Make Nigeria Great Again (MNGA)

This is the social background and political context of the issues we face as a nation today in Nigeria - a dearth of Institutions, governance, culture and justice.

My name is Gbenro Dara, I have a background in Insurance, Finance with an MBA from Top 50 Financial Times ranked, Lagos Business School. I have had the opportunity to work within the consulting, private equity and technology sector in Africa. I have also been at the forefront of building ecommerce businesses and Innovative marketplace solutions across Africa for over a decade (ex Jumia, co-founder Autogenius, ex Efritin.com, ex Hotels.ng and most recently Cheki.com.ng. I’m currently the Managing Director of OList.ng (Opera Software’s online Marketplace) where we are focused on helping users realize their dreams across various stages of their lives e.g finding a job, buying a car, renting or buying a house or even finding great deals on phones.

I want to share my practical data driven ideas with you on how we can build the Nigeria of our dreams together. It will not be an overnight fix so we must think long term, not for us, but for generations to come. However, one thing is clear, that my generation has a chance to right the wrong of many years as we have watched mostly from the sidelines. I’m not a philosopher, or a politician, but I am a citizen of Nigeria who genuinely yearns for Nigeria to excel.

Self-Introspection: The last 50 years as a nation and our potential over the next 50 years. We must admit we have performed poorly

First of all, we need an honest appraisal of our Nation's scoresheet. One void of bias and based solely on objective data. How has Nigeria performed in recent history? Let us take a look at the GDP per capita data of the last 50 years as a yard stick. Gross Domestic Product per capita is a global measure for gauging the prosperity of nations, it is the level of its productivity or output per person and an indicator of living standards. The chart below shows the data for Nigeria, Ghana, Brazil, Indonesia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Chart I - Source: World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data Pulse Nigeria

Here are some points to ponder upon. All gleaned from chart I above. These countries were selected based on similarities to Nigeria such as population, economic stage and social challenges.

We were at the same level of wealth and standard of living with Brazil in the early ‘80s, but now, it’s a totally different story;
Something seems to be working for our next-door neighbor – Ghana, who has now surprisingly overtaken us between 2016 and 2017;
Nigeria saw a steady growth in standard of living between 1999 and 2014 after which there was a sharp decline; and
Indonesia, with a lot of similar challenges such as corruption, weak currency, large population and poverty, seem to have found steady growth over the last three (3) decades, and is approximately three times (3ce) more productive than Nigeria. Currently, Indonesia is the 16th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP.
On the average in the past we have been doing better than most of the countries in the region of Sub-Sahara Africa but don’t seem positioned for growth while new regional giants emerge such as Ghana

I would leave you to make your own conclusions but looking back at the last ten (10) years, I would say that we could have done much better, especially when we compare Nigeria to other nations in Africa as well as countries in Asia and South America similar to Nigeria. It seems like growth in standard of living has stagnated and if there has been any growth at all it has only been for the benefit of a few individuals and not inclusive for the whole society.

Focus on building capacity in our Institutions would set the foundation for Nigeria’s prosperity

From the definition of the word Institution, it is safe to say that Nigeria lacks strong Institutions. According to Samuel P. Huntington, Institutions are "stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior".[1] Further, institutions can refer to mechanisms which govern the behavior of a set of individuals within a given community; moreover, institutions are identified with a social purpose, transcending individuals and intentions. As a Nation, we need a system of rules that looks beyond tribe, personal finances or level of influence but only think in the best interest of the country as a whole.

Our lack of strong Institutions is the reason why there is one new hashtag every other week which is quickly forgotten with no genuine institutional changes. For example, #EndSars (Judiciary) #SayNoToRape (Judiciary/education) #Gandollar (Judiciary/Education/Political) #BringBackOurGirls (Education, security) etc. However, this behavioral change must begin from the smallest unit of the society, families, religious & social institutions. It is important that we raise a future generation that prioritizes the good of the society over personal aggrandizement and uphold basic concepts such as Justice, Equality and Fairness. I’m convinced this will be laying the foundation for this long-term change we desire.

Furthermore, Politicians determine the kind of institutions a Nation builds, especially economic institutions. We’ve had extractive politicians from when our colonizers arrived till now, and they are the ones that determine the kind of policies and institutions we build. A vicious cycle, extractive politicians leads to an extractive economy which works to enrich only a few in the political class, thereby empowering our extractive politics of “I never chop” and “what’s in it for me?” or just voting for the most popular candidate irrespective of this individual’s values and character. This phenomenon has eaten so deep into the fabric and soul of our nation like a cankerworm and must be reversed if we want to see any genuine development. We only need a thriving environment for entrepreneurship with the right incentives to ensure businesses thrive and this will kick-start a new chain of reaction which in the end will influence the kind of leaders we elect.

How policy makers can identify areas for inclusive economic improvement for medium to long term

Let’s take a look at another metric, the Global Competitiveness Index published by World Economic Forum since 2004 which gives a hint into the institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity and an empirical indicator of areas where we might have failed over the years and where we could take practical steps in order to achieve sustained economic growth over the medium to long-term outlook.

According to the WEF in the 2019 GCI report, “The index is an annual yardstick for policy-makers to look beyond short-term and reactionary measures and to instead assess their progress against the full set of factors that determine productivity. These are organized into 12 pillars: Institutions; Infrastructure; ICT adoption; Macroeconomic stability; Health; Skills; Product market; Labor market; Financial system; Market size; Business dynamism; and Innovation capability”.

Chart ii - Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index World Economic Forum

As a parting thought, take a look at the orange line in chart ii above and see how it steadily drops between 2007 to 2017. All progress crashed in 2010, and tried to regain momentum in 2012 but since then it has not been able to find its bearing, albeit some progress between 2018 and 2019 where we now rank 116th while Ghana ranks 111th.

Our Nation’s leadership needs to select top factors where we are underperforming among the pillars that have been identified as productivity drivers to measure and grow over the next 5 years. They should implement and monitor this with an Objective and Key Results (OKR) styled management reporting dashboard which can be made available for public viewing on an online portal.

Here are some areas I have identified based on our Global Competitiveness Ranking where we are currently lacking presenting opportunities for immediate policy improvements include:

Create and get public buy-in on long-term country vision
Property rights
Intellectual property protection
Land administration
E-government
Review of school curriculum to encourage critical thinking
Encourage science and technology from an early stage in school
Review worker’s rights and labor laws
Improve credit disbursed to private sector
Invest in use of technology to enforce compulsory insurances & Police enforcement

My fellow Nigerians, this represents a failure of leadership in the last decade perpetrated by the two (2) major political parties in Nigeria. This is not about one party or the other, we have failed as a nation and must begin to rebuild urgently for our children. This can only be achieved if we all take an honest introspective look, agree that our current approach is not working and then we all must lend our voices to kick out mediocrity and incompetence among our leaders at local government, state and National level.

#PulseVoices is an original series that captures public opinions on topical issues such as government policies and matters of national or global interest.