The Triumph Of Corporatocracy In Nigeria | Tellwell Newspaper
Tellwell Newspaper, Abuja – Nigeria:
Dr. Bello Abba Ahmed
In his book, Confessions of an economic hitman, John Perkins (2004) painstakingly narrated the grand sinister strategies of the world super powers to continue subjugating developing countries through swirling them in to the Mariana trench of debt traps. Some economic hit men (EHM) who are highly paid professionals, reminiscent of snipers, are dispatched to the targeted country with the mission of luring them into accepting conditional loans from either developed countries, international financial institutions or multilateral corporations. These loans are strategically channeled into the coffers of giant corporations and few families that control the global economy in a Sicilian mafioso fashion, with the aim of turning the world into a global empire. This capitalist empire, remotely controlled by governments, banks and corporations is referred to as corporatocracy, and they promote their vested interests through manipulating politics, businesses, media and vast array of information. They connive with corrupt leaders of developing countries to perpetuate and sustain the rent seeking of their corporations.
Perhaps, this was how some economic hit men, in order to maximize their gluttonous exploitation of Nigeria’s resources, and entrap the country in perpetual economic servitude, enticingly packaged the deadly structural adjustment programme (SAP) that the country adopted in 1986. This ushered in the country’s paradigm shift from a more effective centrally-planned economy to the present chaos as a capitalist one. They cleverly indoctrinated the government on the hypocritical notion that government has no business with businesses, and our government gulped down the euthanasian pill, oblivious of its contraindications. SAP stipulates that the government should systematically withdraw from most of its responsibilities, particularly government owned enterprises (GOEs) and allow corporations to take over, and this should be financed through foreign loans from the World bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign governments. This was the genesis and possibly the revelation that misinformed the Nigerian government into believing that the term ‘subsidy’ is something obnoxious, abhorred and primitive. It was this mindset that ushered in the era of privatization and commercialization of government assets, latching onto the idea of a capitalist model and the demise of a centrally-planned economy.
Ever since, various administrations in Nigeria have keyed into the false notion that state failure can be augmented by a private sector-driven economy. All economic theories or models are governed by certain assumptions which are taken for granted. For instance, all economic theories assume governments to be accountable and responsible and have the will to improve the lives of majority of the people. Other issues of fundamental importance also taken for granted include provision of infrastructure such as roads, water, health services, electricity and security. Once any, or some, of these assumptions are violated the envisaged outcome of the theory may not hold. The moment corruption and vested interests are at play, as is the case with Nigeria, no any economic model, local or foreign, would elicit the desired result. In addition, neo-classical economic theory assumes that where the market fails in the efficient allocation of resources, the government steps in through various forms of injections, incentives, bailouts and subsidies to redirect the economy towards prosperity, as we witnessed recently during the global financial crises and the Covid-19 pandemic. Governments injected monies to save the system from total collapse, including salvaging the private sector from bankruptcy. This clearly buttresses the role of government as the main engine of growth and development, particularly see in developing countries like Nigeria.
It is the cardinal function of the government to regulate and monitor all economic activities as well as strengthening and supporting weak businesses and incentivizing the strong ones. Ideally, government should provide exemplary leadership and set the standard by managing its agencies effectively and efficiently for the private sector to emulate. In Nigeria, unfortunately, the reverse seems to be the case, the private corporations are relatively run better than government agencies, as such the government lacks the audacity to enforce standards. For instance, private schools, private hospitals, private firms operate far better than the public ones. The Nigerian government has made it a tradition to use corruption as an alibi to privatize strategic public enterprises in conformity with the dictates of corporatocracy, especially that the country is heavily indebted by more than N40 trillion ($100bn). That is, more than its budget for three years or about 20% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Richard Wright would have coined it “…the sharp currents of corporatocracy could be seen in the whorls of debts twisting like miniature tornadoes in Nigeria”. If corruption is the perpetual justification for privatization, then sooner than later we may have to privatize the police, defense, judiciary, legislature, state governments, including the presidency itself because all these agencies are not exempted from corrupt practices as evidenced from the multiple cases uncovered by the EFCC. And then we would see what other functions will be left for the government to perform. Or perhaps why not just take the bull by the horn and surrender the whole government to privatization too. I am pretty sure the Chinese can afford it and, of course, the package should include all of us, since we are all unwholesomely corrupt too.
However, it’s not a crime to have foreign and domestic corporations thriving in an economy, particularly in Nigeria where investment capital is limited. Corporations have the capacity to generate employment opportunities and create wealth, thus promoting the growth of GDP and standard of living. It’s also not totally insalubrious to allow corporations to take over government owned enterprises in the name of privatization even though public private partner (PPP) could be regarded as a better option. However, the yardstick should be, will the social benefit outweigh the social cost? Will Nigerians have better effective service delivery that is affordable, accessible and more qualitative at the end of whatever is privatized? These questions readily came to my mind because we are still missing and mourning some wonderful GOEs that died or became worse soon after their privatization, such as NITEL/MTEL. In 2018, the Bureau for public entreprises (BPE) reported that since its inception in 2004, out of the 142 privatised public entreprises 37 per cent of them (52) are not performing due to the poor business environment in the country, leading to most of them closing down or relocating to neighboring countries (Premium Times, 20th February, 2018). This has resulted in colossal retrenchments and job losses to possibly millions of Nigerians. Do we need an angel to come down from heaven and tell us this formular isn’t working? I am sure we are still mourning our beloved corporations such as NITEL, MTEL, the Electricity Meter Company of Nigeria in Zaria, the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN) and NEPA. And now NNPC. Our graveyard of fame for public entreprises is continuously flourishing with big names.
In conclusion, corporatocracy is a new economic order that ensures developing countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East, Pacific Islands and Latin America remain underdeveloped, backward, subservient, and indelibly indebted to World Bank, IMF and developed countries in Europe and America, and now China. The world is in perpetual fierce economic warfare in which the inspiration is drawn from the imperialistic rule ‘…beggar thy neighbour…’, that is, make sure your neighbour becomes your beggar. As such, it is perilous for Nigeria and indeed other developing countries to assume that every economic policy that comes from the West is divine and altruistic. The sooner we start sieving and contextualizing polices to reflect our national needs and interests the better. Or on the flip side, the best strategy is to first have a formidable homegrown development policies, mobilise internal human and material resources towards achieving them and then, where necessary, scout for external finance whose conditions are less toxic to our economy and will fast track our sustainable development.
Ahmed wrote this piece from Federal University Dutse, Jigawa state.
