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Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili Senior Economic Adviser Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative
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1) The Big Idea proposed at this podium is that for Nigeria to survive it must overthrow the existing [leadership] order -- especially its fifty seven year old political class and their entrenched patterns of bad behavior. The consequence of that unwholesome pattern is colossal poor governance that has caused the majority of citizens pain and misery.
It is, therefore, time to invert the unfulfilled dreams of our founding nationalists that securing political freedom will deliver economic independence. Our tragic experience is that it has not and cannot with the political class that has produced more failure and misery than success and prosperity for the people. Redirect the resources invested on unproductive political discourse to a HARD conversation led by Citizens and not the political class on Economy, Economic Governance, Economic Structure and Economic Inequalities. Think differently. It is Economic independence that can birth true political freedom and reveal a fit-for-purpose political structure. Structure follows Function, not the other way round.
2) The corollary Big Idea is that there is a Market of Governance that has so far failed. It is therefore urgent to recalibrate the Market of Governance. The age long suppliers of poor governance have injured themselves like the monopolist almost always ultimately does. The demand side of governance must become more organized and powerful enough to anchor the fiercely needed debate that will usher in and legitimize the new economic order. The era of the citizen shall see ordinary people empowered enough to demand for a and successfully wage a war of ideas for building a dynamic and progressive country. The one who have suffered most from the Nigerian Failure as evidenced in the inequality profile of acute disparity between the poor and the rich must lead the Economic War. The proposition is that it is the war of economic Ideas and not one of the usual politics that will reverse and end Nigeria's Economics of Failure.
1. The sounds of War are here again. To Nigerians who are above fifty like me, the rising trend of political drama could be regarded as same-old-nothing-new theatrics because we have seen various versions of it in the past. But is it really the same as in the past? Does anyone really think that there is nothing to worry about because the dust will settle as it always did previously? Anyone in my generation who answers yes to these questions falls into the grips of the fallacy of misdiagnosis. It is a truism that structural problems demand structural solutions. However, if the right structural problem is not the one that is identified and addressed the adverse conditions only worsen.
Things are simply not the same. The Times are remarkably different. The context of today's quarrels and ethnic restiveness of our political class (and their protégés) is patently different and combustible. For one, today's quarrel is happening at a time of severest multiple dimensions of insecurity including terrorism, economic decline and near total erosion of social capital. Nigeria is not at all in a good place and the existing order cannot contain the existential threat facing the country. Read More Here
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