President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was said to be highly elated with Nigeria’s GDP growth which quickens to 3.19 per cent in Q2 of 2024 from the 2.98 per cent in the previous three-month period. The oil sector expanded by 10.15 per cent in Q2, much faster than 5.70 per cent in the previous period, driven by increased oil output. Also added to this, the inflation rate in Nigeria was said to decrease to 33.40 per cent in July from 34.19 per cent in June of 2024.
However, the story is not the same with Nigerians as most recent official survey data from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics showed 39.1 per cent of Nigerians lived below the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day (2011 PPP) in 2018/19; an estimated two million children in Nigeria suffer from acute malnutrition where only 20 per cent of the children affected is currently reached with treatment; and 7 per cent of women of childbearing age suffer from acute malnutrition.
One may ask, what is the consequential effects with these development indices reeled out by government to reality of life of ordinary Nigerians. Many have argued that the GDP, inflation figures and other development indices are not reflective of the actual life situation of ordinary Nigerians. So, what is the missing link here?
Government in its effort to improve the lives of Nigerian have implemented many programmes and reeled out policies statements all in its effort to ensure good governance and fulfil promises upon which they are elected for.
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Good governance typically includes elements such as transparency, accountability, participation, rule of law, and effectiveness in decision-making. The pertinent question to ask how does government ever ensures policy and programme objectives translate into improvement of lives and livelihoods of Nigerians?
The government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has set up a government Policy and Coordinating office. The office has developed key performance indicators for all the MDAs, which is good in measuring the performance of the leadership of the MDAs, however, its mandate fell short of measuring the impact of the policies and programmes on the lives of Nigerians.
The absence of impact measurement that will inform the government on whether its policies are achieving the desired goals and objectives often blind government from the concerns of the governed and this is what led to the recent end-bad-governance riot across Nigeria.
The quandary approach from the government in tackling the flummox situation therefore calls for a different approach to what is being commonly put forward by the government of dishing out spurious statistics that has ambiguous meaning to peoples’ lives. This situation of recent was tackled with the distribution of palliatives by governments that have little or no impact on the lives of the general populace.
In me-toosim, there are many tools that could be used to developed policies and programmes that will work well with people’s aspiration and at the same time ensure good governance and peaceful government-people relationship. Among some of which are those most appropriated in the current situation are the Theory of Change (ToR), PEST Analysis and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).
The usual style of government in developing policy, projects and programmes, are most often based on the statistics from national and international sources. The policies and programmes thus derived, individual components are often not well spelt out and critical path are not identified hence the incompleteness of implementation strategies thereby missing the target objectives.
Theory of Change offers one of the best tools that breaks down policy into its sub-components and identify critical path that will allow effective implementation strategy at every level and will ensure wholesomeness of the machinery of attainment of the set objectives.
With the identification of the various sub-components, its critical path and the development of implementation strategies, there is need to further subject these to PEST Analysis. Political, Economic, Social and Technological (PEST) analysis is essential to having a seamless and targeted implementation of government objectives.
Political analysis is important in aligning policies and programmes in tune with political aspirations of Nigerians and that of the platform upon which the government was elected. Economic analysis considers the feasibility of such a policy without having negative consequences on the economy and people’s livelihoods and its affordability by the government. A case in point is the subsidy removal policy statement by the President which brought a lot of unforeseen negative economic consequences.
The social aspect of the analysis brings out the social implication of a policy and programme. Still on the fuel subsidy removal, its implementation has resulted in social disruption, people travel less for business and social engagements due to rise in transportation costs, food security is threaten and quality of life drastically eroded.
Finally, the technological feasibility of such policies and programme should be given serious consideration in its feasibility taken into account the technological development of Nigeria most especially indigenous and the availability of men and materials for it be cost effective.
A case in point is the Compressed Natural Gas (CGN) being introduced into Nigeria transportation sector. Availability of the gas, installation materials and maintenance personnel are of paramount importance for it to succeed, these should be given due and adequate considerations. Furthermore, certain programmes and projects may require further analysis of PESTLE, i.e. introducing Legal and Environmental analysis to eliminate legal issues and minimal negative impact on the environment.
Monitoring and evaluation on the other hand, play crucial roles in the governance of a nation. Policy and programmes implementation requires constant monitoring to ensure the attainment of set objectives remain on course. M&E is an essential tool for learning from experiences, improving performance, and ultimately achieving goals more effectively. Monitoring involves the continuous collection of data to track the implementation of activities and the achievement of outcomes which is what Policy and Coordinating office is doing on the MDAs.
Evaluation, on the other hand, involves analysing and assessing the data collected to determine the effectiveness and impact of the programmes or projects on the intended beneficiaries. This is mainly the function of independent non-state actors like the Nigerian Association of Evaluators (NAE), for credibility and openness.
Overall, M&E will help the government in ensuring accountability and transparency, identifying successes and areas for improvement, make evidence-based decisions to improve programme effectiveness and demonstrate the results and impact of their interventions to the satisfaction of Nigerians and other critical stakeholders.
Furthermore, it helps in holding government officials accountable for their actions and decisions. By tracking and assessing the performance of government programmes and policies, it becomes easier to identify areas where improvements are needed and to ensure that resources are being used effectively and efficiently, thereby building trust between the government and its citizens.
In addition to these, M&E helps in identifying what is working well and what is not, allowing for adjustments and improvements to be made in real-time. This iterative process of learning from experience and making changes accordingly is crucial in ensuring that government initiatives are effective and responsive to the needs of the people.
The way to go is, therefore, for the government to either extend the mandate of the Policy and Coordinating Office to include impact assessment or to set up a strong policy analysis and implementation clearing office that will apply all the recommended tools, i.e. Theory of Change, PEST analysis and the impact evaluation on all government policy statements and design stage of programmes and projects. The office will be responsible disaggregating policy and programmes to define roles and responsibilities, the political, economic, social and environmental implication of implementation of such policies and programmes.
A special independent entity that will measure the impact of such programmes and policies on the lives of Nigerians will be responsible for bringing out the real cost benefits and general wellbeing of Nigerians because of the government interventions. Perhaps Artificial Intelligent (AI) tool could be deployed for instant response.
In addition, budget formulation should be based on the needs assessment through the impact evaluation and the activities, roles and responsibilities as identified in the Theory of Change and the PEST analysis carried out. This will eliminate the bogus policy statements often made by politicians without first subjecting such to deep analysis on its implication on the livelihoods of the populace. Perhaps, this will provide the panacea of harmonious, peaceful and pro-people governance style and people will begin to trust government.
Abdullahi, Ph.D. wrote via [email protected]
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