Repositioning the Nigerian Economy for Greatness, By Nasir El-Rufai

…though Nigeria is facing very challenging times, the difficulties we all confront daily – from the federal, states and local government councils, as well as small and big businesses and individuals – represent an opportunity to refocus, re-strategize and reposition our social structure, political system and the economy for greatness.

State of the Economy 

That we live in challenging times is an understatement. In the year 2015, the global political economy showed both stresses and promises for our nation. In Eurozone and the USA, economic growth slowed and imports of our crude oil reduced drastically, no thanks to innovations in fracking technology. China’s decades of double-digit economic growth fell to single digit with associated drop in imports of oil and other natural resources from Africa. India has emerged today as the largest importer of Nigerian crude oil, even though though it’s economy has slowed down a bit as well. During the same period, our country witnessed three historic events. 

One was the years of wasted opportunity of deploying over $20 billion of excess crude savings accumulated by the Obasanjo administration in 2007 (with another $40 billion plus) meant for investment in key infrastructure like electricity, railways, deep seaports and gas pipelines required to diversify our economy and polity from oil addiction. Second was the unequivocal and resounding defeat of a sitting president and his party, and the election of a president respected within Nigeria and abroad for his honesty, integrity, forthrightness and discipline. The fact that the 2015 elections and their outcomes were largely peaceful said a lot about what we are capable of as a country when collectively determined to do the right thing. The other was the plague of an economic crisis, occasioned by the global economic slowdown and the consequent collapse of oil prices. 

This situation was made worse by the previous administration’s inability to build healthy reserves when the oil price was much higher; maintain fiscal discipline or even govern with any notion of the paramount importance of maintaining the Nigerian state and its prerogatives. You will all recall that the excess crude savings and reserves accumulated by 2007 were during a period when oil prices were in the sub-$80s, yet even when they peaked at $140 per barrel, nothing was saved and every penny of the savings inherited were spent or diverted with little or nothing to show for it – this translated into blowing over $200 billion in the Yar’Adua-Jonathan years with no tangible outcomes. Corruption levels and impunity escalated during the period as well, and this time it even involved some women – another new and unprecedented disappointment as it is generally assumed that women are reliable, more honest and hard working than men! This is just a short background to a situation we need to confront and resolve as a country. It will take years for the extent of damage done to our economy to be unraveled and even longer to fix.

The federal and state governments, along with businesses, whether represented here or not, must focus and re-energise our domestic production capabilities, thereby creating jobs, manifesting progress and hope that then promotes peaceful existence.

The opportunities we lost as a country to build the critical infrastructure that would have diversified our economy and driven real and lasting economic development; the chances we had of laying the foundation for an inclusive and fair society; the prospects we lost of building a prosperous and one of the top-ten economies in the world by 2020 – all these were frittered away by leadership incompetence, driven by greed and a total lack of appreciation of the purpose of governance and public service. But we cannot continue to remain fixated on who did what or who didn’t. The task of rebuilding our polity and economy is a collective responsibility of all of us, particularly those elected to chart a new path. Without any doubt, the mood, pace and policy direction set by political leadership matters more than any single issue and that we must do clearly and urgently. 

Let us leave the appropriate anti-corruption agencies of government, the media and the Courts to be busy dealing with the recent past – and they will clearly remain busy for a while – trying to get to the roots of the decade long institutionalisation of graft. The federal and state governments, along with businesses, whether represented here or not, must focus and re-energise our domestic production capabilities, thereby creating jobs, manifesting progress and hope that then promotes peaceful existence.

Need for Strategic Repositioning

What We Are Doing In Kaduna State

Incidentally, and based on the foregoing postulations, one area I think women in business should focus on is agriculture. The African Development Bank recognises that Nigerian women contribute close to 70 percent of the agricultural workforce yet get less of accruing returns. In Kaduna State, we are exploring options of empowering women in agriculture by easing access to credit and inputs and their active participation in agricultural value chains. 

The land reforms we initiated, resulting in the creation of the Kaduna Geographic Information Service (KADGIS) also aims to ease the ownership of land and finance. The service is in the process of digitising our land registry to facilitate quick grants, alienation and search of titles. As we seek to raise more revenues, we are assiduous in blocking revenue leakages, while creating opportunities for the new economy. It should come as no surprise to anyone here that the ADB’s ten year strategies (2012-2022) has placed high emphasis on gender equality and mainstreaming as prerequisites for African economic transformation and plans to proactively support women by developing unique tailor-made projects for women-led and women-dominated businesses in agriculture.
Rather than seeing these statistics of women in agriculture as a reason for complaint or despondency, I urge you all to see them as opportunities for strategic repositioning; an example being the interesting ancillary of our Primary School Feeding Programme that has empowered tens of thousands of women entrepreneurs in various levels of the agriculture value-chain involved in the feeding of nearly 1.8 million pupils every school day.

We recognise that women are the cornerstone of agricultural production, processing, marketing and utilisation in Kaduna State and that we would be unable to achieve any meaningful development without women. Women provide 70 percent of agricultural labour; 50 percent of animal husbandry related activities and 60 percent of food processing in Nigeria, yet have access to only 20 percent of available agricultural resources. In Kaduna State, almost 100 percent of all ginger farms are cultivated by women but not owned by them, and when owned, not in possession of statutory title. We hope to change that with KADGIS. Rather than seeing these statistics of women in agriculture as a reason for complaint or despondency, I urge you all to see them as opportunities for strategic repositioning; an example being the interesting ancillary of our Primary School Feeding Programme that has empowered tens of thousands of women entrepreneurs in various levels of the agriculture value-chain involved in the feeding of nearly 1.8 million pupils every school day. 

Also in Kaduna State, we are courting investors assiduously. We passed a law to create the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA) in December 2015. KADIPA is a one-stop shop to help investors establish in their business in Kaduna. We recognised that we needed to create or strengthen institutions to buoy our credentials as an investment destination. We have a new Tax Code that lists in one document all taxes and levies payable in Kaduna State, that appoints the Kaduna Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) as the sole collector of all government revenues, while criminalising any form of revenue collection in cash. This tax regime is intended to assure certainty to investors, eliminate multiple taxation and make internal revenue generation less prone to leakages. For the first time in the history of the state, KADIRS raised more than N1.6 billion as IGR in both June and July 2016. Our target is N4 billion monthly from 2017. These coping mechanisms for a state government are intended to allow us provide a modicum of public goods and get more of children into decent schools, reduce maternal and infant mortality and leverage on our comparative advantage in agriculture. 

In Conclusion 

On a final note, I wish to reiterate that though Nigeria is facing very challenging times, the difficulties we all confront daily – from the federal, states and local government councils, as well as small and big businesses and individuals – represent an opportunity to refocus, re-strategise and reposition our social structure, political system and the economy for greatness. And I am convinced that Nigeria will emerge stronger, more independent and more productive if not in the medium but on the long run. And that all this greatness will certainly be visible in my lifetime, by God’s Grace. 

Let no one doubt that Nigeria has the capacity, competence and mindset to achieve success. If we make the right, even if sometimes tough decisions, there is no doubt that the lessons learned from today’s numerous problems will form the bedrock of a great country of the near future. And I have no doubt at all that to a large extent, women – whether in business, at home, in the farm and everywhere are the backbone on which that transformation and growth will be based. That is why I have been positively biased in appointing women to senior executive positions in all my public service positions, from the BPE, the FCT Administration to Kaduna State government. All but a couple of the ones I had the good fortune to appoint and work with, met and exceeded all expectations in their focus, execution, dedication and integrity. I believe strongly that Nigerian women are our future.