Let me begin from the end. The federal government must find a way to bring back the cybersecurity levy and its pension-funds-for-infrastructure polices—and there are ways—in some other forms. These are not just good policies; they are among the very polices Nigeria needs most urgently right now. My sense is that they were kicked out of the policy cycle by Nigerians precisely because of the government’s own very poor policy agenda-building and public communication strategies, and not for the first time with this government. Otherwise, these are simply excellent policies that the government should reintroduce at some point.
Now, let me lay out my argument. Policy making under the Tinubu government has generally swung along two opposite poles of bad policies – bad strategies and good policies – good strategies. In between these two extremes are many others we may categorise as good policies -bad strategies and bad policies – good strategies. Subsidy removal and naira devaluation were clearly bad policies/bad strategies. The Nigerian economy simply cannot absorb the immediate shocks of these policies, and their precipitous implementation made things worse. On the other extreme, policies like the Christmas transport subsidy, the Hajj subsidy, the N50,000 credit transfers to nano businesses, and the almajiri policy are all good policies with good strategies, even if most of these have more political than economic value, and help mainly to mitigate the cruel effects of the original bad policies.
Most of the government’s policies in the past year fall in between these two poles. The government’s approach to the Niger Republic coup was a bad policy with a good strategy, even though the good strategy helped only to contain the damage done by the initial wrong approach. The N5 billion “palliatives” paid to each state was a good policy badly implemented, and had no effect other than to worsen the situation further. If the Lagos-Calabar Highway had also been announced at the same time as the Badagry-Sokoto Highway, the government could have earned plaudits, not having to defend the indefensible. The students’ loan scheme was also a good policy badly communicated, at first. But by engaging the wider Nigerian public, and amending the policy following the feedback received from various stakeholders, the government was able to recover the baby from the bathwater.
The cybersecurity levy and the pension-funds-for-infrastructure policies belong in this same category of good policies-bad strategies. It is rather unfortunate that the government did not learn enough lessons from the Student Loan policy process. But the reason for that inability to learn to engage citizens on any policy is also easy to hand. The culture of policy making in Nigeria remains deeply rooted to its military past of “with immediate effect”, when soldiers would announce a policy out of the blue, with little attempt at strategic public engagement on the policy, if at all. Unfortunately, that culture has become so entrenched that our public officials at all levels of government cannot unlearn it. But after 25 years, it is about time the government got to grips with the reality of democratic governance.
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Democracy is simply government by persuasion. You’ll need to persuade enough people to get elected, and when in government, you’ll still need to keep persuading them every single day about every single policy. This is why in more ‘mature’ democracies presidents and prime ministers engage citizens at town halls, workplaces, schools, and so on, to explain what is going on in government. It is also why serious democratic governments spend a lot of money, time and effort on strategic public communications because they know that persuading is the chief job of democratic governing. Nigerian politicians understand the first part of persuading to get elected, but not the second part of persuading to govern. And they must learn it.
And now to our two policies. Insecurity in Nigeria today has reached unbearable levels. From kidnapping, ambush of military personnel, farmer-herder clashes, religious or secessionist insurgencies, vandalism of public infrastructure, pervasive cybercrime activities and the Yahoo Boys culture, etc, almost every aspect of social and economic life in Nigeria is reeling from security challenges of one kind or another. Meanwhile, there are military operations in 32 of Nigeria’s 36 states, in addition to police, road safety, customs, immigration, prison officials, and so on, who carry out various security activities on a daily basis. And yet, their efforts are not nearly enough because the security agencies have not grown at par with various changes in the overall population.
In short, our security architecture requires a complete overhaul, and to do that, in turn, requires at least four things. First, Nigeria needs some 300,000-500,000 additional boots on the ground in the police, including state police, and in all the other uniformed and paramilitary services. That by itself would reduce insecurity, since economic insecurity is a major cause of physical insecurity in this country. Second, Nigeria needs a massive deployment of security technology for collecting, storing, processing and retrieving security relevant data about every citizen or organisation, in addition to all kinds of functional equipment for security operations. Third, Nigerian security services need serious training and retraining, particularly in terms of more civil and democratic means of engaging citizens when doing their jobs. Finally, there needs to be a society-wide approach to security, one that involves communities and their leaders, traditional institutions, civil society organisations, the media, and especially citizens.
In other words, Nigeria needs a national security fund for which the cybersecurity levy and the additional N3 trillion estimated to accrue from it would be a good start. This is what makes it a good policy, in my view. Unfortunately, by framing it only as a “cybersecurity levy”, and by speedily pushing it through without careful public engagement and agenda-building, the government got its fingers burned once again on a good policy, and deservedly so.
Also, there are three reasons why borrowing from pension funds to build infrastructure is a good policy. First, borrowing their trillions to the federal government is in fact the most reliable investment the pension funds administrators themselves can make for their own long-term futures, whatever the government does with it. Secondly, building infrastructure in housing, transport, energy, education and health is not only long-term capital investment, it also tends to expand economic growth. Nigeria faces acute infrastructure deficits in all of these areas right now, but the government itself gets money from three main sources: crude oil sales, taxes, and borrowing. We all know the current sad situation with proceeds from oil. Nigerians are against more taxes, as they are against borrowing from the World Bank, IMF or other external sources. That leaves domestic borrowing as the only viable option left (other than printing money or ways and means, which Nigerians are also against).
Third, this thing called “foreign investment” that we Nigerians like to worship is in fact a pool of capital from pension funds, mutual funds, banks and insurance deposits, company profits, etc, from other countries that are looking for lucrative investments from countries like ours. In this sense, borrowing from local pension and other funds to build infrastructure is a kind of “domestic investment” that would have multiplier effects all across the economy. Just imagine what a project like 10,000 housing units in each state would do to the economy right now? All of these leave us with one final question: if these policies are as good as I have described here, why, then, did Nigerians reject them? I can think of two answers.
First, public trust is a key part of the relationship between the government and the governed, but Nigerian governments at all levels have lost the trust of Nigerians, in part because officials say one thing but do another, and in part because our governments have not learned to make effective and prudent use of even the resources they do have, let alone the resources they want to borrow or tax anew. The second is where we began in the first place. Nigerian governments have not learned to communicate strategically and respectfully with Nigerians on any issue. For example, you want to borrow N20 trillion to build infrastructure. But you do not give specific details about which particular infrastructure projects you want to build, where you will build them and when they will be completed. Who will trust you?
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