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In the four years
to 2003, output growth in Nigeria averaged about 4% (then considered a
significant increase on the 2.8% rate of growth recorded in the 1990s).
Some of this increase came from a more stable environment, as the
economy adjusted to the new democracy. With a parliament looking over
the shoulders of the executive arm of government, most economic units
were at least assured that the policy environment was going to be less
volatile than was the case under the opaque workings of military rule.

Therefore, even in
the absence of new entrepreneurial effort, growth could and did feed
off the new optimism. Still, this was nowhere near the dividends we had
been told would accrue to us from the transition to democratic rule.
The NEEDS document duly argued in 2005, that in order to reduce poverty
in the country, the economy had to grow by “at least 7-8% annually”.

This was before a
rash of reforms by the Obasanjo administration boosted entrepreneurial
activity in certain sectors of the economy. The telecommunications
sector is arguably the poster child of that period. By the time the
Obasanjo administration left office, the NEEDS growth target had been
breached.

But instead of the
new growth levels being driven by inflows of new capital and investment
funds, revenue over-performance (with oil prices nudging new highs)
drove the new output levels.

A democratic
caudillo imposed his will on fractious sub-national governments, and
through the “excess crude account” threatened to address the volatility
that has dogged public expenditure management in the country, since the
economy became addicted to crude oil-based revenues. Unfortunately, the
absence of policy coherence between sub-national political units and
the government at the centre required institutional responses, if the
national plan and budgeting processes were to have any meaning.

It is fair to
assume that at some point, the Obasanjo administration reached its
frontiers as an agent of reform, for even it could not find the
political will to follow through the logic of its new policy choices.
Ought the electorate to hold this failure against that government? Yes;
and no!

Yes, because owing
to the popular nature of the processes by which that government came
into office, even the stars were aligned in its favour. The people were
worn to the bone from the epic effort that was needed to oust the
military. The “forces of reaction” were even worse off. With their
backs to the wall, we awaited with baited breath our new government’s
administration of the coup de grace. This didn’t happen, however,
because the Obasanjo administration was handicapped by a congenital
defect. The selfsame circumstances of its birth were a real and present
constraint.

Thus, we were still
waiting for the telling blow to the interest groups whose choices had
held back the commonweal for decades, when the Yar’Adua government
assumed office. Upside claims for this administration notwithstanding,
it remains something of an enigma. History may yet judge it well, but
it only managed stasis everywhere.

Bereft of a real
change agenda, it was able to maintain growth rates at the 7% level
reached by the Obasanjo administration only by drawing down on the
savings set aside by the latter. The more ravenously it dipped into the
pool of savings, the more aggressively it drove up government
consumption as a share of domestic output; and at the expense of both
private consumption, and investment by businesses in expanding or
building new capacity.

Consequently, we
have had four years of growth without new jobs being created. Nothing
wrong with all of these in a democracy. If nothing else, the four-year
cycle affords the electorate the opportunity to turf out perspectives
that they find incongruent with their needs.

Surprising
therefore, that the stories coming out of the campaign headquarters of
would-be candidates in next year’s presidential elections
unconscionably rehash old platitudes. From IBB, through Nuhu Ribadu, to
Goodluck Jonathan, we hear of projects to return Nigeria to its past
(?) glory.

Nothing, alas, is
said about the particulars of these projects. How much of it would be
because of new funding initiatives in education? How much because we
would be investing in new infrastructure? And how much because we would
change the way government is run?

How would the projects be sequenced? And where will the much-needed funding come from? Not a squeak from anybody!