It’s been boom time for the practitioners of the futurological art of crystal gazing. Not that there could have been a better season for our hordes of diviners to spew forth all manners of strange brews described as “prophecy” than the countdown to a new year. The cult of Nostradamus has not disappointed with their pronouncement on virtually everything under the sun: from politics to finance, commerce, energy, and security – just name it. It is a measure of the attraction to the undying art that the practice has flourished over the years, more so in our clime.
And what have they said?
Common to all is the prognosis of a difficult year ahead, a defining one at that.
Let me say also that I have done some crystal gazing and therefore share in the general premise that the incoming year has all the elements to make it a defining year. I start with the tectonic shifts in alliances that birthed All Progressives Congress, (APC). If that marked the emergence of an opposition finally poised to wrest power from the arrogant PDP, it is in another respect, a clarion call to battle on several fronts.
Does anyone see mere coincidence in the so-called industrial scale theft in the oil sector and the financial scorched-earth policy visited on the states for the most part of 2013? I mean the dubious alibi of oil theft, in which the federal government and its fellow-traveller in perfidy, the NNPC, would seek to leave the states enfeebled? Does anyone rule that out as the beginning of the process of weaponisation of the instrument of federal allocation?
So what to expect in the incoming year?
Richter-scale level of theft in the oil sector? Full-scale weaponisation of the fiscal instrument in the hands of our rampaging bull in the China shop? More brazen absurdities in the computation of the distributable pool by the NNPC?
Obdurate states had better beware.
Here is what the crystal ball shows for the coming months: the states can make all the noise in the world about the cheating game at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meetings, nothing would change. The behemoth is not about to budge. Rather, expect the behemoth with a hefty 54 percent to continue to play the thief-catcher with states whose allocations average less than one per cent. That is how it’s always been; and so would be in 2014 and beyond.
By the way, you don’t expect the federal government with its awesome power of patronage to engage with objectors in its rank and file; it’s a sign of weakness. So, in 2014, it’s fight to finish.
As an aside, more of state government officials should expect to be unwilling guests of the EFCC. Jigawa and Kano are already in; Rivers, Sokoto, Kwara and possibly Niger should beware. This, the oracle says, is only a dress rehearsal for their war on corruption. As for the stench oozing from their backyards the latest of which came from Stella Oduah’s Aviation House of sleaze, it is supposed to be proof of the administration’s affirmative action that big time impunity pays!
So what is for the ordinary man on the street in terms of governance in 2014?
Time again to consult the crystal ball.
I start with the power sector – a sector that many have come to accept as offering the brightest prospects of a turn-around. Nigerians by now must be wondering what the hoopla was after the successful take-over of the PHCN entities by the private sector. Here again, the problem appears to me as the tendency to confuse the means for the end. No one argues about the fact that the retention of the PHCN in the hand of government is akin to a sentence of death on an already comatose sector. But then, it is also not the same as suggesting that a mere change of ownership is all there is to it to make things happen?
Now, I must say that the problem is not unknown. Neither is the solution rocket science. The problem is that of under-investment of the past years. The solution is to bridge the service gaps in the shortest possible time. And the way to do that is to invest massively in new technologies and business models to improve on service delivery.
This is where my crystal ball tells a different story. As far as the prospects of improvement go, 2014 may end up as a disappointment. To start with, the new wonder owners of the power entities haven’t even begun to convince us that they know what the business entails let alone what they need to put in place to turn the sector around. Now, Nigerians are fast finding out the world of difference between abdication and liberalisation – the result of the astounding bad faith and ignorance across the board.
My crystal ball tells me that 2014 is the year of awakening for all.
Now to Olusegun Aganga’s so-called auto-policy. If ever a policy was conceived in conceit and ignorance, that policy must be it. What’s the idea if one may dare to ask? To join the league of auto manufacturers? Now, that is supposed to be grand except that in this instance, the minister would rather we start building our houses from the roof.
You ask: how does a 100 percent hike of auto duty assist Aganga’s phantom auto assemblers in an economy where the existing capacity is next to zero? Where is the infrastructure? Or is it simply about producing some fanciful contraptions that no one would be able to buy? If I may be more specific, where is the infrastructure of credit to make his grand dream sustainable in the long run? Or is Aganga thinking of made-for-government only vehicles? Why the hurry to inflict punitive tariff on car importers in 2014?
If anyone ever needed evidence of how detached some of our policy makers are from reality, that so-called auto policy is one. Thanks to Olusegun Aganga, our long-suffering middle class will suffer the affliction of paying more for their favourite tokunbo just to satisfy the whims of some high-minded officials. The same is no less true of Aganga’s kinsman in the Agriculture Ministry who has already moved to ban rice import when he cannot even guarantee local sufficiency.
As for the unprecedented youth unemployment, the ostentation in the midst of ravaging poverty, the corruption in high places, the day of reckoning is certainly near! At least that is what my crystal ball says.
Happy New Year to all!
