget to education, which will ensure that an estimated 10 million school dropouts will return to classroom to study. If this is realised, the coming generations will be educated and have requisite entrepreneurial skills to be job creators and not job seekers.

    These promises are hard to ignore especially when placed side-by-side with the potential of this country. The challenge, however, is not how to achieve the lofty promises but the execution of the blueprints to bring the country out of the woods.

    There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is heavily blessed with resources in human and material. But the years of aborted dreams and wasted journeys can only be compensated by introducing far-reaching policies that would encompass the future plans of the country.

    All indices of human capital development indicate that Nigeria has hardly spent its huge income to bring about improved quality of life for its over 170 million people and in the estimation of many, the primary objective of a functional government is to be seen how it deploys the resources to emancipate the citizens.

    Thus, the stakes are high for the Buhari government and only a change in status quo will end the suffering of the people. There is no room for experiment; only positive results are expected.

    The economy must be revitalised; our roads must no longer be the death trap, consumable goods and all consumables, such as petroleum products, must be made readily available to all citizens, irrespective of their status.

    The fight against insurgency, which has interestingly received accelerated attention with the promised relocation of the military headquarters to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, must be matched with adequate supervision and review.

    The cost of governance must be reduced; energy crisis which has seen power generation and distribution plummeted to a pitiable level must be revamped. Increasing incidents of abominable vices must be checkmated with appropriate laws, and the Niger Delta question must be put to rest once and for all.  Corruption, the chief amongst the challenges facing country, must be dealt a deadly blow without being selective in so doing.

    This is not a time for vendetta; it is a time to look within and purge our country of its many ills. All resources must be focused on rebuilding the country torn on ethno-religious line and not fighting the old war. This is the only true definition for change and a deviation from this will be relapse to the old regime. Posterity will remember the Buhari administration for good if the president sets a good example as seen in the words of Robert Lee, who says: “I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.”

     

    Philip, a youth advocate, writes from Delta State

  • Need for paradigm shift in Nigeria’s healthcare sector

    SIR: That Nigeria’s healthcare industry needs a breath of fresh air is no longer in doubt. The perennial strikes occasioned by inter and intra professional squabbles, remuneration related matters, poor, inefficient services and the sheer redundancies in this sector reflect this. These are also symptomatic of a larger problem bedeviling the sector, hence the need for a paradigm shift.

    The conceptual and organisational frameworks for healthcare delivery are not well thought through, lacking in vision, drive and innovation. The policy direction is superfluous, incoherent, and lacks the bite for effectiveness without this backbone. The National health bill as submitted at National Assembly fails to represent a paradigm shift. It simply endorses more of the same- the proliferation of large university teaching hospitals better known for their bureaucracies and inefficiencies than service, research and innovations.

    Primary healthcare meant to avail all citizens affordable, accessible and participatory healthcare has ground to a halt as any doctor in search of professional respect and some financial comfort have migrated to the tertiary health institutions or have fled the shores to greener pasture. No incentive to diversify or differentiate.

    There is no longer a team based approach to care delivery as battle for supremacy is the order of the day.

    The wholly welfarist approach to healthcare policy structures and directions bequeathed by successive military administrations persist. This approach assumes an all benevolent government that assumes responsibility for her citizen’s health by employing retinues of doctors etc usually in large poorly managed hospitals for benefit of the people.

    A more pragmatic approach to healthcare as both a welfare issue as well as a business is the only way to save the day for Nigeria. Healthcare is business, and business is healthcare!

    Poor regulation is visible in many areas. It starts from the indiscriminate proliferation of medical schools. There is a glut of medical schools around; I do not believe this augurs well for the profession or nation as a whole.

    Who regulates graduate medical education in Nigeria? Who defines what is standard in terms of institutional facilities, capacity qualifications, criteria for training director selection, resident selection, course content and learning modalities, examination techniques and peer interoperability and exchangeability with other countries? Who scrutinizes the two post graduate medical colleges?

    How come Nigerian doctors cannot just migrate and practice in the UK, South Africa, and Singapore etc without being subjected to a plethora of examinations and assessments? Qualifications of the Royal colleges are widely accepted for practice in Australia, Singapore, and Ireland etc. Why is Nigeria’s not acceptable anywhere?

    As some people would want us to believe, the problem is not always about funding and lack of equipment, but a lot about oversight, standards and regulations!

    The way to go is for government to divest direct ownership and participation in running hospitals. Government must ensure a strong national insurance programme, public and private. India to which many Nigerians gravitate for medical tourism made a choice to have a competitive advantage in healthcare and began the liberalization of this sector. The annual outflow of cash from Nigeria to India for medical tourism is a testament to the success of this philosophy.

     

    • Timi Babatunde MD

    Lagos

     

  • APC: Of paradigm shift and power shift

    A major political epoch may yet have berthed in Nigeria last week. The registration of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) last Wednesday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) suggests the beginning of a phenomenon that may change Nigeria’s political equation and calculations in the years ahead. For once in the political history of Nigeria, it can be said that a brave new era peeps from the horizon.

    Take a bow Professor Attahiru Jega and your team at INEC for overcoming the storm of subterfuge apparently raised by the ‘other’ party to torpedo the APC dream. There was no doubt that INEC came under immense pressure to run members of the new party through the hoops if not entirely scuttle their mission to give birth to a new party. No sooner did the merging parties pronounce their name than a flurry of charlatans and scallywags scurried to the INEC office to file registration papers using the same acronyms, APC. Obviously awash with slush fund, the more active of the miscreants were quick to hire both an elaborate office and a handful of crowd to pose as members. Relishing their brazen forage in political muck, the rabble was also noisome and litigious in the way of political touts. When they were not in the press exhibiting their vacuous state of mind, they are in the courts relentlessly bringing their folly to bear on court processes.

    Members of the small ‘apc’ are obviously, hirelings reminiscent of the infamous Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) led by Chief Arthur Nzeribe, which was deployed to scuttle the June 12, 1993 election. But INEC on this score exhibited integrity and stood strictly by its rules. It is not the group that is first to declare interest in a name that owns it but that which meets all the stringent conditions precedent. Hardball salutes INEC for showing that it has the capacity to stand firm and unshaken at the critical junctures of the electoral process. The commission must brace itself for more intense buffeting by anti-progressive forces for they will get desperate as they get their comuppance in the days ahead. The INEC team will only stand and survive by the quality of institution it manages to build and history will return its verdict accordingly.

    Beyond the role of INEC, greater laudation will of course go to the arrowheads of this emerging epoch – the leaders of the merging parties: the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, (ANPP). Attempt to merge political parties of this magnitude in the past had failed woefully. Not because the proponents were less tenacious but because ruling parties in Nigeria usually brook no opposition. To put opposition parties on the spin and tear them apart is probably one of the easiest political tasks for any ruling party in Nigeria. The arena is full of political whores who would bend very low at the jingle of a few coins.

    Getting registered is the first, albeit important part; now is the time for the real work. APC visioners and leaders must take a few points to heart: one, the opponent will not sleep it will remain hard at work to extirpate the new baby. Two, APC must work hard and indeed go out of its way to rally true progressives from every corner of the country and as an adjunct it must work at being truly national (it’s a bit skewed now). And finally, it must set and define noble agendas that Nigerians can buy into and which must include restructuring the federation, killing corruption and letting the best minds handle the mantle of leadership. APC must be a paradigm shift and not power shift.