Undoubtedly,
the Nigerian people possess everything essential for successful nation
building. We have substantiated our worth, having demonstrated our capacity for
excellence in almost every field of human endeavour across the globe. We have
contributed directly and indirectly to the development of the most enviable economies
and stable societies all over the world and yet we, somehow, fluff every prospect
to work the same magic at home.
The
unfortunate truth is that there is a limit to what government can do directly
in these areas of training, reorientation, re-positioning and empowerment of
youth through direct employment. The statistics are indeed frightening. Over
50% of Nigerian youth are unemployed. Only a fraction of these are graduates.
Only a fraction of the graduates are employable. And on top of these disturbing
statistics, the number of people directly employed by the Nigerian government,
between 5% - 7% of the economically active population, is a drop in the ocean
when compared to those employed by the private sector.
So
why not empower the private sector, particularly the micro, small and medium
scale enterprises through favourable legislation which translates into policies that
protect and encourage economic growth? How about single digit interest rates
and tax rebates/holidays? How about better government patronage of local firms
since, in Nigeria, government is the biggest client?
The
ripple effects need not be imagined. The larger and stronger an enterprise is
encouraged to be, the wider its sphere of influence, the greater the number of
ancillary services and, ultimately, the greater its number of employees and
beneficiaries. It’s so purely rational you
could just as easily miss it. When businesses are encouraged to do
well, workers are better paid and will have more money. More money for workers,
more purchasing power; this means businesses will have more
customers. Increased quantity and quality of customers results in business
growth, and as businesses grow, they hire more workers.
The
frustration for many small and micro businesses in Nigeria stems from the fact
that, routinely, they are treated rather poorly. Banks are generally intolerant
of them. Their growth is severely hampered by too many inconsistencies in
government policies and programs. Why, I wonder, have erstwhile job creation
and youth empowerment programs initiated by successive governments
comprehensively failed, without exception? Yes, of course, we know corruption
plays a key role, in fact, a gigantic role; but what about the other factors?
How
on earth do you expect a group of persons with no personal experience or track
record in a particular industry to make an informed decision concerning whom to
empower, how to empower and where to empower? The banks in Nigeria have
consistently gotten it wrong. Granted there are the few exceptions of a handful
of successes, but these are more attributable to the creativity and diligence
of the entrepreneur than to the quality of judgement of the banks. Unfortunately,
the prevailing situation presents a somewhat unattractive spectacle.
In
the horticultural industry in Nigeria, I have developed a respectable
reputation as an efficiently creative problem solver and an effective project
director. I am the Grand Patron to the Association of Flower Nursery and Landscape Practitioners, Abuja (AFNALPA), currently the largest umbrella group in the horticultural industry in the Federal Capital City. Although I own a nursery and propagate plants, I must admit that plant
propagation is not my passion. I am more inclined to the areas of creativity
and design and project management, areas that some of the best plant propagators
and nursery owners that I know are severely limited in. We each know and appreciate
each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and operate strictly within the various
latitudes of our comparative advantages. An outsider, with no inside knowledge
of the industry, would be easily outclassed by any one of us. Even if they were
to come in armed with lots of capital, it would certainly be lost, sooner than
later. We witnessed a lot of that with the YOUWIN youth empowerment scheme. We
have been seeing quite a lot of it for decades.
Why,
again, is it that small businesses are considered “fair game” by authorities
and consequently overtaxed and grossly over-regulated? Transparency
International describes petty corruption as the “everyday abuse of entrusted
power by low and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary
citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like
hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies.” What is it that
creates and foments the us versus them
mentality between the public officer and the private business owner? Is it not
ironic that the same government that preaches job creation permits conditions which
hamper the progress of Nigeria’s most prolific job creators – the micro and
small businesses? Purely on a whim, with
the cursory stroke of a pen, the god-like public officer in Nigeria can attempt
to effectively terminate a business dream which took decades of time,
creativity, effort and capital to develop, abruptly consigning employer and
employee to the annals of corporate history.
Mercifully,
for every irascible, exploitative public officer that has accosted me with a
discourteous, “Any problem?” or a brazen, “Oga, you must shake body o,” I have also encountered the genial,
helpful and sincere alternative, who asks politely, “How can I help you, Sir?”
These exceptionally responsive public servants appear as bursts of sunshine on
otherwise dreary days. They treat others with the degree of dignity and respect
that they expect for themselves.
For a true renaissance in Nigeria, we must comprehensively
reexamine and reorient our values. We are a people of rich culture. We must
reinforce some of those shared excellent cultural values, while establishing
new ones. We must individually and collectively resolve, at this point, to
substitute vision for purposelessness, synergism for dissonance, dependability for
inconsistency, temperance for superfluity. Then, only then, can
we begin to dream of reestablishing light and order in the place of this
present darkness and chaos.
