Tackle restructuring deal with holistic approach – Afenifere to FG

 
The pan-Nigerian social  welfarist group, Afenifere, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reconsider his approach in tackling the economic situation in the country,  stating that his response during the Patriot Group’s visit to Aso Rock Villa does not really weigh in the direction of people’s expectations.

The group in a statement yesterday by the National leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and signed by the National Publicity Secretary,  Prince Justice Faloye, stated that Afenifere is alarmed by President Tinubu’s response to the Patriots group visit, demanding he should tackle the restructuring deal with a holistic approach.

Afenifere stated that the President in his response had said that he wants to focus on his economic reforms and the attendant economic hardship enabled by fiscal and monetary policies that were not well conceived and without any synergy, before attending to Restructuring which in itself is the foundation for economic growth recovery and other multifaceted challenges in our polity.

Afenifere, therefore, implores the President to reconsider his strategy, saying that what is required is a holistic approach that tackles from the roots, simultaneously, and not just economic and political reforms and palliatives, but complete economic and political restructuring for the following reasons.

While outlining workable approach that the President should adhere, Afenifere stated, ”Politics is how we organize to do ‘things’, while economics is the means to do ‘things’ so, in practice are inseparable at the root of ‘things.’ Our current economic problems are rooted to our political foundations, which were laid, not for economic prosperity, but political control and economic dependency from an exploitative center.”
Afenifere reviewed that a constitution is a social contract between the government and the governed, noting that with the Nigerian government over centralized, unjustly skewed to a section, and relinquishing its social responsibilities to free market forces, that both the government and governed are under optimized and require restructuring to re-establish a new social contract with optimized political and economic responsibilities.

“The 1929 Great Depression that prompted US President Roosevelt’s New Deal, British Keynesianism, was not half as bad and long as our ten year economic collapse, with Naira losing 1000% value, real wages more than halved, unemployment and inflation skyrocketing, and our Gross Domestic Production halved since 2014. Therefore a responsible Nigerian leadership is expected to come out with far reaching fundamental economic and political Restructuring, rather than mere reforms tackling our economy with indices and absolute figures,” it stated.

It further stated that restructuring and devolution of power to federating units, even at the minimum as contained in the President’s own Party El- Rufai Committee report, is necessary for peace, harmony and our continued corporate existence without which there can be no economic prosperity. It noted that  devolution of power to enable polycentric political authorities and responsibilities is necessary for a polycentric bottoms up economy.

“For example, Agriculture, the largest contributor to our GDP, is threatened due to over-centralization of our police that hampers effective local policing. Also, our states are constitutionally wired to be economically dependent on federal allocations of crude oil proceeds, while our vast resources go to waste under states restricted by the constitution from exploiting their resources.

“Like Roosevelt’s New Deal massive public works programs to provide employment and necessary infrastructure, President Tinubu must institute an Emergency comprehensive infrastructural development programme involving building in 3 years at least 5000 kilometers of railway, (Lagos-Calabar, Ilorin-Yola and Sokoto-Maiduguri), massive low cost housing and solar energy panels, while simultaneously engaging on constitutional amendments towards devolution of power to empower federating units, traditional polities and local production, with a social contract with the unemployed masses to optimize and sustain the new economic infrastructure.

“The belief that we first need to resolve our economic problems is guided by neo-liberal economic perspectives of balancing budgets then throwing money at the future restructured federating units, with no social contract, left to free market devices. This is a wrong approach to believe the newly restructured entities will just need palliatives, instead of identifying and filling necessary infrastructural and constitutional gaps to not only resolve current issues but long term sustainability.

“President Tinubu must undergo an ideological shift from the 45 year plus neo-liberal economic policies, which prescribe subsidy removals and devaluation in pursuit of balanced budgets, thereby abdicating their social contract to make life more abundant, and instead grinding us into poverty, unemployment and de-industrialization. Contrary to foreign free market advisers, we must engage in deficient budgeting and other means to carry out the huge tasks ahead. It was the huge deficit budgeting through military Keynesianism of World War 2 that finally ended the Great Depression. If need be, we will negotiate debt rescheduling, debt equity swap or force a debt moratorium for our continued corporate existence.

“Restructuring the police to tackle local security will free the army and through its Engineering Corps and Defence Industries Corporation millions of our unemployed could be employed to simultaneously build the infrastructure at a cheaper cost in the War against Poverty. The partnership between the federal government and army would earn a 100% return on investment, over $50 billion annually, so the government can sell some shares to private enterprise to repay debts, while the army like in USA and China will become structurally and emotional attached and protective of our growing economic complex, thereby negating threats of coups forever.

“The restructured federating units will have new sources of income by building state owned railways connecting to the federal grid, and in maintaining it, will develop iron/steel, chemicals and electrical subsectors that will increase tenfold their collectively GDP contributions currently just about 1.5%. The devolution of power and economic control will incentivise federating units, with a new railway complex and real estate, with huge income and employment multiplier effects in agriculture and agro-allied industries, and mining into processing for industrial use locally and other markets. With Real estate being the greatest source of wealth, the massive cost savings due to the massive low cost housing program will be passed to the masses, which will also spur the growth of various consumer markets.

Ultimately for a fair, productive and prosperous corporate existence as a nation, political and economic solutions must be designed and implemented simultaneously, with our political structures based on a new social contract dictated by economic and sociopolitical demands.