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During the first half of this year, German and
American political leaders engaged in an epic debate. American leaders
argued that the economic crisis was so bad, governments should borrow
billions to stimulate growth. German leaders argued that a little
short-term stimulus was sensible, but anything more was near-sighted.
What was needed was not more debt, but measures to balance budgets and
restore confidence.

The debate got pointed. American economists
accused German policymakers of risking a long depression. The German
finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble countered, “governments should not
become addicted to borrowing as a quick fix to stimulate demand.” The
two countries followed different policy paths. According to Gary Becker
of the University of Chicago, the Americans borrowed an amount equal to
6 percent of GDP in an attempt to stimulate growth. The Germans spent
about 1.5 percent of GDP on their stimulus.

This divergence created a natural experiment. Who was right?

The early returns suggest the Germans were. The
American stimulus package was supposed to create a “summer of
recovery,” according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was
supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S.
economy is scuffling along.

The German economy, on the other hand, is growing
at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate.
Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels.

Results from one quarter do not settle the
stimulus/austerity debate. Many other factors are in play. For example,
Germany is surging, in part, because America is borrowing. Essentially,
we Americans borrowed from our kids, spent some of that money on German
machinery, and ended up employing German workers.

But the results do underline one essential truth:
Stimulus size is not the key factor in determining how quickly a
country emerges from recession. The U.S. tried big, but is emerging
slowly. The Germans tried small, and are recovering nicely.

The economy can’t be played like a piano – press a
fiscal key here and the right job creation notes come out over there.
Instead, economic management is more like parenting. If you instill
good values and create a secure climate then, through some mysterious
process you will never understand, things will probably end well.

The crucial issue is getting the fundamentals
right. The Germans are doing better because during the past decade,
they took care of their fundamentals and the Americans didn’t.

The situation can be expressed this way: German
policymakers inherited a certain consensus-based economic model. That
model has advantages. It fosters gradual innovation (of the sort useful
in metallurgy). It also has disadvantages. It sometimes re-enforces
rigidity and high unemployment.

Over the past few years, the Germans have built on
their advantages. They effectively support basic research and worker
training. They have also taken brave measures to minimise their
disadvantages. As an editorial from the superb online think tank e21
reminds us, the Germans have recently reduced labor market regulation,
increased wage flexibility and taken strong measures to balance budgets.

In the United States, policymakers inherited a
different economic model, one that also has certain advantages. It
fosters disruptive innovation (of the sort useful in Silicon Valley).
It also has certain disadvantages – a penchant for overconsumption and
short term thinking.

Over the past decade, American policymakers have
done little to maximise their model’s natural advantages or address its
problems. Indeed, they’ve only made the short-term thinking problem
worse, with monetary, fiscal and home ownership policies encouraging
even more borrowing and consumption.

Nations rise and fall on the intertwined strength
of their cultures and governing institutions. Despite all the normal
shortcomings, German governing institutions have functioned reasonably
well, ushering in painful but necessary reforms. The U.S. has a
phenomenally creative culture, but right now it’s an institutional
weakling.

If you look around the world today, you see that a
two-class system is coming into being. Some countries are undertaking
fundamentals reforms. In these places, weaknesses have been exposed.
Orthodoxies have been shattered. New coalitions have formed.

This is happening in Britain, where a centre-right
government is reining in a government that had spun out of control.
It’s also true in Sweden and other consensus-based countries, where
there is so much emphasis on consistent, long-range thinking.

In other countries, political division frustrates
long-range thinking. The emphasis is on fixing things for next month or
next quarter. The U.S., unfortunately, is struggling to get out of
Group 2.

© 2010 New York Times

While I was away in
the South East I was pleased to get an sms from my good friend Volker
Treichel that he is back in town. Volker had been Chief Economist of
the World Bank in Nigeria for several years. A German national, Volker
understands the Nigerian political economy rather well.

Towards year’s end
last year he had spearheaded a study on Growth and Employment in
Nigeria. His basic message was a simple but alarming one: the economy
is trundling along okay, but the people are not.

This message was
reinforced at last week’s seminar on the new Growth and Employment Pact
initiative where finance minister Olusegun Aganga reiterated the
government’s determination to mainstream job-creation within the
country’s economic growth paradigm. The minister noted that the economy
had been growing at an average of 6 percent during 2005-2009 even as
unemployment has continued to rise.

According to the
National Bureau of Statistics, unemployment increased from 11.5 percent
in 2005 to 19 percent in 2009. With our current estimated population of
145 million,

this means that
27.5 million Nigerians are without jobs; a figure that is more than the
total population of Ghana (23.35 million) and Mozambique (22.38
million). If one also considers the sober fact that an estimated 94
percent of the employed are in the informal sector, then one gets a
grim picture of our national tragedy.

To be sure,
unemployment is an increasingly worrying trend the world over.
According to Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the Paris-based OECD,
unemployment in the richest countries has risen from an average of 5
percent to the current 9.9 percent. Within the 27-member European
Union, the jobless stand at 23.06 million, a figure that significantly
less than Nigeria’s. What is more, in the advanced welfare democracies,
every unemployed citizen has access to social benefits.

In Britain, this
would include a free council flat and a monthly allowance of £400
(120,000 naira). A Scottish friend who was visiting at our home
recently told me that some of his unemployed nephews and nieces have
virtually no incentive to work, since their welfare benefits are only
marginally lower than what is on offer on the lower-skilled jobs market.

Contrast this with
Nigeria, where there are no welfare benefits to speak, within an
economy that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman would describe as one of
“diminished expectations”.

Over the past
decade, the billions of dollars of inward investments that we have
witnessed have been predominantly in the oil and gas sector, telecoms
and banking – sectors that do not generate a great deal of jobs.

Our manufacturing
sector has been virtually comatose, with several firms having relocated
to Ghana and other neighbouring countries, thanks to lack of
electricity, the high rate of criminal violence and a generally
inhospitable business climate. With an inflation rate that has averaged
more than 10 percent and with all the prevailing structural bottlenecks
in our economy, things have never looked more hopeless. Our youths are
understandably angry, with an army of unemployed that are large enough
to stage a violent national uprising. We are sitting on a time bomb.

It is an irony that
international development agencies have been more concerned about the
unfolding drama than succeeding Nigerian governments. The UK Department
for International Development (DFID) in collaboration with the World
Bank recently launched the Growth Employment in States (GEMS)
programme. GEMS seeks to boost the productive sector by improving the
business environment so as to accelerate private investment while
creating jobs and boosting incomes.

The two agencies
have contributed a total of US$300 million to the project, which will
initially cover four selected states of Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Cross
River on a pilot basis. Among the sectors to be covered are wholesale
and retail trade, meat and leather, hospitality (hotels and tourism),
entertainment (music, films, Nollywood) and construction and real
estate.

The Growth and
Employment Pact opens up a new window of opportunity to resolutely
address one of our nation’s gravest development challenges. It calls
for action, not rhetoric. We must work across the three tiers of
government to launch a massive programme for the rebirth of the non-oil
sector while boosting jobs and getting our people back to work.

We have to think
outside the box. If we could put aside 200 billion naira every year for
the next 5 years we could take an average of some 1 million youths off
the streets by engaging them in the construction of rural roads, rail
tracks and other such direct labour public works. It would have such a
huge impact on the economy; restoring hope, boosting aggregate demand
and giving a massive push to growth and long-term sustainable
development.

During the 1930s
Great Depression in the USA, President Franklin Roosevelt applied this
public works approach in his New Deal strategy, with impressive
results. President Barak Obama is following the same philosophy, with
modifications. The long-suffering people of Nigeria expect nothing less.

Recent figures from the Federal Ministry of Health
indicate that the death toll from the most recent cholera epidemic to
hit Nigeria has risen to 350.

The numbers are still rising, and the ministry has
warned that “the entire country is at risk.” This latest epidemic has
hit at least eleven states, most of them in Northern Nigeria.

In August 2009, a similar epidemic broke out in Adamawa, Borno, Taraba and Jigawa states, claiming hundreds of lives.

Only a month ago, a Reuters’ news report said that
77 persons had died from cholera in Northern Cameroon, since the
beginning of June.

Reuters quoted an unnamed official of the Red
Cross as saying, back then: “There is the fear that if nothing is done
urgently, the epidemic might expand rapidly with uncalculated
consequences in Cameroon and neighbouring countries like Nigeria and
Chad.” Now it is clear that those fears were not unfounded. The ticking
time-bomb has exploded in Nigeria, and there is an understandable level
of panic in the land.

It is disheartening to imagine that in the 21st
century, Nigeria, with all the billions of dollars from oil at her
disposal, cannot save her citizens from a disease as preventable as
cholera.

In November 2009, barely a year ago, this paper lamented as much in an editorial.

“It is lamentable that despite the huge sums of
money allocated by our government for water supply to every part of the
country, many of our citizens still have to die due to lack of potable
water. The question then is: where does all the money go?” we said.

One year later that question still hangs
accusingly over the land. Where indeed does all the money go? Where do
all the promises by the government go?

Why are we saddled with a government that can only
react to tragedy, but will not do anything to prevent it from happening
in the first place? Following every outbreak of cholera – a scenario
which has now become a fixture on the calendar, such that it would not
be out of place if some state governments included “provision for
cholera” in the recurrent expenditure sections of their annual budgets
– governments fall over themselves to announce emergency measures.

Huge sums of money are released, isolation camps created, press conferences set up, assurances dispensed with reckless abandon.

A short while later, everything is packed up, the government returns to its standard state of slumber, to await the next epidemic.

And cholera is not the only epidemic to regularly hit Nigeria – the Northern part especially.

Meningitis and measles are regulars as well.

While the country succumbs to the menace of
cholera, our state governors appear more concerned with asserting their
powers as stakeholders in the politicking and horse-trading gaining
ground in the build-up to 2011.

When the Governors of the worst hit areas –
Northern Nigeria – gather under the aegis of the Northern Governors’
Forum, it is not to deliberate on the persistent threat posed by
cholera, it is to make silly declarations about “zoning.” What of the
local government authorities, whose primary duties it should be to
ensure the availability of potable water in communities, as well as
that citizens are adequately enlightened regarding the importance of
personal hygiene, since cholera is caused by the ingestion of food and
water contaminated with bacteria. We have come to the conclusion that
our local government authorities might as well not exist; such is the
extent of their abdication of governance that there is no point even
bothering to censure them. They are in most cases no more than huge
drain-pipes on the nation’s resources. Indeed, it may be argued that
the billions currently wasted on them would be better spent shared in
cash to the citizenry.

The health authorities have already wasted no time
in telling us what we already know: that this latest epidemic should be
blamed on contaminated water and a disregard for personal hygiene. But
what Nigerians, and presumably the world at large, would like to know
is this: While other countries struggle — and learn to cope — with
unavoidable natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, why does
Nigeria maintain its penchant for creating and perpetuating avoidable
ones?

He lied, went
behind her back and had multiple affairs with many women with no regard
for the home they had built together or the impact it would have on
their children. He went totally against the vows he made in front of
friends and family and in the eyes of God. So she decided to walk away
because trust, that bedrock upon which her marriage stood had been
irrevocably broken.

And now she is the
bitch, vilified and demonised. I am talking about Elin Nordegren, the
much-maligned wife of golfing king, Tiger Woods. After maintaining a
very dignified silence throughout the sordid sex scandal she gave an
interview to People Magazine in which she talked about the emotional
difficulties she faced when she found out her husband was cheating.

For Woods fans
particularly the Nigerian ones, this was too much. So on Facebook and
other social media websites, abuse of all sort has been heaped on
Nordegren’s head. Some of the more colourful phrases used to describe
her include “ f***king bitch, stupid woman, bloody nanny, gold digger
and whiner.” Her crime according to them is that she refused to
forgive. After all they argue she was just a nanny when Woods married
her and now she is walking away with a fortune. It seems Nordegren’s
refusal to play the “ dutiful” wife who stands by her man makes her a
horrible person. In all this only a handful of commentators even made
reference to the behavior that precipitated the divorce – Woods’ serial
cheating. Even those people insisted that their commentary on Nordegren
had to be isolated from their commentary on Woods’ behavior. As one
commentator put it, that is “a topic for another day”. The commentator
didn’t see the irony in trying to pass judgment on Nordegren’s action
in isolation from the behavior that led to it.

Throughout these
discussions, one theme that kept re-emerging is that Woods married the
wrong girl. He should have married a black girl or even better, a
Nigerian woman. The implication was that if that were the case, he
would still be married. Nigerian women were ‘ strong’ some
commentators said and therefore capable of forgiving these sorts of
transgressions and indeed do so on a regular basis. It is almost as
if Nigerian women have a gene that makes it easy for them to tolerate
cheating.

This simplistic
analysis of course does not delve into the socio-cultural issues that
mean the average Nigerian woman has very little choice when it comes to
walking away from a cheating husband. Our laws and traditions are
largely skewed in favour of men.

Children belong to the man;
inheritance is not always automatic for women and in many parts widows
do not automatically inherit from their husbands. If there was a more
even playground and women could take some of the wealth they helped
create, just how many Nigerian women would stay? There are too many
who remain in unsatisfactory marriages, with all the tensions inherent
in that union because they have no options, making it impossible for us
to conclude that those who stay are making a willful decision not
determined by economic and cultural circumstances. Evidence for this
can be gleaned from the high rate of sexual infidelity and support for
polygamy, which makes it difficult for women to go against the tide.
There is also discrimination against unmarried women and the stigma
attached to childless women. Increasingly too, and perhaps because of
circumstances, Nigerian women are becoming more materialistic, focusing
on what economic gains they can get from a relationship rather than all
the other things the union is supposed to provide. There are of
course women who decide to reach an accommodation with their spouses
even though they recognize the marriage has failed. Such couples remain
together for the sake of their children, the higher good, so to speak,
takes precedence over personal happiness.

A lucky few are able to
completely salvage their unions after a spouse has cheated. These are
the ones who genuinely forgive. This is also laudable because
forgiveness is important not just in marriage but in every sphere of
human interaction. A few studies have even found that this sort of
turbulence if handled properly can lead to a more meaningful
relationship between the couple.

The point however, is that circumstances vary and people will make decisions based
on their own personal situation, a state of affairs that many a time we
on the outside are not privy to. So those who decide to walk away also
deserve understanding. Speak to anyone who has gone through a divorce,
it is a tough, heart wrenching process that is life changing for all
those involved, from spouses to children to the wider extended
family and friends. It is not a step taken lightly.

Instead of passing judgment, join me in wishing Woods and Nordegren
the best. While her settlement will mean Nordegren won’t worry about
money, she now has the task of building her self -esteem and learning
to trust again; these are no easy feats. As for Woods, he has to deal
with the fact that he helped dismantle a home he worked to build,
disrupting everything but especially the lives of his children whom he
must love dearly. Woods must find a way to forgive himself, if he is to
move on, and that too is no mean feat.

Nasir Ahmad
El-Rufai. It is almost impossible to remain neutral at the mention of
this name. Few personalities in Nigeria evoke as much passion and
debate. Mention his name anywhere and you’re likely to get responses
ranging from outright dislike to extreme adulation. One thing is clear
though – he has as many admirers as he has detractors.

El-Rufai stirs up
so much passion that any effort to contextualize him becomes embroiled
in controversy. Any writer voicing an opinion about the man is accused
of either being on his payroll or is branded a hack writer, paid to rub
the man’s name in mud. I am not a praise singer, and obtain no gain
from rubbishing anyone’s reputation. This is just an attempt to
separate Nasir the man, from el-Rufai the myth.

The most invariable
accusation against el-Rufai is that he is arrogant. I almost titled the
piece ‘the criminality of arrogance’, but avoided the distraction.
Being arrogant is not a criminal offence anywhere in the world.

But that aside, how
does one define arrogance? Ask most people why they think el-Rufai is
arrogant and they will be stumped. They have probably never met the man
and are only passing on the myth of el-Rufai.

Nasir, the man
carries his luggage and laptop himself. He would rather be called
‘Nasir’, not any of the multitudes of flattering names and titles that
abound. He is first to extend greetings, mixes with all and quick to
assist even people he has never met.

El-Rufai the myth is arrogant; Nasir the man has no pretensions.

Critics say he has
been indicted in the disappearance of N32 billion from the sale of
government houses. But the FCT itself and the Finance Ministry
confirmed that the money is intact. That explains why the EFCC case
against him is crumbling. In truth, the entire case against el-Rufai
was a vendetta by the Yar’Adua cabal who saw him as a threat. So
hurriedly put together were the allegations that they actually accused
him of breaking laws that had been repealed years earlier!

Those who object to
el-Rufai with a passion will say that he allocated lands to his family.
True, there may be ethical issues, but he broke no laws of the land.
That aside, anyone with something to hide would have used fictitious
names to allocate the lands to his family. That real names and
identities were used, when el-Rufai himself made the process open to
public scrutiny is not indicative of hidden motives.

For objectivity, it
is important to look critically at the nine years he served in the
public sector and do a ‘before’ and ‘after’ analysis. Only those who
lived in Abuja before 2003 would appreciate the level of sanity
el-Rufai brought into the territory. Was he wrong to demolish houses
built on sewage outlets? Was it arrogance to revoke illegal allocations
of lands on public parks?

Did he lack vision
to have banned commercial motorcyclists from the city centre? Ask
commuters what they think of ‘el-Rufai buses. Was it an offence to have
eliminated the mafia around land allocation? What it criminal to
facilitate home ownership for thousands of people and relieve
government of unmanageable burdens?

Criticism of
el-Rufai is not different from that of other achievers in Nigeria. Many
claim to desire positive change, but turn around to demonise change
agents. Consider these examples: Awolowo was one of Nigeria’s most
principled politicians, but some people vilified him till death as an
ethnic jingoist. Gen. Murtala knew development was impossible without a
thorough shake-up of the bureaucracy. Today, some people accuse him of
destroying the civil service. Buhari’s War Against Indiscipline served
to reverse the moral decay and decadence that stifled public conduct
before he became head of state.

Today, people call him a fanatic.

Similarly, for the
first time in Nigeria’s history, we had a public officer that stood his
ground and arrested some of the biggest crooks in the land. Today, some
people accuse Nuhu Ribadu of waging a selective anti-corruption
crusade. So if people call el-Rufai names for executing his various
tasks with vigour, it is in line with a trend.

The freedom of the Internet age makes it possible for us to assume all sorts of aliases to insult and malign others.

This will be no exception. But if we truly want change in Nigeria,
we must recognize agents of change and appreciate their vision, if not
their person. In the case of Nasir el-Rufai, we should start by
dispassionately separating Nasir, the man from el-Rufai, the myth.

As kids, a musician
named Marvel from Uromi town used to torment us. Marvel enjoyed the
monopoly of being the only highlife musician around. News of a
performance by Marvel would spread like fire on dry grass. Boys would
be scrambling to tailor’s shop to sew new outfits and treetop Afros
would spring from girls’ heads. The news of an upcoming Marvel concert
could whip the eight villages that make my clan into a whirlwind of
euphoric anxiety.

“Marvel go come
so?” We would ask, seeking support and reassurance from one another
because it was not unusual for him to take advance payment and go to a
more profitable venue like the burial ceremony of a wealthy patron’s
mother. On several disappointing occasions like that we would sulk to
bed dreaming of the aborted fiesta in our sullen sleep.

After we had
thoroughly stewed in our anticipation, the same way we waited for
politicians to redeem their promises of pipe borne water, electricity,
good roads, and had our hopes dashed like eggs carried by a leper,
Marvel would magically show up with his band members in a beat up
Peugeot 404 pickup.

This motor was a
combination of hard jagged metal and wires on wheels, a relic that
belonged more to the Museum of Natural History if Nigeria had one. Then
again, Marvel’s pijoti was built for the unpaved deadly roads to my
village. The driver would blast his horn and rev the engine that
emitted black smoke into the air to announce Marvel’s arrival. We would
let out ear shattering screams, jumping up and down – “Marvel vale,
Marvel vale, Marvel vale! Marvel has arrived!”

Marvel would remain
inside the pickup, wearing dark sunglasses like Ray Charles
nonchalantly smoking a Gold Leaf cigarette, while his boys unloaded the
musical equipment.

Catching a glimpse
of his weathered, battered, red guitar was like seeing Jesus Christ
walking on the River Niger from Asaba to Onitsha.

Speakers and
keyboards and drums and the most taunting instrument, the microphone,
would be unloaded by men with cigarettes hanging from their quivering
lips. Then the pickup door would open, and Marvel would gingerly test
his steel-toed stiletto shoes on the red earth, before heaving himself
out, slowly. Standing up full length, you would think Elvis Presley had
risen, except Marvel was as black as Idi Amin. He never smiled; he
would just walk straight to a cool-off area reserved for him by his
host, downing bottles of hot Crystal lager beer, until his men finished
setting up.

At about 8pm, the
atmosphere would be aromatically frothing like fresh palm wine. If the
clouds were kind, we would have moonlight, otherwise fireflies provided
enough illumination to help us wander round the venue. The only
electricity lights were a few bulbs powered by Marvel’s small Yamaha
generator, whose sole purpose was to run the musical equipment. In any
case, light was not required, for at Marvel’s highlife party, things
not meant for illumination usually took place.

By now the band would have finished setting up the equipment, plucking at their guitars (not Marvel’s) in tuneless succession.

There were only two
microphones, one for Marvel and one to be shared by three backup
singers. There was no proliferation of microphones back then, it seemed
you had to earn the right to use one because other band members just
bellowed away with their God given throats.

With a bulb
dangling above his head in the shaded area, Marvel would strap his
guitar round his shoulder and adjust the belt a couple of times, all
this while a cigarette would be hanging from his lips tremulously.
Eventually, he would pull a long drag on the Gold Leaf and drop it
disdainfully, grinding the butt viciously with his stiletto. Grabbing
the microphone, the very first words that would come out of his mouth
would be “Testing Microphone…one, two…testing
microphone…one-two.”

While we waited for
the real show to start so we could gyrate in the corner because we were
not old enough to hold girls by their waists and grind the night away
in the middle of the dance floor, Marvel would continue to test the
microphone for an eternity. He would fiddle with knobs in the old
amplifiers and twang his guitar endlessly. At some point, we would have
fallen asleep on benches in the fringes. Earlier excitement would have
worn our young minds out by the time Marvel was done with “testing
microphone”.

We did not know the extent to which this endless testing annoyed grownups, until one night.

Agoslow, a man
whose head was the size of cinder block, walked straight to Marvel,
seized the microphone from him and cleared his throat: “The microphone
is working, play me music and let me dance and enjoy myself, I come
from a far village.”

And today as I wait
for Goodluck Jonathan to declare his intention and he is still dilly
dallying and meeting with the Buharis of this world, the immortal words
of Agoslow come to me. So I am telling Mr. President to stop testing
the microphone and declare his intention and let the dance begin in
earnest.

Enough of this waiting game.