Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA HAS ALL THE HUMAN, NATURAL, AND INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES. WHY CAN’T WE CREATE A VIABLE ECONOMY

And then this article stops at precisely the point it ought to have commenced building up a case on what the function of government ought to be. But then it seems it made its point already. Government should be as minimal and lean as it can be. That has become the reigning orthodoxy in public administration today, especially with the publication of Osborne and Gaebler's Reinventing Government. The state needed to be rolled back into minimality. But then, is that the last word on the role and responsibilities of governments?

We all know that government is tasked fundamentally to provide security of lives and property. But that is too minimal an understanding of the responsibility of government to its citizens. It is funny that the capitalist understanding of government is what Oga Fakinlede has called "commonsense." The understanding of government's responsibility to its citizens certainly varies according to the type of governmental system we prefer. It would be nice to have stated right from the beginning that the piece is an apology for a capitalist understanding. 

Why is it not commonsense for government to be involved in the provision of public goods and services, with a modicum of private partnership?


Adeshina Afolayan


On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 7:38 PM, Kayode J. Fakinlede
<jfakinlede@gmail.com> wrote:


Nigeria has all the human, natural and intellectual resources to create a viable economy. Then why is it not doing just that. The answer is that the government does not allow it.

Whow! You would say. How can the government that is running east and west to make the economy work; trying to borrow money to pay workers; trying to increase our megawatts; struggling to pay our footballers; doing its best to give us gasoline; spending sleepless nights trying to find jobs for our university graduates; etc. be accused of not allowing the creation of a viable economy?

It is for exactly the reasons above that the government is handcuffing us and not allowing us to do what we have to do to live in abundance.

Capitalism! Someone would shout. Common sense, I would reply. As long as we rely on government to provide electricity, water, housing, employment, etc. We will not enjoy these amenities which we ordinarily can provide for ourselves.

Where are we going to get the money to make these things possible? Another person would inquire. Really, it is not the availability of money that is depriving us from building a viable economy. It is the fact that we are already conditioned by government into believing that it is their job to provide the good life for us.

And  what are we getting from government? We are getting an atrociously horrible life, a fantastic story of why things are not as good as we were told during electioneering, and a mind-blowing promise that things will be Utopean if we can just cast our next vote for the right party.

A secret, things will not improve more than they presently are until we stop relying on the government to provide them. As a corollary, things will not improve until the government looks us in the face and say it is not its job to provide employment for our university graduates; to pay someone to entertain us on the soccer field; to send us on a pilgrimage; to provide an airplane for us to go abroad, etc. It is our job, if we are so inclined. The government must not go borrowing to build car factories or any factory at all, to get us a job, or pay you salaries for showing up for a job, etc. The government must not go borrowing AT ALL.

It is when we are able to decipher exactly what the role of government is in our life that we will start to use our own resources to build the viable economy.

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