Charles O

Conversations with a Confraternity of Naija Brothers: Part I

Posted October 20, 2007 · Charles O

Wherever we Nigerians gather, the conversation inexorably devolves into lamentations about the deplorable Nigerian state-of-affairs. I met with a number of young Nigerians at a Southside jazz club yesterday; I document, here, some of my perspectives on the range of topics we touched on.

Of Potentials

Everyone knows it: Nigeria is the largest (that is to say, most populous) African nation. The latent potential that is locked in that country’s human resource is nothing short of confounding. Think how China and India have both in their own ways leveraged their massive population strengths to position themselves as major players on the world stage. But, Nigeria is yet to get even the mere prerequisites for qualifying for the “world stage” together: economic policies that engender the oft-mentioned “enabling environment”; a stable society that guarantees even a mere modicum of security of life and property; reliable infrastructure (electricity, water, telecommunications, water, roads, etc.); functioning social services (health, education, tourism, culture, etc.), and so on.

The Incentive to Maintain Business As Usual

My political orientation rests on the firm belief that the average person, being rational and all, is driven by a system of incentives. Every action he takes from awaking in the morning to retiring at night is driven by a complex construct that promises rewards or threatens undesirable outcomes. We choose to attend school, pursue a vocation, marry, bear children, invest for retirement, and so on because we are driven by certain incentives to do so.

So the answer to the question of why our “leaders” fail to do the right thing (even if/when they clearly know what it is) is that there is zero incentive for them to do so. As I have had another occasion to point out, our public officials’ incentive is to retain the status quo, as is. Business-as-usual assures them of sustained and unfettered access to public funds and the commingling of those funds with their offshore accounts.

In addition, governments, in general, have no incentive to be efficient. In fact, the preponderance of evidence is that governments’ incentive is to be the diametrical opposite—that is, inefficient. Consider two arbitrary government ministries with a budget of 250 million and 500 million respectively. On the basis of budget allocation, which minister (i.e., head of ministry) would you imagine has more power? Now imagine that the minister that controls the 500 million naira budget can actually (effectively) run his ministry with 150 million (if he is to be efficient). Do you think he would do it?

Understand that if our minister chooses to make himself a glorious example of efficiency, spending only 150 million, and returning 350 million to the national coffers, two things will happen: (1) next year, his budget will be reduced to 150 million—perhaps less (since he’s proven himself to be such an efficiency expert), and (2) the power and influence that came with his previous (monstrous) budget will diminish to the same—or greater—degree as his budget. (Let not even talk about the ill-feeling our efficient and incorruptible official would have generated among his colleagues by the mere act of being honest!)

Would the Nigerian public official take the moral highroad?

No. Any Nigerian politician in office today, even if he were able to wring any efficiency out of the system at all, would likely pocket the 350 million change, lobby for and/or insist on an increased budget the following fiscal year, and retain the clout that comes with the control of a massive budget.

The point here is that the current crop of “leaders” are beneficiaries of the warped system; in fact, it is because the system is so warped that they are able to visit a debilitating abuse on it, in near-perpetuity. There is zero incentive for them to incorporate elements of fiscal responsibility, accountability, and transparency into the system, so they likely won’t.

How do we change the system?

The discussants’ recommendations (ranging from the moot to the explosive) appear to boil down to four options:

  • “New Blood”
  • Sovereign National Conference
  • Sanitize, Rawlings/Ghana-Style
  • Armed Revolt/Revolution

I’ll share my perspectives on each, in follow-up entries. In the interim, I encourage you to continue this discussion by posting comments below.

You might also be interested in:

Why Are Nigerian Public Officials Such Kleptomaniacs? Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Postscript: The concluding part of this entry: Conversations with a Confraternity of Naija Brothers: Part II.

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