The politics of poverty

By MUYIWA ADETIBA It is likely there might be some ego massaging and chest thumping by those who believe they have ‘grown’ the economy; especially those in the kitchen cabinet who will grasp at any straw that shows the economy is on track.

The fact that it took us so long to capture dominant sectors like telecommunications, and entertainment is in itself, an indictment on the way we do things. But let us not allow the euphoria of last Sunday to overshadow the bleak announcement of the week before that Nigeria has joined the unenviable list of the desperately poor countries of the world. That the largest economy in Africa can also be listed among the poorest countries in the world is confounding to those of us who are not economists, and puts a lie to those who say economics is largely the application of logic and common sense. It seems instead to be the application of certain data and ‘truths’ to achieve certain results. After all, those who say Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa have many pointers. They can point at Nollywood which is touted to be the third largest film industry in the world. They can point at our telecommunications industry which is probably the fastest growing in the world. They can point at our blossoming hospitality industry— from ushers to event planners— which is putting meals on many tables. They can point at our fashion industry which is giving expression to the ingenuity and creativity of our youths. They can of course, point at the good, old, oil and gas industry which is pumping dollars into legal and illegal pockets. Finally, they can point at the ‘fruits of our labour’ and finger the private jets and private estates, the luxury yachts and limousines not to talk of the rising number of Nigerians in the billionaire class. And those who think we are among the desperately poor people in the world don’t have too far to look either. They can point at shanties that are springing up in our commercial and political capitals. They can point at poverty induced crimes like kidnapping. They can point at how a million unemployed youths risked lives and limbs last month in an attempt to secure a few of the elusive jobs. They can point at dirty, hungry kids who roam the streets because they cannot afford education. They can point at the different shades of terrorism across the country. They can point at the quality of our education. They can point at the dearth of technology, of industries, of infrastructure. So we are rich and poor at the same time. And this is the tragedy of the kind of politics the country has been playing since it was created. Our colonial masters created an elite class for administrative purposes and put themselves at the top of the cream. A large proportion of the populace were left to be hewers of wood, drawers of water and tillers of soil. At independence, this elite group was replaced by the emerging politicians. Then by 1966 when the khaki boys came on board, the elite group got enlarged and diluted but the politics remained the same, only cruder; this politics of ensuring geopolitical stability by keeping the ruling class and the pretenders to the throne, happy and well fed through state funds. Look around you. All successful and wealthy countries play inclusive politics where economic policies recognise the interests of every citizen; where the playing field in education, rule of law and entrepreneurial opportunities are level. Incentives are given to those who have the ability to create wealth and talents recognised and encouraged for those vital technological breakthroughs. In Nigeria, our laws— and attitudes— do not favour enterprise and technological ability. Our role models are not those who work hard to build something from the scratch but those who loot the treasury. The rules favour the rich irrespective of how they become rich and bottlenecks abound for those who want to break into their elite rank through technology and enterprise. Industries are sited wherever the elite class wants them with scant regard to viability because they are sited more to appease than to create wealth. It is this culture of appeasement, of feeding the rent seeking elite that puts our recurrent expenditure at 80% of the national budget, that makes a provision of 155billion naira as budget for less than a thousand legislators; that provides more than a billion naira to feed animals in a zoo in a country where over a hundred million of its citizens can not boast of a square meal a day. I choose to call it the politics of poverty; and it is the politics our leaders across the divide of civilian/military, North/South have been practicing through the years. It does not matter how much we earn, or how often we rebase our GDP, if we can not remove the disincentives to enterprise, to technology, to merit and hard work, then we will always remain poor; desperately poor. The so called ‘American dream’ is predicated on a system that allows anybody to legitimately achieve their dreams in life without necessarily having a godfather. It is also, unlike ours, the politics of wealth creation. - See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/04/politics-poverty/#sthash.Br09Aihn.dpuf