MANUEL AGBAKWURU
Anyone used to the famed subtlety and the etiquette of understatement which the British have since turned to a culture and art form, would see clearly the sheer arrogance and disrespect, bordering onracist condescension that permeated and oozed through the recent editorial of theFinancial Times titled ‘Shock Therapy Alone Will Not Cure Nigeria’s Economic Ills’. Such an editorial will hardly scale the barriers of most self-respectingNigerian online newspapers or even a mere blog, making one wonder how such an uncouth writeup made it into what is otherwise a respected global newspaper which has been in existence since 1888.
I will deal with the core issues in a minute, but first, it is important to consider the many intelligences of said editorial. When a newspaper decides to add its name, and the very integrity of members of its editorial board to statements like ‘(The President) removed a generous fuel subsidy, one of the few benefits citizens receive from their inefficient and corrupt state’ then this gives one cause for great worry. Was the newspaper engaging ona nation’s economy and policies that affect the wellbeing of peoples, or is this another subtle attempt by someone within to slyly vent their innate racist tendencies and entire disregard and disdain for a whole independent nation? That statement is at the same level as the one that was captured in a moment of indiscretion by former British PM David Cameron, as he told Late Queen Elizabeth that he was expecting some ‘fantastically corrupt’ nations at his anti-corruption summit in 2016. Nigeria was mentioned in that statement, too.
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The intention of the FT must be questioned, as it approbated and reprobated in a single editorial, when it veered off to lecture the world about how the same subsidies whose removal it had just excoriated in one statement was ‘necessary in correcting the country (Nigeria’s) long-term economic demise… (and was) ruinously expensive…distortionary, and channeling Nigerians’ energies into rent-seeking, smuggling and graft’. Knowing how unproductive the subsidies were, perhaps the FT believes that Nigerians were deserving of economic demise, or rather the people should harangue their ‘inefficient and corrupt’ government and collect subsidies onfuel since it was the only thing they could get? Is that how it is done in Britain and other so-called first world countries? Or perhaps to the FT that is what Africans deserve; immediate gratification and waste, and not a robustly rounded future.
And in another breath, FT skipped financialand economic issues and while dripping with uncharacteristic haughtiness, wrote that ‘Moving to more orthodox policies is vital to reset an economy…where one of the most lucrative industries has been kidnapping’. This statement would have been concerning if it wasn’t a cheap blow of a despicable bully. The point about the need to manage optics, carrying the people along, and so on, could be well made without descending to the gutter and broadcasting for the world that kidnapping takes place in Nigeria. Every country has its own issues and incidences of kidnapping has reduced drastically in Nigeria, even when knife crimes and phone snatching in posh streets have become rife in the UK. There is no point or space here to go into the histrionics of how Nigeria was infiltrated by international terrorists some of whom have backing from some of the most sophisticated nations onearth. All we ask for is to be allowed to solve our own problems without anyone digging into our wounds and infecting them for us.
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And what was that talk about corruption? A January 30th 2024 report in The Independent headlines ‘Britain Hits Lowest Ever Score on Global Corruption Index’. Another news item in Central Bylines UK goes ‘United Kingdom Corruption Officially at its Worst in Modern Times’. The FinancialReview calls it ‘Chumocracy’, following all the scandals that predated and preceded the Covid-19 pandemic and how multiple billion pounds contracts were awarded to chums (friends) of those in power. Indeed, who is Financial Times to talk about corruption in Nigeria when the UK itself is a global purveyor of corruption, maintaining territories around the world where corrupt money is laundered, tax-free, while London is built on illegal inflows into real estate from all over the world?
If Nigeria is deemed corrupt, it must be because there arelegacies our people learnt from departing colonial masters. And it is trite to note that as the UK is dropping onthe anti-corruption chart, Nigeria is improving; climbing 5 steps as at the same January 2024 above where she was in the same period of 2023. The same Britain is where the son of their former puritan PM Margaret Thatcher, Mark, was arrested in South Africa with his Eton chums, while trying to overthrow a government in Equatorial Guinea in 2004. Only the influence of ‘mummy’ got him out of that pickle. What could be more corrupt than sponsoring a coup or being a business mogul in that vocation? And what effect has several sponsored coups had onthe progress of African nations, or a lack of it?
Referring to the incidence in Kenya is tantamount to dog-whistling the violent in Nigeria. Surely FT – as an elite newspaper catering to the needs of elites like bankers and politicians, will not appreciate such dog-whistling to the violent in the UK who could be riled into destructive protests as happened under the David Cameron administration in 2011. The unkind cuts in the editorial flowed on endlessly, with emotive and offhanded statements around ‘soaring’ hunger levels, lack of capacity, and judgmental statements about President Tinubu’s cabinet members. It really looks like the editorial – by its language – was farmed off to a disgruntled and disconnected Nigerianto write – with the typical effusiveness in Nigerianese – without as much as the professional editing that is required to prevent a riposte like mine. What does FT mean by the ‘state’ being implicated in the wholesale theft of oil? Has the FT lost standard so much that lousy, untrue and wildly speculative statements such as that will make it into an editorial?
Perhaps we should allow the FinancialTimes stew in its own self-foisted ignorance. Many indices arelooking better for Nigeria and will increasingly do so under President Tinubu. Rather than the typical idea of mere cash transfers being pushed by FT and those behind it – and idea which they know to be inflationary and fleeting in impact, but as voyeurs they arenot interested in finding real solutions for our issues but just opportunities to laugh and snigger – Nigeria is devising ways in which such monies will be used to power up the agricultural sector for better productivity, food security, and improved nutrition. The Tinubu government is aware of the need for nuanced policies that take Nigeria’s cultural peculiarities into account.
Financial Times cannot cavalierly instruct Nigeria to send cash to wallets of poor people as a surefire way of ending poverty. Nigerians are proud people. They haven’t said they want just cash. Cash to buy what? Food distribution is a valid strategy which cannot be demonized and vilified. The USA and the whole of Europe have laudable food support programmes. A focus on food distribution helps to increase Nigeria’s productivity in that sector and to eradicate hunger. We do not expect FT to know this. And if it did, given the editorial’s language and spirit, the FT is unlikely to advise Nigeria right. Also, President Tinubu met the tax to GDP ratio at 7% but has now seen its increase to about 12%, even as no new taxes have been introduced. The president has made clear that he is not here to make the lives of Nigerians harder. As I type, the President has increased the minimum wage to make the lives of Nigerians easier, dozens of programs exist to assist businesses, and businesses with turnovers below N25 million per annum don’t pay a dime in taxes. Looked at critically, there aremany advantages and incentives people and businesses enjoy in Nigeria that can only be dreamt about in overtaxed and unduly expensive Britain. Even the inequality gap is being bridged because there is better income mobility, and a robust social capital system that can only be imagined elsewhere. FT and their ilk should give Nigeria a break and stop demeaning a struggling nation.
Agbakwuru, an economist and Public Affairs Analyst wrote from Abuja
