Here I conclude the three-part series on the First Lady’s “brick-by-brick” submission by placing it in the context of the global system. This speaks to how the global system affects what a government does, how, and even the speed at which the government does it. The reality is that the conduct of economic policy has a template. Generally, how governments run their nations is informed by the template. A leader can do only so much outside this template before meeting with pushback from external forces, including investors. This point is to buttress my stated view that a Nigerian leader can’t do magic, rather they must build brick-by-brick and the public needs to know this.
As a backdrop, I submit that views which expect a transformation in everything at once inherently infer that governments do all things and provide all things. This is not the reality. If governments do all things then they can suddenly declare that fuel should be sold at N10 per litre, school fee should be N1 per session, and corruption should end overnight. Governments may also say transportation is free, one measure of beans is N3, one measure of rice is N2, a kilogramme of beef is N1, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd should refine all the fuel Nigerians need overnight. That’s magic. It doesn’t happen in a unipolar world where private sector ownership is the trend.
Do I sound conservative in this matter? Maybe I’m conservative regarding some issues and in others ‘radical’, even ‘toxic’ as some put it online when I point out what isn’t logical in their submissions. But I have to be conservative in this matter when it’s considered that our views tend to be informed by the training we have. For instance, bankers aren’t known to be ‘radical’; they’re conservative in managing depositors’ funds. The fact is that the realities of politics and political economy are sometimes not exciting, not excitable, or not agreeable. When I explain to people the required process in the area of governance in my private conversations, many are impatient. They hardly agree.
It happens when two people don’t have the same kind of training. Many judge by common sense and their desire for quick fixes. They feel governments should fix things like one fixes fast food. In reality, governance doesn’t work that way. Venezuela was an example where the immediate past president did quick fixes that were popular with the masses. However, the system collapsed disastrously after he left. Why? He provided quick fixes but he didn’t follow the process; he didn’t lay the foundation for his reforms brick-by-brick. His approach ran counter to the template known to the global economic system.
Now, well-trained political scientists won’t analyse like anyone from outside their field. As I’ve always stated, political science is the king of courses. You learn everything from politics to economy, to international relations, constitutional history, public administration, historical events, traditional rulership systems within different cultures etc. This gives you a holistic view of the polity; it’s a mountain-top view. You’re taught the process each segment of the polity follows. No other course taught in the university provides this much range of view. As such, and as I’ve always asserted, the political science graduate who comments based on emotion rather than process and relevant data isn’t well trained.
On this page, I like to state the reality, and here regarding the kind of leader Nigeria needs I do the same. My political science professors don’t expect less. And as my respected professor, Ayo Dunmoye, formerly of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, once warned me and my doctorate colleagues, “You can’t learn so much at this level and still go out there and talk like the unlearned.” One unrealistic proposition is to expect the leader of a nation to be a magician – that is in the sense of arriving office- wave a magic wand and all things become ‘transformed.’
Any effort at transformation has to be carefully planned, strategically undertaken, process after process, sector by sector, one step taken after another. No administration makes a complete work of these in every sector in four years, not even in eight. But to make it appear as if no government in Nigeria since 1999 has tried its hands in one sector or the other as some views present it is a fallacy. I explained issues that affected the efforts of governments in this regard as they pertained to internal dynamics in the past (See: “A System That Showed Buhari ‘Shege’” (1 & 2), The PUNCH, January 21 & 27, 2023), so here I won’t go into that aspect.
But I need to state that even leaders in Western nations can’t wave wands and transformation happens. They lay brick-by-brick. Sometimes, they’re hardly able to do anything beyond the existing order; they basically move things around within the order. It’s one reason they may lose or win election. Last year, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Liz Truss, arrived office eager to turn things around very fast for the sake of citizens who were under intense economic pressure. She had a budget presented that challenged a few things on the known template. But banks, investors, and the inevitable stock market (generally the private sector that drives the economy) reacted badly. Truss fired her Finance Minister, and she too had to go in the end. That’s for internal climate that can dictate what and how fast a leader hopes to bring about transformation.
Now, one can take this to the global stage. One of the things I was to learn in the course of my academic research was that the global system was so interwoven that limits were set to what elected leaders could do during their tenure without upsetting the apple cart. This is a phenomenon most citizens don’t get to be aware of, since boasting about their internal and external sovereignty is the fad among government officials. But external pressure is there. Wave a magic wand too hard in the name of transformation because you want quick fixes for your citizens, and stock prices in New York can send a government in Europe crashing from power. Since the end of the Cold War, the global economic system has had Western financial institutions solidly in charge. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, and some of the more powerful banks are at the heart of the global economy.
All it takes for your economy to experience hardship is for any of these Western institutions to issue a warning regarding the magic your president carries out to impress citizens. Once the Word Bank, for instance, sounds the alarm that a leader’s economic policy isn’t sustainable or declares it a voodoo policy, investors and governments across the globe take note. They become wary of your nation. Even retaining subsidy on petrol is an area these international institutions have frowned at in the case of Nigeria. The running or heavy funding of academic institutions by governments is frowned upon. Running transport system or subsidising it is frowned upon. Running a bloated government that’s configured to provide all the jobs for citizens is frowned upon. These are issues that directly affect the masses. Yet when a government doesn’t abide by what is acceptable in the global system because it wants to help the masses, there’re repercussions.
In the event, what does a government do? It focuses on its role as a policy maker, providing an enabling environment for the private sector to drive the economy. This is where the real transformation can be. Doing this requires legislative, administrative and sometimes judicial inputs. There are diverse internal challenges to be sorted out as well. Even when the government gets these things right, other issues on the global stage still have a say. War in any part of the world can present unforeseen problems, jeopardising a leader’s plan to do wonders. The global economic downturn can negatively affect government’s efforts within Nigeria. The list is endless.
We may expect transformation, but lasting transformation happens by carefully laying things brick-by-brick, not by magic. I assume the First Lady made her “brick-by-brick” submission based on her husband’s experience when he was governor of Lagos State. The reform he undertook then is still being built on today by his successors. I imagine the First Lady said what she said because she knew the president would repeat the same at the federal level.
