From Ndubuisi Orji,  Abuja

As Nigerians grapple with the current economic realities, a member of the House Of Representatives, Uzoma Nkem-Abonta has said that the recession might be a blessing in disguise if the country is able to learn the inherent lessons.
Nkem-Abonta, who represents Ukwa East and West Federal constituency of Abia on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said it is necessary for the Federal Government to understand what led the country into recession, so as to know how to get her out of it.  He spoke in an interview with journalists in Abuja.

Recently, you said in an interview that the recession we are currently facing in the country is a blessing in disguise, how do you mean?
I maintain and I still repeat that recession is a necessary issue for Nigeria to develop. We talk about recession as if it’s a very new phenomenon. I make bold to say that recession is a blessing in disguise; in that there’s an adage that says “necessity is the mother of invention”. Therefore, I would want to ask: What took Nigeria into recession? It’s only when we understand why we went to into recession that we would know how to get out of it. If you don’t understand what causes an illness, you won’t know what to cure. I also want to say that failing to plan is planning to fail. Nigeria went into recession because it failed to plan in the days of abundance; therefore, we are now in recession. So, I think, it’s a blessing because it will now make us to plan. Recession will now make us look inward. Recession will now make us apply economic sense and economic realities in most of our dealings. Without that, we will go into depression. If we don’t understand why we went into recession and apply the necessary things, we will go into depression. But if we understand why we went into recession, we will now come out with abundance. That’s why I said recession is a blessing in disguise.
Failure in itself is not a bad thing. Because when you fail, it means that you have learnt a way not to do things, then you try another means. But if you don’t understand why you fail, you will continue to fail. Let me say for example, in the Bible we had recession that led the Israelites to go into Egypt. Because they had somebody like Joseph who understood how to manage resources, Egypt came out of the recession stronger than any other nation then, that’s why they say Egypt is the mother of civilization, even though, today we don’t know whether it’s realistic or factual. And because they also at a point forgot what recession meant, the Europeans took over from them and they went back to backwardness.
So, recession is a thing we must learn to manage very well, as it would make us work harder, think better and apply resources better. Therefore, we should not blame the advent of recession materially on anybody. But we should collectively fight it out. People appear to be blaming President Muhammadu Buhari for causing recession through his programmes, policies and what not. To some extent, they may be right, but somehow too, previous administrations, dating from the days of military governments, we could not plan. One of the military heads of state said that our problem was how to spend the naira. Nigeria built Festac village in a twinkle of an eye. We invariably imported sand, we imported water, tooth pick, we imported virtually everything. Today, the reverse is the case because we could not plan then. In 1979, Dubai came to Lagos to beg Obasanjo money for development, he asked them; what am I going to do in that desert? Today, that desert is heaven; why? Because, they planned. They understood the future and planned well. Therefore, recession will also make us look for wise men who would understand the future and plan well.

Related News

But according to Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC boss, corruption is responsible for recession. Do you subscribe to that?
We cannot say that this recession shouldn’t be blamed on corruption. For me to have a good pot of soup, there must be lots of ingredients. Corruption is one of the reasons for recession; where one person would take what is meant for a million persons. Mismanagement! There could be mismanagement without corruption. Many reasons such as bad policies, bad implementation, neglect, delay and lots of things could have caused recession. So Magu just mentioned one aspect of what caused it. How about insecurity? Couldn’t it have caused recession? A lot of companies left Nigeria because they were no longer secured. So, the military man would also tell you that insecurity led to that. Magu may be right, but corruption is just a part of it, mismanagement is part of it. For example, if we prioritise our demand and needs realistically, we will get out of recession. And that’s one of the advantages recession brings to us. This budget that we have now, only brought to bare that we’ve never had realistic budget all along. It’s the biggest budget, yet the most controversial, empty budget.
Also in the past, we didn’t budget according to needs. We budgeted according to sentiment. If you pick a template, since 2010, or ever since the democratic era came, you see template and envelopes are the same. Projects are always repeated. In other climes, when they do budget, they even have a three-year rolling plan for a particular thing and they conclude it. Nigeria is where you find the highest number of abandoned projects in the budget. When we came on board in this session, we were told there was going to be zero budget. But it’s no longer working. Therefore we should make our budget based on our realistic needs. We should not budget to the exclusion of our realistic needs. Necessity should come first. There are things that we put in the budget that will have a chain reaction. If put in a way not suitable, it would be counter-productive. We must plan. We must put our economic team right. And that’s an area I would advise president Buhari to thicken his skin and go for the best in economic planning, those who have mastered the art of financial policies and planning; we will come out of recession. I see it as the greatest challenge that he must face. One, people must eat. Two, people must have the basic things and structure to work on.
Two, the industrialisation we are talking about can only come if we manage recession properly. Let me tell you one basic truth, more people are going into farming now. While those in the township think that the economy is not doing well, the farmers in the villages are happy, they can sell their products easily. Meaning that if you organise them properly and put them into farming, we will have more to eat. Let me give you an example. Cooperative movement is what works in situations like these. Ethiopia, Malaysia and other Asian tigers used cooperative movements where they have cluster farms and put people together. Advertise for one position and you see 1000 youths. Who said they cannot farm, if you give them a well organised, structured and set out plan. I’m calling on the government to give us a blueprint on agricultural policy. I keep saying it over time. The total number of tractors in New Delhi, India or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia are more than the ones in all of Nigeria.

When you said previous budget was empty, what do you mean by that?
I didn’t say the previous budgets were empty. What I said was that in previous budgets, we did not budget according to our priorities. And I stand by it. Whoever is disputing that can come and challenge me. All over the world, the basic issue that leads to conflict between the executive and legislature is budget. And because we do not have sufficient interface between the legislature and the executive, we will continue to have that. If you look at it, budgets are being tailored in the past and I say it shouldn’t continue according to the desires of those who design the budget first. And when it comes to the legislature and you try to tinker so much with it, they cry and accuse you of all what not. Therefore, trying to work within their presentation, you are limited. They’d tell you they came with an envelope, don’t tamper with their envelope; and you try to play with the envelope. But whereas the executive ought to sit down and think what is the need of Nigerians. If we identify food to be our greatest need, then you budget adequately for food and food production and processing, preservation and export and all what not. Get those who master or are master of thoughts in it. If you identify now that education is one of our biggest problems, you design some educational policies and programmes that would stand the test of time. We’ve had 3-3-3, 3-4-2 and all that, but no one is standing. Now we are about to witness another somersault of policy in education, because what we have now cannot maintain our industries. What we have is a mere intellectual exercise that’s flying, it’s not grounded. It would surprise you to know that most Americans and British don’t go to school. Many are drop-outs because they don’t go to college. But at the level of their secondary (high) school which is our intermediary here, they are technically balanced and known that even if they don’t go to University which they call college, they still fit in into what they are doing. Your HND now from technical schools are not even recognised. Years back, we had trade schools. Those trade schools, are they still existing? They teach you the basic substance like carpentry, wood work, brick-laying, metal fabrication and all what-not, that makes you fit into the society. You are in Abuja for example, any good technician here are trained by Julius Berger. They employ and train for their basic use. Then as a person you need to plaster a house, you have Togolese here, Ghanaians, because they had gone to their own trade schools. If you have any good finished house in Asokoro, in Maitama, anywhere, find out who did it, they are from Togo. Are we not having capable Nigerians? But because our education system failed to provide for such kind of people, there are no technical, trade schools where they can learn these things. Agreed, they go to secondary schools where they write their WAEC and NECO and pass, but yet they cannot construct a complete sentence. They are not even fit for office assistance or messengers, but they are looking for jobs. Therefore, if education is an area you think you need more effort, you should train people in that area.
If infrastructure is what you are lacking, you can now plan and say, let us have a tarred road of so-so kilometres per budget year. And you do them to stand the test of time. You must identify your need, because a situation where by 70 per cent of the budget goes to recurrent, how can you grow? A situation where the greater amount of money goes to payment of emolument, that’s failing to plan. If you get a yam tuber and you boil everything to the head and eat, it goes to waste. But when you preserve the head and plant, you will get another yam to eat. We are not preserving, we are not planning; and that’s what recession and Buhari are going to teach us. We should begin to plan, look inward, we should begin to develop indigenous ideas suitable for Nigeria. We should begin to balance the market. Recession will now tell us to moderate our taste. Are you surprised to know that Nigerians rank among the highest champagne consumers? No, I’m telling you honestly. You can google it. Nigeria has ranked the highest amongst countries who import and consume the best of red wine. South Africa that produces the best red wine in Africa don’t rake up to one-third of the wine they bring to us. The Italians, the French or Russians who produce the highest quality that sell N60,000 a bottle of champagne, check their export record, Nigeria ranks the highest consumer of such champagne. You throw a party and it’s not flowing with champagne, it’s not a good party. Now recession has taught us to rethink. Now when you go to such parties, you see more of Heineken and red wines.