Emerging business opportunities in Nigerian economy

By Chief Ebenezer Babatope, former Minister of Transport and Aviation

Chief Ebenezer Babatope There is no longer any debate on the established historical fact that Chief Obafemi Awolowo made the old Western Region of Nigeria, the hobnob of political, business and social developments in Nigeria of those days. Western Nigeria under Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s leadership was the pacesetter for the rest of the country. All the pacesetting initiatives in Nigeria’s socio- economic development were all from the vision and leadership potentialities of the leader. His vision of an Industrial Estate in Ikeja division of Western Nigeria (which is now in Lagos State) was exceptional. The Glanvills Enthoven Company is today a member of that unique business family now proudly called the Odu’a Group.

In a recent lecture, Chief Cornelius Tunji Adebayo, a former federal Minister of Communications and a former UPN Governor of Kwara State during the Second Republic had said the following on the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era in Western Nigeria:­

“Awolowo is a rare example of a true democrat. His rating, decades after his death, testifies to his leadership quality. The laudable programmes and achievements of the Action Group government of the first Republic Western Region, picked up and continued by the UPN in the Western and Bendel States, and briefly, also in Kwara State in the Second Republic, clearly illustrate an unalloyed contribution to the development of the people and the nation by a leadership that demonstrated a mission and a vision.”

Shortly after the establishment of the Glanvill Enthoven and Company in 1958, Nigeria started to have very bitter political events. Between 1960 and 1966, Nigeria emerged a free country from the clutches of British colonialism but with a gradual descent into Neocolonialism and political terror. All these were occasioned by the move of the then political power wrestlers in Nigeria to destroy the opposition, represented by the Awolowo-led Action Group political party in Nigeria.

On December 12, 1959, a federal election had been held in Nigeria to usher Nigeria into a free country on October 1, 1960. The Action Group emerged from that election as the main opposition Party in Nigeria. It will be a waste of time for me to start analysing here, the beauty of politics that the Action Group, led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo represented at that time. Though I am not by any stretch of imagination saying that the Action Group did not have its faults and weaknesses as a Political Party, but it is a matter of fact that the Action Group provided for Nigeria at that time, an ideological party heavily committed to the cause of Nigeria’s down trodden. In the eight years of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Western Nigeria as Premier, those were years of progressive administration resulting in productive political and business opportunities. The attempt by Chief Awolowo and the Action Group to translate the gains and achievements of the Western Nigeria miracle to the entire federation of Nigeria was met with a dangerous resistance by the Federal authorities represented by the coalition of the NCNC and the NPC (Northern Peoples Congress) as partners in government.

Within the period (1960 - 1966), Chief Obafemi Awolowo and many of his colleagues of the Action Group were programmed into prison having been convicted on a treasonable felony and conspiracy trial. The tragic events of the Action Group in Nigeria eventually culminated in the January 15, 1966 coup of a section of the Nigerian Military. A counter coup of some Northern origin in the Nigerian Army later took place on 29th July 1966 leading to the gruesome murders of General John Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi and Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi. Nigeria later fought a bitter civil war which ended in January 1970. The Army thereafter remained in power for thirteen years in Nigeria (1966 ­1979).
The sum total of my submission above is that political instability in Nigeria never permitted the development and growth of business investments in Nigeria. No matter how benevolent a Military regime is, it can never be a substitute for democracy. Businesses in Nigeria had fresh opportunities to grow between 1979 and 1983 during the Second Republic in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, this climate became subverted on 31st December 1983, when some ‘Beret’ Generals in the Nigerian Army seized power from the civilians and for another sixteen years, Nigeria went under the dictatorial and autocratic rule of the soldiers.
Business investments and operations can never fare well in a land of misery, represented by the rule of soldiers whose stay in government is ever manifested by the soldiers’ love for arbitrariness and military dictatorship. It is by the grace of God that our country Nigeria now has another beginning of ensuring that our country is a centre for business investment activities. This beginning was the return of our country to normal democratic rule on May 29, 1999.

Business opportunities can be cemented in a country under the following political and economic atmosphere.

• Political stability that closes its doors to incessant military coups and interventions.

• Determination of politicians to ensure the success of democracy in our land.

• Building a corrupt-free environment, where public office holders do not destroy the country’s economy by a terrible adherence to a corrupt regime and haven.

• Government policies that are carefully worked out to ensure the free and unfettered participation of business organisations in the economic life of the country.

• A free judiciary.
I intend to examine these issues carefully and with the view to determining their relevance in the struggle to ensure emergent business opportunities in the Nigerian economy.

Political stability
Without political stability in any nation, its business interests can never grow. Business does not thrive under a climate of uncertainty. We hope the Nigerian Military will never again have cause to intervene in the country’s political process. It is my honest belief that the country’s Armed Forces must allow the political leaders to rise, fall and rise from their own political mistakes and machinations. The politicians must be allowed by our soldiers to make mistakes and correct themselves. It is under this atmosphere that democracy grows. It is never going to be in the interests of Nigeria for our Armed Forces to bestow on themselves the ‘messianic’ role of saving Nigerians from politicians. The soldiers, by and large, are products of the same environment and society as the politicians.

I am personally impressed by the announcements of current military leaders in Nigeria of their total acceptance of the authority of civilian political actors. This is laudable indeed. It will be appreciated if the country’s civilian leaders will join hands with the military leaders in ensuring that our Armed Forces do not lack facilities for training and physical development. Our Armed Forces must equally be made busy and active for an idle Army is not good for any country.

Politicians and survival of democracy
Politicians must be involved in politics and programmes that will ensure the success and survival of democracy in Nigeria. In other words, all militating factors against the expression of the right of the Nigerian people to democratically determine who they will want to be their leaders must be removed. There must be confidence in the country’s electoral system. We will be deceiving ourselves if we claim there is one in Nigeria today.

This is where the efforts of President Umar Musa YarAdua must be commended. He has appointed a body under the former Chief Justice of Nigeria to recommend measures that will help restore confidence in the country’s electoral system. We must all support these measures. The future of our democracy hinges on the success we make of this venture. I will hasten to suggest, however, the following as further measures that can be examined in our quest to have an electoral system that meets the expectations of the generality of the Nigerian people:

•We must examine the composition of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and ensure that its membership includes not only some politicians of different political parties but has in its fold representatives of professional organisations like the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Union of Teachers etc.

This seeming democratisation of the membership of the INEC will go a long way in ensuring the organisation’s independence in the discharge of its functions.

• Our electoral laws must permit the participation of independent candidates in all elections. Party primaries have now become theatre of the absurd by the criminal use of money and the eventual frustration that do become the outcome of these primaries. If a candidate is defeated at his party’s primaries, if he believes he is more popular than the candidate that has emerged from such primaries, for goodness sake let him be permitted to stand as an independent candidate.

• We must now find ways and means of controlling the use of Money at party primaries and elections. The criminal use of money is becoming a major source of instability in our political system. This is not good enough for the country’s socio-political development.

Nigeria and corruption
Corruption has been the bane of Nigeria’s socio-political development over the years. This factor, no doubt, has militated against the building of a good business environment in Nigeria. It is sad and tragic that Nigeria is now becoming another name for corruption.

No matter what will be said or has been said, the establishment of ICPC and EFCC by former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a welcome development within our society. Though many people have raised genuine eyebrows as regards the way and manner these anti corruption organisations have been going about their business, I believe it is the consensus of all that their continued existence has become a reality. We just cannot continue this way of being labeled one of the most corrupt countries of the world.

I like the present style of President Umar Yar’Adua who believes in waging wars against corruption without making too much noise and without causing social dislocations that have no relevance to facts, figures and reality. Business is ever paralysed when you have a government that is riddled with corruption or a government that permits a free reign of corrupt officials. It is good for our socio-political development for ministers and all public officers to now know that their positions can never be sustained, if they run foul of the country’s laws against corruption. There is nothing permanent anymore about Permanent Secretaries who steal public funds. This is a remarkable achievement.
All Nigerians must cultivate the habit of never condoning corruption when we see it being perpetrated. Our businessmen and women must equally join the governments of the federation in ensuring that corruption is fought whenever it raises up its head. It is just good in Nigeria today that the fear of both the ICPC and the EFCC is the beginning of wisdom for public officers.

Government economic policies
The importance of economic policies of government particularly as they relate to business investments and practice in Nigeria cannot be ignored. In the past, I am aware that business organisations in Nigeria have complained about lack of consultation in matters connected with their operations before some government economic measures are announced to regulate their operations. Many of my business friends were not happy with past government measures as they relate to insurance practice, stock broking firms In Nigeria, banking regulations and other measures that affect business interests in the country. Government, in an effort to ensure buoyant economic practice by many business organisations, has come out with measures designed to regulate the operations of these businesses.

I want to appeal to all our governments to ensure that adequate consultation takes place between them and the business operators before final economic measures that regulate the country’s business operations are announced as official policies. This will be assisting the growth and development of emerging business opportunities in the Nigerian economy.

I also want to plead with government that within the context of our federal establishment, there is the need for immediate and urgent democratisation of centres for registering companies and businesses in Nigeria. We ought to return to the situation whereby companies and businesses can be registered without hinderance at federal offices in all the thirty six states of the federation. The current practice where everyone moves to Abuja for company registration and other matters is definitely against the principle of federalism that guides our socio­political relationship. The movement to Abuja was effected during the military era when unitarism was the order of the day. Nigeria is, however, a federal state and not a unitarist state.

Free and independent judiciary
Another feat already performed by the President Umaru Musa YarAdua’s government has been his open declaration few months on getting to power in Nigeria that Nigeria, under his administration, would respect the rule of la w. In other words, Umaru Yar’Adua was saying that under his administration, the judiciary would remain free and unfettered in the discharge of their legal duties to Nigeria. This, to me, will assist our emergent business opportunities in Nigeria.

One of the greatest tragedies of Africa’s historical development since the overthrow from power of the flamboyant pro-British Monarch King Farouk in Egypt in 1952 has been the judiciary Most of those that have climbed the highest pinnacle of authority in the judiciary have been men who did sacrifice their conscience by satisfying the wishes of the few demagogues in power.

In the final analysis, tyrants had developed in many African societies and the judges who by the nature of their profession ought to defend the rights of the common people did eventually become instruments for the liquidation of such interests and rights. I once wrote the following about the judiciary in Africa on page 80 of my book Nigeria - Towards The “Revolution” published in 1981 by The Sketch publishing Company:

“It is a pity that most of the political problems that created the conditions favourable for coup detats have been the results of the partiality of the African judiciary. The laws of the land have been cleverly manipulated by them to give undue protection to those in power while the real owners of power - the masses of the people have been brutally suppressed.

Thus, for many years in Africa, powerful rulers or financial chieftains whose interests are completely anti- people have always been right before many of our judges. Going to court with such men amounts to a complete waste of time. Law has lost its whole essence in Africa. Judges’ hands have been tied while delivering their judgments (at least we remember the 1963 treasonable felony trial in Nigeria). The poor has no hope before the African judiciary.

The judiciary has so much debased the legal profession to the extent that anyone could reasonably predict the outcome of cases in Africa. In any legal contest between the establishment and the people, the establishment must be right. In a legal battle between hard currency and the people, the currency must win. ...

“This madness, as I mentioned earlier, has been the principal cause of the collapse of most African societies to the military. The military tyrants that later developed also used the judiciary to cement their illegal seizure of power.

“In decent societies of the world, the courts and the members of the bench offer the people their last hopes of freedom. Where the judges become agents provocateur of reaction, then the future of such countries where they operate become permanently doomed. Many Judges in Africa have debased intellectualism. They have corrupted their profession. They have placed the love of self before the love of the people. They have protected tyrants in power in order to keep their jobs and affluent positions in society. They have, in essence, destroyed their societies by subjecting the common people to lives of irredeemable frustration and despair.

“Professor Paul Baran defines an intellectual thus, ‘a social critic, a person whose concern is to identify, to analyse, and, in this way, help overcome the obstacles baring the way to the attainment of a better, more humane and more rational social order’. This is the world of intellectualism that the African judges have unashamedly debased.

“It is a tragic pity that they easily succumb to the pressures of the ruling class only to perpetrate themselves in office.

“Good, competent, intelligent and pro- people lawyers have been made mediocres by many African judges for their foolish bravery in defending the poor. Lawyers have consequently lost confidence in the courts and many of them play the game and join the conspiracy against the people. Many lawyers in Africa now see red and call it white before the judges simply because they already know that it will be white before such judges. It is only in Africa that certain people will be above their country’s laws. Such is the dilemma of the judiciary in Africa. Africa is somehow doomed. We worship personalities. power and position rather than worship principles”.

The above was what I wrote on the African Judiciary in 1981. I am however happy today to say that the Nigerian Judiciary has become a pride of the nation. A pride of the nation, because the judiciary, despite the presence of few pretenders, has risen up to defend the legal rights of the Nigerian people. The Judiciary must still continue to rid itself of the few charlatans that exist in their mist. The Judiciary must not fall in their judgments to the puerile realms of sensationalism or opportunism in legal facts must remain legal facts.

There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that a free and unfettered judiciary in Nigeria will help ensure the growth and development of emerging business opportunities in the Nigerian economy. Once businesses know that they have a free judiciary to help interprete fairly and correctly business and other laws in Nigeria, then their potentialities as virile business organisations in the country will blossom.

Without any exaggeration, the Nigerian Judiciary has been bold to adjudicate on legal matters in Nigeria the past eight years with justice and fair-play to all. Justice Niki Tobi from the Supreme Court, who presided over the 2005 National Political Reform Conference did his job without permitting any interference from outside political office holders. This is a good sign for Nigeria and Nigerians will surely be the best for it in all ramifications.

I make bold to say that despite problems we may have here and there in Nigeria now, there are beautiful days for emergent business opportunities in the Nigerian economy. The price of liberty, people say is eternal vigilance. All of us in Nigeria whether businessmen, politicians, professionals, farmers, doctors etc. etc must remain vigilant in the defence of our rights, duties and obligations to Nigeria. We must never allow our current freedom to degenerate into terror, and fascism. We must build on traditions that great men like Papa Obafemi Awolowo, Papa Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello the SARDAUNA of Sokoto did establish for Nigeria.

We can no longer be ruled by the terrible tribal and narrow religious prejudices of the past. We must ensure the survival of Democracy and Democratic values in our dear country. Nigeria is a land of prosperity if we only can succeed in eradicating the prejudices of the past as mentioned above. There are many emerging business enterprises that can be gainfully tapped in our dear country; like Papa Obafemi Awolowo said while delivering a lecture in Akure during the politics of the second republic:­

“Nigeria - the past is a story told the future will be written in gold”.
God bless Nigeria.

CHIEF EBENEZER BABATOPE, OFR
(Former Federal Minister of Transport & Aviation
And Former National Director of Organisation ­
The Papa Awolowo led Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN)