Yar’Adua’s order on cement importation

By Mahmud Kabir

Those who have expressed the view that they doubt if the mild-mannered President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua would have the courage to take those really hard decisions which a president is required to take from time to time, now have a cause to rethink. The President recently demonstrated that he has the guts to take courageous decisions when such occasions arise.

A few days ago, Yar’Adua approved the removal of restrictions on importation of bagged cement. This presidential action followed a recommendation by the Minister of Commerce, Charles Ugwu. In October last year, a stakeholders meeting convened by the minister established that Nigeria needs 18 metric tonnes of cement annually but that local production capacity brought together can only meet 6.5 million metric tonnes. We therefore have an annual shortfall of a whopping 11.5 metric tonnes. And in accordance with the law of demand and supply, it is easy to see why the price of cement has been escalating in the country.

For some people there may be no big deal in a president giving a nod to a proposal brought by his minister in charge of trade and commerce that the door be opened to importation of cement to his country. But there is a big deal in what Yar’Adua has done in the light of our peculiar circumstances. Yar’Adua’s courage lies in the fact that the cement industry in Nigeria is clearly being controlled by producers who have formed themselves into a cartel. And as cartels are everywhere, the cement cartel in Nigeria is quite a powerful one. Some of the richest private individuals and companies in Nigeria are members of that oligopoly. For Yar’Adua who is no doubt aware of this reality to decide to ‘defy’ the might of this powerful individuals and corporations is an indication of his guts.

Given this obvious reality, no government worth its salt would have allowed the citizens to be mercilessly exploited by local cement manufacturers in the name of protecting infant home industries. Yar’Adua’s intervention is an indication of his concern for the well-being of Nigerians and the growth of the building industry in the country. Cement is a very important factor in the building industry. Its cost has a far reaching effect for good or bad on the entire process of building structures for homes, schools, hospitals and industry.

In light of the huge gap that now exists between what is required and what can be supplied locally, the step taken is a wise and patriotic one. The ideal thing is to insist that efforts ought to be made to encourage local investment in the cement industry to create employment and guarantee steady supply of such an important commodity at reasonable price but we are now facing a near crisis and something needs to be done in the short run to stave off the crisis.

It is possible that in the next few days, the powerful cement oligopoly in Nigeria will sponsor a campaign to pooh-pooh the federal government’s effort as one that would not augur well for the national interest. They will argue that allowing any form of cement importation would harm the domestic production of the product. They will give any and every excuse to mobilise Nigerians against Yar’Adua’s well-meaning move.

The initiative reveals a number of facts about Yar’Adua: the quality of decision his government is capable of making, his respect for due process in arriving at a decision. Arriving at a decision may appear slow but when a decision is eventually taken one cannot but salute the quality of such decisions. We have cause to hope that when this government is called upon to come up with hard decisions, that such decisions would be well-considered and always in the best interest of the nation.

As happened in the case of this cement importation we can also hope that the Yar’ Adua government will not come up with ideas or initiatives that are products of a haunch or decisions that are taken on the spur of the moment but were arrived at after careful consideration of the national interest. It is also clear from this instance that Yar’Adua does not think and act as a politician but as a statesman. A politician would have been worried by the adverse effect the decision to import cement would have on the rich and powerful domestic producers.

In managing a nation, a president must once in a while, intervene judiciously in a manner to advance the nation’s best interest and provide a relief for the traumatised segment of the population. Yar’Adua’s intervention in the matter of cement importation is one such judicious intervention. His courageous step indicates that he is not likely to be a president who will easily succumb to vested interests and powerful lobbies at the detriment of the nation’s interest. This is very reassuring given that many think that Yar’Adua can easily collapse under the pressure of some ruthless and greedy forces who are used to having their way on many issues.

While we concede that the idea is a well-considered one, we also are of the opinion that the step should serve only as an interim or short-term solution. What will serve Nigeria’s best interest in the long run is for government to aggressively encourage investment in the cement industry by both local and foreign investors. Nigeria is a viable market for a thriving cement industry. And she has almost all the raw materials for the local production of this product.

A carefully planned and monitored policy would ensure that in a matter of a few years Nigeria would not need importation of cement. As it is now, we urge the Yar’Adua government to monitor the importation so that we do not go back to the cement armada of the 70s, a situation that would kill off the domestic industry and worsen our unemployment problem.

The ministry of commerce should immediately draw up a plan whose goal is that in the next five years or even less, Nigeria should be able to attain self-sufficiency in cement production. There is no reason why we cannot achieve this goal because we have all it takes to meet this aspiration.

Kabir wrote from Abuja.