From Chris Anucha, Port Harcourt
Dr Dennis Onyeagwara is an authority in economics and commerce. He obtained his first degree in Commerce, from Bangalore University, India, and Masters from Karnatak University in DHavard , also in India. In this interview, he spoke on a number of national issues.
Excerpts:
What is your assessment of Buhari’s almost one year in office?
A lot of Nigerians will sit back without appraising the essence and the intention of President Muhammadu Buhari and look at the mundane occurrences as they are happening today and probably want to consign them to his door step. They may not be blamed, what we can blame it on is ignorance because, if you take a cursory look at Muhammadu Buhari’s intention, you will see a man who has been hurt by the neglect of the previous governments. And this neglect can be traced through the fact that metro water system, which was handed down to us by the colonial master has not been sustained, not to talk of developing new ones in terms of infrastructure. Are we going to talk about roads, foods? Nigeria is still importing food stuffs, which is not supposed to be. Is it the basic needs of man-food, shelter and clothing? All over the world, you have people develop housing systems or schemes whz̄ereby their populace are housed, people develop good transport systems, but here in Nigeria, what do you see? You see a disorganized system, ranging from attitude of people towards movement of goods and services; even on social side, you look at the country and you don’t see a headway; it is like the country has just been born today.
And this man comes in to provide the necessary husbandry required for the organization of any home. How do you achieve goals in a particular system without organizing it properly, knowing what comes in and account for it properly and have a prudent expenditure of whatever you have? And I think, president Muhammadu Buhari has come to do that. A lot of Nigerians are now seeing the subversions by the past players in this governance, in the way of rise in dollar price, in the way of manipulated general rise in commodity prices. If you understand what I mean, you will find that these things are designed to create bad image for this regime.
Some Nigerians are of the view that the president is devoting more time, fighting corruption than the revamping of the economy; what’s your take on this?
I agree with you, Nigeria is at crossroads, in terms of the economy. Today, I will say that if the president is not, maybe, facing the economy, it is our duty to offer assistance; we can’t say because he is the president or from APC, and leave the problems facing the country for him.
Who are the ‘we’?
Nigerians! The average Igbo man says, no, no, no! The Rivers man tells you he wants resource control, they are the ones that have the oil; their minds are no longer rational.
But Ifeanyi Uba offered to assist in the area of crumbling naira, and was ignored
I think Ifeanyi Uba’s statement was made two or three days after my position on this dollar thing, in a radio programme in Port Harcourt, where I asserted that the dollar price is totally manipulated in the sense that any rational economist looks at the prevailing commodity price which is not at par with the rising dollar in the market. Naturally, you would think that something is wrong. For instance, you get a bag of rice which used to sell forN12,000, still selling for N12,000 when they say the dollar price is N400 to a dollar. If somebody goes to the market to buy dollar for N400 to one dollar, naturally, if he comes back from that market, when he was selling his bag of rice at N12,000, naturally, he would like to sell it at N30,000. But when it is not so, you will suspect something fishy and that is when Ifeanyi Uba now quipped that he could…I think his statement was that he could reveal those who are manipulating the market. Any rational economist will know that the market is being manipulated and personally, I see it as a subversion to this particular government , those who feel that the rats, being chased by the cat are definitely, going to fight back and this is one of the systems of fighting back. If you look at what is happening now, there is a dangerous trend which, if the president does not take quick action will definitely derail this government and this government will totally be consigned to history. The general price rise or commodity prices rising in Nigeria, you look at the pure water people , they have a union, and this union now met and said, oh, oh…, we are giving the federal government one week ultimatum or information that they will go on strike if the prices of dollar does not come down; you now want to wonder, the relationship of pure water to the dollar, and the bread people also did the same. What I am saying in essence is this, unionism has no place in a free market. Let us understand something strictly; unionism has no place in a free market. As the name implies, the forces of demand and supply, driving whatever activities people get in particular society, now, if people are allowed to bring in their water for instance, from wherever after obtaining their regulation from NAFDAC and they are allowed free entrance into the market, I do not think that anybody, any union will have a monopoly to tell you that you must sell the water at this price because, that is what they are going to…You look at the garri prices too, you look at palm oil, you look at the fish, all have gone into unions!
People thought the president could have defeated Boko Haram by now, what’s your assessment of the war against insurgents in the country?
Every rational person, Nigerian, who is unbiased will definitely know that President Buhari is winning the war on Boko Haram. He has demonstrated the ability to fight the war. The best the Boko Haram can do is, probably, pockets of suicide bombing. For any rational person also, you will know that there is nowhere in the world that you can totally abrogate guerilla warfare; it is a war of ideology. When this people have lost the territories they have, definitely, they have been degraded, they have to fight back.
What do you think is responsible for incessant fuel scarcity in the country?
There is a serious sabotage; now, who are those selling fuel today? The Independent marketers, these are individuals, private citizens, we talk about privatization, private citizens, who now have gone out and bought fuel, according to them, with their monies, in spite of their claims of subsidy, all that and all that, we have set of people who refused to sell the fuel they bought because they want to create artificial scarcity. If it is not artificial scarcity, why are their depots still selling fuel at high prices? Invariably, it is manipulation of the market, and how can you defeat this in a free market economy? You may not have right to go and arrest and confiscate their fuel because the court will tell you, it is their fuel, they have right over it. But any rational government in the world also, the court will compel them to sell, these are some of the things we have not understood about democracy.