Dr Jimanze Ego Alowes
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is something of a victorious general. But that is strictly in political terms. It is not likely any living politician has seen more battles and successes than Atiku. But longevity under fire, though a virtue, is not why we have taken some interest in Atiku.
Atiku has made our watch list for a very uncommon political virtue. Atiku is the only politician of our modern era who confesses to his errors. At least we have him ”on tape” on one pivotal occasion.
For instance, very untypical of Nigerian politicians, Atiku spoke plainly how he first misled himself on restructuring. Today, Atiku has converted and is one of restructuring’s most ardent and informed canvassers. According to him, his instincts led him to suspect Dr. Alex Ekwueme, a former Vice President, and public face of restructuring, was a closet Biafranist. But later, reflecting on the matter, Atiku came to knowledge – restructuring was the only way to save Nigeria, both north and south.
This makes Atiku the only great Nigerian politician who has changed his mind publicly and proffered reasons, not rationalizations. The import of this and this is where it concerns us is as follows. Atiku is such a one that if he is shown new knowledge, new reasons, would happily adjust his conclusions. This act is developmental and very commendable of any potentate.
We are thus banking on this virtue of his to comment on his latest missive which has gone viral. In an essay ”How to pull Nigeria from the brink, Atiku writes:
”Oil economies need to learn a thing or two about economic diversification from the United Arab Emirates. Despite being a young nation, the leadership of the UAE has managed to diversify the economy of this country from an almost complete reliance on oil in the 1970s, to a country where 72 per cent of the GDP comes from the non oil sectors of the economy, such as aviation, tourism and services sectors.” https://opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2020/04/30/how-to-pull-nigeria-from-the-brink-by-atiku-abubakar/
While his economic history is right, his extrapolations of it for Nigeria is wrong and will not lead to Uhuru. To be fair, it is not Atiku’s fault that he makes such ”errors of rendering.” The point is that more definitively nuanced explanations of why and how UAE done it have come up. Counterintuitively, what UAE did, is in organic terms, what America and Singapore also done. In fact, if understood further it is what the Islamic empire deployed to achieve its glittering success as an economic power.
And the point of this revelation or novelty we have made open in our book ”The University-Media Complex: As Nigeria’s Foremost Amusement Center.” More importantly, the book’s groundbreaking or paradigm changer character is critically established. If in doubt, it will do no harm to sound out the following: Dr. Iheany Ohiaeri, Segun Ayobolu, Azeez Wemimo etc. These are not only some of our finest minds and public intellectuals, they have really sat down to read through the book and affirm its game-changing insights.
Now, the details of Atiku and his below the range shot. First, a historical sketch. During Atiku’s campaign for the presidency, an economic adviser of his was on Arise TV. His name is no particular moment so we skip it.
The aide spoke or sounded brilliant. However, in the end Okonkwo couldn’t throw the cat. How? Somehow he was of the wildcat opinion, that since a thing was done in China, logic demands that it could be done in Nigeria. That sounds patriotic, optimistic and encouraging. However, that is a an unarguable dismissal of 3000 years of Chinese sociology.
Fact is, the many too many Nigerian economic planners have not come to knowledge of the nexus, the tie-ups, between sociology and economic development. Historically, fact is that swathes of nations develop by and because of a conveyor belts network systems. To illustrate, what was first pioneered in Japan was transferable only to Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea etc. Why? These are countries under one sociological conveyor belt or civilizational space, aka the Confucian industrial conurbation.
Tellingly, the transference never crossed to India, despite geographic proximity. These facts and why, we have noted in our books. The question to ask is why? The answer is that India doesn’t have the sociology to replicate what Japan triggered, State Capitalism. India has its own [able] sociology, and it is only along that line that it may develop. Lately, for instance, China, a Confucian belt nation, has joined the old Japanese ”trade route” to do State Capitalism, with indicated successes. The pivot is that a Japanese style state capitalism cannot work outside Confucian belts.
The fact of this is not unique to Confucian orders. Replica experiences dot our modern history. Let’s take Europe. Britain pioneered industrial revolution exclusively. That is Britain was the Japan, the developmental engine of Europe. And just in good time, the rest of Europe, sharing not just boundary or maritime waves, but a cultural order or civilizational space, successfully copied out the British commission. Europe, America and the rest of the New World, including modern Israel, constituted one sociological belt. It was this fact that made it easy for a roll on roll on genius of their industrializations. A shared sociology and a common civilizational habitat.
In other words, there is a gap, a sociological gap, that Nigerian economic planners are missing, perhaps out of unknowing. Thankfully, we have made those open in our book. Incidentally, following the successful critical reception of the book we are fixing a new edition as to suit not just academic but also political audiences.
To summarize the following. It is a historical record that no wave of industrialisms has crossed or been exported across civilizational spaces or boundaries. We repeat, civilizational spaces not national boundaries. The gist of this is explained by the genius of Mother A’Endu : Habitat is Destiny. If you want to copy economic UAE, you may first have to copy sociological UAE.
Ironically, the fact of this Habitat is Destiny is what has battled and made impotent our best and brightest development scholars. They have not come to knowledge, or the humility to ask to be properly briefed. Consequentially this unknowing of our best and brightest, our presumptive Buddhas if you liked, has laid to waste all the heroisms of our potentates, great men like Atiku.
In other words, UAE cannot model for Nigeria. The reason is that hitherto no Nigerian development scholar has understood what really happened with UAE, etc. Even more they have failed to grasp that UAE and Nigeria thrive under two disparate civilizational habitats. In other words, they may be taken as two species. Such different species cannot mate save to produce infertile offspring – mules, economic mules. And failed leaderships.
So, if a statesman like Atiku is hungry for Nigeria’s development, it will serve best if he is seized of all the facts in issue, and in all their nascence. Plainly put, Nigeria under the current sociology and civilizational space is not diversifiable, economically. Economics is not a standalone universe.
Economics is a thread in a web of multiverses. And fundamental to this web is the sociology thereof, is the habitat thereof. The fact of this, is the clay feet of Nigeria’s economic development and betrays the following fact. That the economists at work in Nigeria today are at best financial economists. And financial economics belongs to Goldman Sachs or maintenance capitalisms. However, development economics belongs with sociology, a place name for civilizational space.
Perhaps and pitiably, Nigerian economists are misled by patriotic haste for development. In that haste they discount what they have not applied their minds to, or understood. In the end alas, they pass on the asymptomatic carrier unknowing status to their new hosts. These new ones are the more vulnerable and more accountable political leaders. In the end these leaders end up as developmental disasters.
This explains why and how from Gowon to Buhari, Nigeria has been a runny disaster. It is the ignorance of her development thinkers infesting and crippling leaderships with a pandemic of ignorance that accounts for all that jazz. That is all we have to say for now. All else is in humor. Ahiazuwa.
