Professor Chukwuma Soludo |
Professor
Soludo made this declaration while delivering a paper entitled: ‘Can a New Buharinomics Save Nigeria?’
at the third anniversary of RealNews Magazine
in Lagos. He therefore advised the Federal Government to declare an emergency
on industrialization in the country.
According
to the World Bank consultant, the present administration should establish a new
regime of competitive federalism; build and empower the nation’s institutional
framework; create an efficient and competitive market economy with a human
soul; fix the broken public finance and evolve a developmental exchange rate
strategy.
He
said: “Rather, the new ‘Buharinomics’ must articulate
the five big ideas/programmes to drive the vehicle of change. Where are the
iroko trees of the change mantra? Let me suggest that one of them should be a
national emergency action on industrialisation. Agriculture and solid minerals
are all primary commodities, subject to extreme volatility. If job creation is
the central objective, both sectors won’t deliver much over the medium term. Inasmuch
as the country needs to maximise the potentials of every sector in job
creation, including the hitherto dormant solid minerals sector and then
accelerate the transformation of agriculture, the overarching emphasis of the
APC manifesto on solid minerals and agriculture as its own ‘new economy’ is
misplaced.
“An Igbo proverb says that a person who sells a dog and buys a cat
still has a squatting animal in his house. Indeed, as we modernise agriculture
and its productivity rises, total employment in the sector declines, manufacturing
and services remain the key for the future. Nigeria’s urbanisation rate at 5.2
per cent per annum is one of the highest in the world, and with a rapidly
growing population and millions entering the labour market every year, creating
value-adding jobs for these clustering urbanites will be a fundamental
challenge.
“China is now running out of its rural cheap labour and
manufacturing wages are beginning to rise. To continue to compete, Chinese
firms will have to relocate to cheaper cost locations just like Japanese firms
relocated to many East Asian countries in a phenomenon called the ‘flying geese
model’. Nigeria must position itself to be the preferred location for these
flying geese. We need bold targets, a plan, and actions.
“Indeed, emphasis on solid minerals and agriculture could become
integral part of the industrialisation strategy as we should aim to export only
processed minerals and agricultural produce. For example, can All Progressives
Congress set a 20 year audacious agenda (2035) for Nigeria to achieve
manufacturing as share of GDP in the region of 30 per cent, and for
manufactured exports to account for at least 20-25 per cent of exports?
“It is a doable target, requiring activist governments at all levels
as promoters. To work, Nigeria would have to unleash state and regional
competition. Attempt to drive it from Abuja will fail as usual. The starting
point is to constitute urgently a team of out-of-the box thinkers to come up
with a seemingly ‘crazy plan’.”
No comments:
Post a Comment