An article with the above title was first published on Monday September 20, 2021, but a need to revisit the topic arose from The Tide front page headline: Nigeria’s Economy On Brink of Collapse, NECA Alerts; (8/8/2022. The alert raised by the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) was not different from a similar surprise expressed long ago by a former head of state, General Ibrahim Babangida, about the resilience of the Nigerian economy. Surely the abuses, bashings and buffeting on the economy have been such that anyone would wonder how the nation is still able to survive. It is a delight, however, that the glaring signs of an imminent collapse are spreading faster and wider, such that even wolves themselves also join in crying wolf. How did we get to this point of economic haemorrhage! There is no way that current state of Nigeria’s economy would be examined without pointing fingers at the role of past military regimes, especially between 1970 – 1999, in the nation’s political economy. Neither would anyone deny an allegation of scrambles for the oil and gas resources, through oil block allocation during that period. Oliver Goldsmith in a poem titled The Lost Galleon said: “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills, a prey; where wealth accumulates, but men decay”.
A high-ranking military officer, now late, once said in a private conversation regarding “Abacha Loots: “Can we sacrifice our lives to keep Nigeria one, and not  seek for a reward, especially for those of us who survived the war?” Reluctant to leave the arena of politics, the military designed a constitution whose excrescences account for current Nigeria’s political economy.Euphoria of getting rid of military regimes accounts for why discerning Nigerians who knew implications of the military package of 1999, allowed a sleeping dog to lie. Today, it is obvious to some Nigerians that the National House of Assembly which includes the Senate, was designed as a stumbling block to changes. From possible impeachment of a president, to an approval of proposed Bills connected with the oil and gas industry, any discerning Nigerian can see political and economic shenanigans designed by professional strategists. Is it today, a few months to a change of tenure, that an impeachment fever would become most acute?  Were there not some grounds for impeachment long ago that were ignored? Current debt burdens hanging on the neck of the Nigerian nation are so heavy that the nation is listed among the first three most indebted nations on earth. Yet Nigeria was such a “father-Christmas” that huge donation in cash or cars could be made to a neighbouring country, purportedly to boost border security, when the masses are groaning because of hunger and insecurity.
More borrowing is being proposed as well as a hint of possible shrinking of the civil service, by encouraging workers to retire at the age of 50. Those earning N30,000 as monthly salary are already gittery, groaning. Corruption is a malfeasance common in Nigeria, whose mechanism includes abuses and taking undue advantages of public trust, confidence, mass ignorance, docility of the people and loop-holes in the society, even by those meant to protect the citizens. Such opportunistic tendencies have evolved to an entrenched parasitism, whereby Nigerians are at the mercy of smart and smooth operators, including monsters in clerics’ clothings. Nothing too sacred to be abused and exploited! Director-General of the Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Mr. Wale Oyerinde, would tell us that the economy is under the weight of an almost comatose aviation sector, stuttering education system, rising debt, depleting Foreign Reserve, etc. There had been gossips about how recovered loots were re-looted by those who recovered them, and of how the lawyers involved in such cases smiled happily to their banks. There are gossips also about state governors being on pension for life after 8 years official tenure, even when they become senators or hold other appointments.  Are there ex-military radicals and agitators being paid some huge allowances monthly to make them stay calm rather than “rock the boat” or disturb the polity? The status quo must remain!
Senator Shehu Sani once disclosed what scandalous allowances that Nigerian Senators collect monthly, even when their official salary is N700,000 only. As for State Governors, everything they live on is paid from public taxes, whereas security vote for each of them is as scandalous as the allowances associated with political office holders. Profligate spending on local and foreign travels both for official and private purposes take a huge chunk of the nation’s revenue. Free fuel consumption by political office holders is a part of rising fuel subsidy expense. With oil and gas as major sources of national income, that same sector of the economy is also the major theatre of revenue leakages. Despite the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act recently, it cannot be said that the shenanigans and malfeasance associated with the oil and gas sector have been addressed satisfactorily and transparently. Someone asked a vital question recently: “Why is the Kyari man still there in a privatised NNPC?” Whose interest is he protecting? Current value and exchange rate of the naira are not only alarming but also point towards some flaws in the Nigerian economy. If a public notary as late Captain Elechi Amadi, could say that the Nigerian nation does not place value on naked honesty, personal sacrifices and hardwork, can anyone not add that value is rarely given to patriotism?
Among the class of citizens most guilty in the causes of leakages in the nation’s economy, the elite count first, especially political office holders. Talk about unpatriotic attitude towards the groaning masses, Nigerian politicians stand tall. Talk about tax evasion and sharp practices in the political economy, political and economic elite are the smoothest operators. Neither can you beat them! Yet who are the worst victims and major burden bearers of a mis-managed economy, unemployment, poverty, insecurity, job losses, hunger and squalor? Surely, the helpless masses are the foremost. Current state of insecurity arising from activities of bandits and terrorists, surely undermine farming activities seriously. One of the results is that rural dwellers and traditional occupations have been systematically dislodged and placed in gross jeopardy. Ban on open grazing? It is not a hate speech to say that there is a bleak future for Nigeria, if current situations continue. Neither would it be correct to hold the groaning masses as being responsible for the leakages in the nation’s economy. Under the present sad conditions, would Nigerian masses be asking too much by telling their political leaders and over-lords to cut down their earnings and allowances by 50 percent, so that Nigeria may survive?

By: Bright Amirize

Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.