I am always fascinated by backstroke swimming. You can’t comprehend the incredible power of propulsion at the command of human limbs until you analyse a race in reverse gear, complete with the athlete’s natural compass which facilitates lane discipline.

Having watched recent developments regarding constitutional amendments and suggestions on changing from the current presidential system of government to the parliamentary mode from whence we came, I think it’s time we weaponised a proverb from our ancestors: If a forward march doesn’t get us to a satisfactory destination, there is no harm in returning to the original place from where we took off.

Parliament

Politically, we practiced the parliamentary system of government during the First Republic. It served us well. – if the developmental attainments of the period are compared to the last 25 years when we literally squandered our national wealth in the service of our newfound greed.

I don’t want this to be another panegyric on that great statesman, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the man who taught us that we were all sent to this world for a purpose and it is our duty to find that purpose and fulfil it instead of living a soulless life like a scavenging homeless pet.

During the First Republic, each region had its own style, its own vision and socio-political tempo. The Western Region tagged itself the pacesetter. Awolowo enforced the free education policy and personally motivated the people to aspire towards producing children the society could be proud of. One of the premier’s favourite quotes was the one in which he hoped that the son of his barber would, someday, by merit, emerge as a parliamentarian or a minister so that the cycle of poverty would not be passed from generation to generation.

To accommodate the increase in school enrolment, the number of primary schools rose from 3,550 in 1952 to 6,670 by the end of 1958. When the scheme was launched in January 1955, the number had increased by 430,432 to an unprecedented high of 811,432 children. Awolowo allocated an average of 35 percent of the total recurrent budget each year to education between 1954 and 1959.

What obtained in other regions was custom-made by their political leaders. Whereas primary education in the Lagos Colony was spread over eight years (Primaries One and Two followed by Standards One to Six), the primary education programme in the North took seven years. In the Eastern Region, it was six years.

Secondary education was a more uniform five-year programme, except that some elite schools made provision for Lower 6 and Upper 6 to pave the way for direct admission to the university. Premier Ahmadu Bello of Northern Nigeria designed a crash programme of mass education to produce the massive number of teachers and other professionals that the region needed. Incredibly, although a devout Muslim himself, he maintained a policy of ‘One North’ and did not encourage discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion.

The Western Region had the most advanced apprenticeship/skill acquisition system in which enrolees learnt various skills under a standardised system which culminated in ‘Freedom’, the equivalent of convocation. A tailor, mechanic or electrician upon graduation was regarded as a solid professional ready to face the world’s challenges. There was dignity in labour devoid of any inferiority complex.

Prosperity

In the Eastern Region, the redoubtable Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was succeeded by Dr. Michael Okpara in 1960. At 39, Okpara was the youngest premier in the entire federation. His political activism was fired, not only by the enthusiasm of youth, but also by ideological adrenalin. He was a proponent of what he called ‘pragmatic socialism’. He triggered an agricultural revolution in the Eastern Region to such an extent that young people were attracted to make a living through cultivating cash and food crops in farm settlements which the government facilitated.

Under his leadership, the Eastern Region was able to export £3 million of rice and other staple food items. He also embarked on a massive industrialisation scheme in Enugu, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Aba and Umuahia. As a medical doctor, he brought his knowledge to bear in the government’s fight to eradicate yaws and leprosy and also built new hospitals. The region had large deposits of coal and other minerals but Okpara ensured that he tapped the agricultural bounties of his region instead of depending only on minerals.

The quality of leadership that the regions had in the First Republic was high. That level of competence, passion, relative honesty and spirit of competition has never been seen in any part of Nigeria since then. No wonder Nigeria prospered. As the Western Region was exporting cocoa through its vibrant marketing boards and producing food in excess of requirement (even though the region had proven deposits of bitumen, gold, talc, lead and zinc, gypsum, bentonite and baryte, rock salt and iron ore); the Eastern Region has Uranium, Iron ore, glass sands, granite, clays, oil and gas, bauxite, lignite, tin and columbite.

In the North, nature has deposited  feldspar, limestone, kaolin, clay, potash, iron-ore, natural salt, uartz, magnetite, diatomite, trona, mica, silica sand, gypsum, granite chips, flutters earth and uranium, gemstones, marble, manganese, molybdenum, lithium, nickel,  industrial minerals, gold, cassiterite, tantalite, tin, wolframite, columbite, laterite, Green and yellow phosphate, etc.

Nigerians, no matter their region of origin, are literally walking on wealth! Of course, it is widely known that the former Midwest Region is sitting on not just petroleum resources but also quartzite, marble, gypsum, lignite, limestone, kaolin, graphite, manganese, Ilmenite, gravel,  industrial clay, silica, lignite, tar sand, decorative rocks, limestone, rubber, etc.

With all these possibilities, we continue to grope for a way forward. What were we doing that gave us so much prosperity, self-confidence and self- satisfaction? The regions are having to ask themselves some very uncomfortable questions.

Advancing Backwards

it is impossible to discuss the way forward for Northern Nigeria in the ongoing debate about the future of Nigeria without evoking the image of Premier Ahmadu Bello. Since his assassination in 1966, the region’s leaders have found it expedient to use his name to advance their causes but none of them has attempted, even remotely, to be an embodiment of the selflessness that the former premier personified. Today’s politicians live apart from their people in stupendous wealth.

No one was prouder of his region than Ahmadu Bello. He was so self-assured that he accepted or rejected ideas from other regions on the basis of their socially compatibility. Recently, an academic who has lived through Nigeria’s trajectory from the 50s to the present day tried to kick up the dust of controversy at a friend’s get-together.

“What would the Sardauna have said about so-called ‘Muslim states’ collecting VAT on alcoholic beverages consumed in other states, which is considered “Haram” (i.e., forbidden) in Islam?” He asked.

The agent provocateur answered his own question: “Sardauna would have said the North can mine its minerals instead of mining proceeds of beer and liquor”.

One of the guests also declared that Awolowo would have disowned all those using his name to literally pick people’s pockets today. Not to be left out, their host asked: “Is there any politician from the Eastern Region or Midwest that one can compare with Okpara or Osadebey? We are all fielding our worst elements”.

To each argumentation its own logic! But there is a lot to be said for a system that made us prosper until we started behaving like spoilt children.

Imagine a 100 metre backstroke dash! Any takers?

The conclusion of the whole livestock matter here is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can get better rating without involving media blitz if he can harness the human capital and indeed the intellectual power in Nigeria to address the challenges people are agonising about. And here is the thing, the choice of a disciplined intellectual, Professor Attahiru M. Jega from inception of the Livestock Development Agenda till the present has enhanced credibility and knowledge development that is about to change the narrative about wealth and job creation in Africa’s most significant country, Nigeria.

The paradigm shift in Livestock sector that some public intellectuals and technocrats have revived is what our leaders should learn from at this time. They should not play politics with the power that knowledge can give them in the public space. The Livestock Ministry is lucky to have had a solid database and well-documented blueprint of deliverables. All that is needed now is a discipline of getting things done – execution. There is a framework for that as documented in a public service record during the Obasanjo’s second coming (1999-2007). There is a White Paper on consolidated Shonekan- Edozien reports, which birthed the consolidated salary structure in federal public service in the country. The White Paper approves a “Rare Skill Salary Structure” in the public service. The peculiar salary structure that only very few have used empowers the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) to attract experts from the private sector without disrupting the extant salary structure.

What this means is that experts from even the oil and gas industry or blue chips can be headhunted if such skilled workers and technocrats can’t be found in the public service. The takeaway from here is that there is room for the new Ministry of Livestock Development to obtain presidential permission to recruit animal scientists, veterinary doctors, extension services and agricultural economics experts, among other scientists and experts that can solidify the infrastructure of the new ministry of livestock development. That is the only way the superstructure of livestock development can be reliable.

As I was researching this piece, I saw this quote from the President of African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, unarguably one of the best Agriculture Ministers Nigeria has ever had. The quote:
‘…The future millionaires and billionaires of Africa will not be coming from oil and gas sector, they will be coming from the agriculture sector. But I want

African countries to be looking at agriculture as a business, not as a way of life. Nobody smokes gas, nobody drinks oil, but everybody eats food. So food is critical and that is what Africa has a comparative advantage in…’

Dr. Adesina, now emerging as the most successful President of the African Development Bank, (AfDB) now in journals of Development Banking as the most successful Development Bank in global context, isn’t a stranger to the agriculture sector. He was reportedly headhunted for the Jonathan administration as Agriculture Minister by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Until his appointment as Agriculture Minister in 2011, he was Vice President of Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, (AGRA). He was elected President of AfDB in 2015 and re-elected a second term in 2020. This is a good example of the quality of human capital required by leaders to drive human progress and development.

Dr. Adesina the 8th President of the African Development Bank Group is a globally renowned development economist and agricultural development expert, with more than 30 years of international experience. A bold reformer, as Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria from 2011-2015, Dr. Adesina turned the agriculture sector of Nigeria around within four years. Under his tenure, Nigeria ended 40 years of corruption in the fertiliser sector. That was the attraction to President Buhari and others in May 2015. A firm believer in private sector-led growth, Adesina, radically changed the perception of agriculture in Nigeria from that of subsistence to a viable business that successfully attracted $5.6 billion in private sector investments.

The Adesina example of public intellectuals in governance is one of the reasons the Livestock Ministry should not be filled with poorly educated anyhow graduates the politicians have always supplied the Nigerian bureaucracies since 1999. The quality of members of the Jega Committee on Livestock Reforms too should reflect in the foundation of the purpose-driven Ministry of Livestock Development that the nation expects to be a difference maker, in this regard. Let’s conclude with just the bio data of some of the public intellectuals and technocrats who are currently shaping the revival of livestock development through the Presidential Committee.

Professor Attahiru M. Jega, current Pro-Chancellor, Usman DanFodiyo, University, Sokoto, was chairman of INEC,. He was Vice-Chancellor, Bayero University, Kano, He was the Chairman of the National Conference on Livestock Reforms and Mitigation of Associated Conflicts in Nigeria, (2023) He is the Co-Chairman of the Presidential Livestock Reforms Implementation Committee (2024); Professor Yahaya Mohammed Kuta, former Secretary to the Government of Niger State, a product of the University of Ibadan, is a Professor of Agricultural Extension and Development Communication, University of Ibadan; a member of the University of Maiduguri Governing Council, coordinated the National Conference on Livestock Reforms and Mitigation of Associated Conflicts in Nigeria (2023) and he is the Secretary of the Presidential Livestock Reforms Implementation Committee; Professor Placid Chike Nwosu, former Deputy Governor of Imo State, an animal scientist of repute, was the first Vice-Chancellor Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, first President, Nigerian Institute of Animal Science; Professor Eustace Ayemere Iyayi, Humboldt, Fulbright and Royal Society Scholar is a Professor of Animal Science; a former Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ibadan, is the immediate past Registrar/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Institute of Animal Science.; Professor Demo Kalla, is a Professor of Animal Science at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi; He is the Focal Lead, Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Office, Technical Lead on Climate Smart Dairy Value Chains and the ATBU-TET-Fund Centre of Excellence on Food Security; Professor Andrew Babatunde Omojola, a Professor of Animal Science, is the current Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ibadan; a former two –term Director of UI Teaching and Research Farm; Professor Nkiru Meludu Theresa, President of Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria is a Professor of Food and Nutrition Security at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka;

Professor Abdullahi Mustapha, Director General/CEO of National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), is a Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry. He is a member of Nigerian Institute of Chartered Chemists and Royal Society of Chemistry, U.K; Aishatu Abubakar Baju, who holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from ABU, Zaria and another Ph.D from University of Plymouth, U.K is an Assistant Inspector General of Police; Professor Olorunfemi Cornelius Jegede, a Professor of Veterinary Parasitology and Former Dean of Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Abuja is a statutory Member Veterinary Council of Nigeria, Professor Joshua Edet Udoh, a Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Uyo, has over 23 years of teaching, research and leadership experiences within and outside the University; He is a member of Nigerian Economic Society and Nigerian Association of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Society of Nigeria; Professor Abdullahi Muhammad Yau, a pastoralist who holds B. Sc; M.Sc; PGDE, P.hD degrees from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom is a Cybersecurity Expert who specialises in AI Algorithms in the Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA); Dr. Mustapha Ayodele Popoola, a seasoned expert in Animal production and biotechnology holds a Ph.D in Reproductive Physiology with specialisation in genetic resources management and another Ph.D in Project Management from the Commonwealth University.

He currently serves as Special Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security; Dr. Rabe Isa Mani, who holds B.Sc; M.Sc; Ph.D from New Mexico University U.S; University of Ibadan, and University of Melbourne, Australia, all in Animal Science, retired as a Director at the Federal ministry of Agriculture, served the FAO of the United Nations for 10 years; Dr. Saleh Bashayi Momale who holds a Ph.D in Geography and M.Sc in Land Resources from B.U.K, is currently Executive Vice Chairman, Kano State Peace Commission; he has served as Technical Adviser, Livestock to the Minister of Agriculture (2019-2021) was a senior lecturer at the Centre for Dry-land Agriculture, B.U.K; Dr. Junaid Yakubu Muhammad, a Veterinary Public Health Specialist has academic background and expertise in livestock disease prevention and management.

He has managed several World Bank and ISOB-funded projects and was Kano State Agricultural Authority; Dr. Salim Musa Umar, founder and Chairman of Farmers and Herders Initiative for Peace and Development is an alumnus of Equitas Human Rights Training, University of Montreal, Canada; a former Special Adviser to two former Governors o Plateau State on Community Relations once serves as Nigeria Advisor to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue on Farmers and Herders in Nigeria; Dr. Aliyu Usman Tilde who hold a Ph.D in Agronomy and a Law degree has been an ardent breeder of livestock and currently among leading milk processors in Nigeria.

Others include Uthman Muhammad, former Nigerian National Representative to OPEC, former GM, and Head NNPC London Office, is an engineer and FNSE. He has served in several capacities as Chairman of Herders Relocation to Existing Grazing Reserves; Jibrin Yunus once served as an Assistant Livestock Superintendent in Borno State Ministry of Animals and Forest Resources (1990-1991), served as an Immigration Officer in Internal Affairs Ministry, a former Secretary Alhayah Cattle Breeders Association (1999-2005, Caretaker Chairman All Farmers Association of Nigeria; Mrs Winifred Ifeoma Lai-Solarin, is a seasoned livestock policy, programme, planning and management expert with 34 years of national and international experience; currently a Director in the Ministry of Livestock Development, she was Director of Animal Husbandry in the old Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. She is a doctoral student of Animal Science and Malam Aminu Murtala Nyako, is the Managing Director International Farms Limited, Yola, Adamawa State. A first-class graduate of Economics and Finance of the Pennsylvania State University, and M.Sc in public policy from Georgetown University, U.S; Aminu pioneered the Sebore Agro-Industrial Free trade Zone. This is how our leaders should freeze politics and face governance fairly with citizens who have knowledge, integrity and courage to deliver public service to the people.

The Nigerian Tribune was established in 1949 by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Being seventy-five years old in 2024 and hence achieving the status of Nigeria’s privately-owned newspaper in Nigeria is a testament not only to the foresight of Chief Awolowo and the managerial acumen of those who have kept its legacies afloat all these years. It is also an indictment of all that have gone wrong with nation-building in Nigeria since independence in 1960. My time at the Nigerian Tribune was one of the best I had ever had in terms of intellectual stimulation and engagement. The editorial board meeting was always an intense one that task our critical perspectives on issues surrounding Nigeria’s economy, political status, democratic governance, international relations, and all sundry matters that relate with the founding vision of the newspaper. 

An editorial board that had the imprint of Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Aiyekooto Chief Olabisi Onabanjo, Abba Saheed Akogun Tola Adeniyi, Mr. Felix Adenaike, Mr. Biodun Oduwole, Mr. Folu Olamiti, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, Dr, Dokun Bojuade, Prof. Ebenezer Obadare, Prof. Wale Adebanwi, Prof. Farooq Kperogi, my colleague at the National Institute (NIPSS), Kuru, late Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, Edward Dickson, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, Debo Abdulai, Sina Oladeinde, Prof. Adeola Adenikinju, Dr Festus Adedayo, Dr Wale Are-Olaitan, and so many other worthy gladiators of the journalistic guild. The Nigerian Tribune had to guard its ramparts against an encroaching debilitation of journalism as the fourth estate of the realm. At the height of the administrative violence of consecutive military regimes in Nigeria, the press and the media became the whipping boys that were subjected either to the culture of silence under the jackboot, or were lured into the warm arms of corrupt tendencies. It therefore takes only a fearless newspaper to keep churning out editorials that are sufficiently pungent and incisive to retain the sense of what an intrepid and ethical journalism ought to look like. 

It was not surprising therefore that the Tribune would be one of the outlets for my intellectual restlessness and my coming of age in terms of reform advocacy. I was then a public servant that was struggling with the challenge of being a neutral and anonymous while also passionately trying to push the fundamental elements of institutional reform and administrative matters into the public consciousness. And being in the midst of eminent scholars, academics, journalists and personalities was all the encouragement I needed to contribute my own quota to the critical enunciation of what ails Nigeria’s postcolonial status and how it could be resolved. I am a development thinker and institutional reformer, and Nigeria’s predicaments cannot be divorced from the lackluster performance of her civil service system and its capability readiness to capacitate democratic governance. 

The significance and continuing relevance of the Nigerian Tribune cannot be dissociated from the ideological sophistication and foresightedness of Awolowo’s nationalism and patriotic commitment to the Nigerian state. Awolowo’s intellectual and political engagement with the Nigerian state was one of tough love. Even though for him, Nigeria was “a mere geographical expression,” it was the responsibility of Nigerian nationalists and statesmen and women to fill out its potentials and responsibilities to its masses of citizens. And Awolowo had to grab the dilemma of being a Yoruba leader and a Nigerian nationalist by the horn. Being Yoruba, in his reckoning was a necessary plank in holding up Nigeria to its plural essence, rather than a divisive ethnic element. To prove his commitment to fashioning a truly significant ideological framework that would ground democratic governance, Awolowo insisted on democratic socialism as Nigeria’s ideological way out of her postcolonial national morass. 

Democratic socialism is a unique ideology. For democratic socialists, capitalism cannot be trusted to guarantee essential freedom and equality. Hence, there is the need for the state to interfere in the economy while also facilitating political and economic democracy. Awolowo’s brand of democratic socialism is even more unique. He advocates a limited form of social or public ownership of resources and a decentralized system that permits limited central government. This fits into his understanding of the plural nature of the Nigerian state and the significance of a federal system that allows the federating regions and states to develop at their own pace. The state and its federating units must however facilitate state-led infrastructural development that channels the state’s resources into education and others. 

A good ideology requires a mouthpiece that could stand as a critical intermediary between the state and the society, and between the government and the governed. The Nigerian Tribune, within Awolowo’s governance and political vision, was supposed to constitute a gadfly that continually and consistently sting the government of the day into incessant awareness of its responsibility to the masses. Awolowo was convinced of the relevance of his ideological predisposition for the political well-being of the Nigerian state, and so he was determined to pursue that ideological imperative through the establishment of a privately owned newspaper as a platform for disseminating the elements of democratic socialism, critique consecutive governments on their many governance deviations, and keep alive the challenge of making life meaningful for Nigerians. 

Of course, we cannot turn a blind eye to the immediate reason that led to the establishment of the Nigerian Tribune—a reactive development that sought to counteract Nnamdi Azikiwe’s West African Pilot and its ethnic triumphalism. That was the prerogative of Awolowo and the rest of the Yoruba political class, to undermine the self-righteous pursuit of Igbo nationalism by Azikiwe. However, it was not only Azikiwe that suffered the untoward consequences of a devastating critical pen. The Tribune was also deployed in the internal rivalry between Awolowo and S. L. Akintola, Awolowo’s nemesis in the Western Region. The unfortunate result is the role that the newspaper played in stoking the fire that conflagrated the region. But the Awolowo-Akintola could also be seen from an ideological perspective, the conflict between democratic socialism and the capitalist path favored by Akintola. And it would seem that Awolowo won out because he understood the power of the media, and Tribune not only constructed Awolowo as he wanted to be constructed, but also constructed the ideological reality he wanted Nigeria to adopt for betterment of the people.   

The Tribune’s metamorphosis over the years is a testament to its sturdy resilience and a self-reflexive capacity to keep rethinking its objectives within the context and challenges in time and space. While other competitors of a bygone era had been swept under the carpet of history, the Tribune has nestled itself into relevance through a consistent articulation of the relevance of Awolowo’s nationalist call for a responsible government with an ideological vision for making Nigeria work for Nigerians, thus conferring on it the remarkable garland of being Nigeria’s oldest privately-owned newspaper. And that essentially is its own legacy especially in a generation that is technology-driven and social media focused. The influence of the social media today speaks to a form of epistemological relativism that challenges the significance of truth. The social media fragments reality in a way that has implications for journalism. Now, everyone with a phone and internet-access can report any news from any angle and perspective. The sensational rated by virality has obliterated the objective. 

The critical question is how do we begin to understand journalism in a context of postcolonial political predicament and in a post-truth world? Can journalism afford to be dragged into the turbulence of post-truth reporting? While not discountenancing the significance of social media as a platform for resistance and political mobilization, we cannot also ignore its capacity for the fragmentation of fact and the capacity to sensationalize truth. When we situate journalism between the ethical responsibility to mediate influence and facilitate action, then we immediately see how journalism is conjoined to ethics; indeed, we see how journalism that lacks ethics becomes a dangerous handmaid of a post-truth world. We begin to see the dire challenges of reporting the facts within a postcolonial context like Nigeria where facts are sacrosanct to the determination of the well-being of Nigerians and the forging of a strong nation. Outside of an ethical responsibility to gatekeep journalism, what happened as the crisis of the Western Region becomes almost inevitable in a state experimenting with democratic governance and needing an ethical journalism to make sense of it.     

This is where it makes sense to locate the future prospects of the Nigerian Tribune in contemporary Nigeria. To overcome its sordid past and consolidate its current achievements, the Tribune must situate itself at the forefront of ethical journalism that keeps alight the ideological underpinning of the role that journalism can play in articulating the imperatives of democratic governance, the challenges of serving as a watchdog that consistently put democracy under vigilance, and the necessities of gatekeeping the professional ethic of patriotic journalism. Henry Anatole Grunwald, former United States ambassador to Austria, aptly sums the dilemma of journalism in today’s world: “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.” 

Traversing the line between virtue and vice, for journalism in Nigeria today, demands a significant reflection on the governance structure of any newspaper. In its contemporary iteration, the Nigerian Tribune seems to have hit upon a critical understanding of staffing eminent personalities, from academics and scholars to astute journalists and editors with the acumen for excellence. It is to the governance structure one must then look for a consistent objective that navigate the terrible terrain of politics with an ethical compass and the standard of objectivity. This is both the legacy that the Nigerian Tribune has left for print journalism in Nigeria, and the responsibility it must keep shouldering to uphold its service to democracy.  

When I do my quick sweep of WhatsApp group platforms I am looking to see trending issues worth the pause for a read. Recently I found the Tax Reform package going through the National Assembly trending. But I was reluctant to give the postings a good read for reasons of a sense of Deja vous, have I not seen this before, until verbal altercation by two people I know well made me try to find out what they were quarreling about. I then read the package of bills in which were some progressive, and problematic, proposals, from my perspective. The bigger concern, I thought was that we seem to be quarreling about the less important things. There are, in my view more consequential matters for a developmental state disposition from the bill that we seem to be losing in Nigeria as we focus on who gets more of revenues from taxes.

The main issues on equity in collecting and sharing revenues which seem to dominate the exchanges I saw, sort of reminded me that I have grown old with too little accomplished. This is because I entered the public sphere in Nigeria, in the eyes of those who missed my student activism and youth corps journalism days, around the subject of taxation.
I had just returned from Grad school in 1982 and then NTA DG Vincent Maduka had asked them to put me on TV. On that first NTA network interview I lamented the fact that we did not pay taxes and how that resulted in poor governance.

Going back to the Boston Tea Party revolt of no taxation without representation I made the point the appetite to holding government accountable was low because there was no endowment effect’ of ‘oh why are they spending my money like that’. We left government alone and did not demand accountability because they did not demand that we pay taxes and they left us alone because Oil revenues were there for them to play with and we did not bother them because we did not see the money as our money.
The Centre had, in my view, at the time consolidated abuse of federalism the military created, and played games to hand out prebends to stakeholders seeking a share of the national cake, phenomenon Richard Joseph had called out as Bureacratic Prebendalism, in his writings, beginning with his book Prebendal Politics in Nigeria. This I argued was killing the growth spurred by what Robert Melson and Howard Wolpe had called competitive communalism that drove the manufacturing surge between 1957 and Independence, in the competition between the subnationals on who would most bring progress to their people. This phenomenon had outcomes like Kaduna becoming the hub of Nigeria’s Textile industry and Ikeja and Aba trading factories of companies like Pfizer. The outcome was bottom up competitive economic growth in early first republic.
I went on to talk about what to do to revive taxation and issues of horizontal and vertical equity in tax policy.

Then Vice President Alex Ekwueme was apparently one of those watching tv that night and he made sure he sent people out scouting for me.
Sad that 42 years after we are having this kind of conversation on taxes still hooked on the prebendal obsession with who is getting what in an economy that is not producing. What we are taxing is direct and indirect rent from Oil. All this can work up to from experience and continuing evidence is pillage by the powerful and further underdevelopment. In ways the package may negate the fiscal responsibility laws former finance minister Ngosi Okonji- Iweala pushed unto the law books.
Even more important a question for me, having observed the policy process for four and half decades, is whether tax revenues improve the well being of society.
Good insight comes to this from Local governments in the fiscal transfer arrangements.

In the Independence constitution local governments were not part of the fiscal transfers. They were just administrative discretions of the region. The Eastern and Western Regions chose to have more LGAs than the Northern region. There were no revenue consequences of these preferences.
By the time the Obasanjo reforms took place in 1976, LGAs would not only get a share of federally collected revenues but 20.9% of those revenues.
The powerful began to create more LGAs to their areas to get more revenues. We ended up with 774 LGAs with nearly twice as many in the old North compared to the old order when the South, had many more LGAs

For me to whom the bottom line is the welfare of the average person is the bottom line, is there evidence this increased flow of revenues has improved lives. To the contrary the North where I grew up with pride, has become poorer with higher revenue flows. Like the lottery effect where the poor man who won the lottery is often quickly back where he started the revenue flows effect throws up new questions.
This is why the tax reform issues debate sounds like the running water of a distant stream to me.

Revenues in unreformed Nigeria with state capture at the fore and cost of governance in the stratosphere do not have a developmental consequence. They instead deepen corruption and desperation for political power, all adding up to disaffection with the state and more violence, banditry, kidnappings and insurgences.
I think we should begin to focus more on retreating production. How do taxes stimulate production? The supply side needs to be king. And citizen control of politicians and their impunity of conduct need to follow closely. We should also move past this zero sum game in which anything that seems to benefit one group is seen as loss by another.
It reminds me of a comment I made in an interview with Richard Dowden that was published in the Economist in 1996. I suggested that if the Generals and politicians could be given an Island with complete access to Nigeria’s Oil revenues on condition they never have anything to do with the country Nigeria would be better of. The Economist in its tradition of subtle commentary said of my remarks: fair comment.

I have engaged other issues in this space more recently. In one of those I pointed to need for care in issues of tax to GDP ratios prescribed by multilaterals. This is because they may not be sensitive to sociocultural realities. The citizen in Nigeria’s extended family system pay a huge social tax to make up for the social safety nets not provided as done by governments elsewhere. We therefore need to compute these things differently especially where tax policy aims to allow for savings that are invested to generate new ventures. I say this bearing in mind that one of the major contributions to this thinking was Arthur Laffer with the Laffer Curve that was an anchor for supply side economics and that Arthur Laffer gave credit for the equation that the thesis was based on to a Nigerian PhD student of his back in the 1970s.

We have to have systems that discipline government spending and brings in civil society in a regime of checks, as the legislature has gone rogue and is part of state capture, and where the idea of the developmental state, as Omano Edeghije laments,has been eclipsed before traditional prescriptions of Debt to GDP ratios make sense.
This indeed brings to the fore the point James Robison made on CNN last month when he was announced one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics that Economic Development is an intensely political process. Throwing out debt to GDP ratios and pushing for increasing task revenue may just be like Washington Consensus and SAP policies which reasonable in theory led, for example to the despoiling of Nigeria’s educational system that was the very anchor of early progress. A political class that understands and cares is imperative for progress.

To conclude, in my experience revenues do not a Nigerian group make better. So anyone can keep the revenues if they promise to leave those who want to toil for a better life alone.
Pat Utomi