Here We Go Again

It is a burden to discuss Nigeria when its future looks depressingly like a repeat
of its past. When lessons that should have been learned 33 years ago remain
unlearned. When rank and file Nigerians still expect a miracle like they did in
the past. When the messiahs of days gone by are expected to perform miracles
they failed to perform in the past.
Nigeria has had three general epochs since independence. The first was a
diversified economy built on agriculture. The second was an oil boom economy,
while the third is a post oil boom economy. We stubbornly remain in the third
epoch, refusing to transition.
The British established an economy based on cash crops. There was Oil Palm in
the Eastern Region, Cocoa and Rubber in the West and Groundnuts in the North.
It was impossible for all these commodities to fail at the same time. Government
had a relatively diverse source of revenues and the diversity of revenues was
matched by the diversity in governance: each region was relatively autonomous
and had significant freedom to make its own economic decisions.
This governance model of this epoch was not perfect (it wasnt kind to ethnic
minorities), but with a little bit of tweaking, it would have unleashed our innate
productive capacity a lot better than the governance model that was soon to
follow.
The next epoch was the oil boom era. Many commentators tend to focus on
Gowons our problem is not money, but how to spend it as the best description
of that era, but leave out the logic that led to the oil boom era model of
governance.
This era was a product of the Civil War. The people behind this model of
governance learned some interesting lessons from the Civil War. The most
important lesson they learned was no Emeka Ojukwus in future. By this they
meant no sub-national unit will ever again be powerful enough to challenge the
Centre, so they were willing to trade off everything, including economic viability
for an all-powerful and domineering Centre.
Fortunately for the advocates of this model of governance, there was a free flow
of easy oil money throughout the 1970s. This enabled them to push for even
more centralization, more appropriation of the resources of the Niger Delta and
the principle of sharing, not production as the only true unifying principle of
the Nigerian state. With a unitary system and readily available oil money there
was very little political incentive for economic diversification, so Nigeria emerged
from the 1970s with a less diversified and less responsive economic and
governance model than existed in the 1960s.
Nigeria had a hard reality check in 1982, the West wasnt going to sit idly by
and have its energy future dictated to it by OPEC. A drive for energy efficiency
led to reduced consumer demand, new oil prospects came on board. There was
now an over-supply of crude, crude prices began to plummet. Low crude prices
meant dwindling federal revenues and an economic disaster. The Nigeria of the
oil boom was gone, and the third, most enduring epoch; the post oil
boom/structural adjustment epoch was born.

As far back as 1982, it was clear to most informed observers that Nigeria needed
to make fundamental changes. The oil subsidy needed to go, the petroleum
sector needed to be deregulated and open for investment, states needed the
autonomy to make key economic decisions and the Nigerian Government needed
to be less dependent on oil revenues.
Yet 33 years after the rude shock of 1982, Nigeria is nowhere near to having a
federal government sustained by diversified sources of revenue. Each
constitutional change is even more committed to the principle of sharing and a
unitary state than the previous - the 1999 Constitution plumbs depths that were
unimaginable even in the 1979 Constitution (written in the heat of the oil boom).
The key question is; why is this so? The easy answer is the corruption, greed
and short-sightedness of the ruling elite. This is partly true, but there is a
deeper, more fundamental reason. The problem is generational.
The generation that came of age during the Civil War and emerged victorious will
not sacrifice the unitary state they built for anything, not even more diverse
sources of Government revenue. They understand that you cannot accomplish
economic diversity with very limited political autonomy, but are prepared to live
with that, while nibbling around the edges and we have lived with that for
the past 33 years.
Envisioning a new Nigeria with semi-autonomous sub-national entities and the
legal and regulatory framework to achieve economic diversification is a job for
another generation.
As long as the old boys are still around. It is not going to happen.