The Nigerian economy is being made to run or operated from the wrong direction. That is because many of the people who influence the course of operations of the economy are delinked from it, in the real sense. I am pained when I see or hear government spokesmen, who are disconnected from the real sector, pontificating on the economy. Some make pronouncements that tend to determine how the economy should perform or is performing. Unfortunately, many of the statements are in contradiction of the natural order of how the economy works.
The basis of every economy is production. It is the production of goods and services that gives rise to gross domestic product. Production of goods is done in the real economy. That is where people soil their hands so that their mouths can be oiled with pleasure. Those who do this include the farmers, who clear the bush, till the land and plant crops. That is not the end of the production.
Farmers weed the farms, tend the crops, and apply chemicals, including fertilisers, so that the crops can do well and give good yields, and collectively the farmers can produce enough for the citizens and a surplus for export. Then when the time arrives, they harvest the crops and arrange for their transportation from the farms to where they can be sold, depending on the value chain.
It is the same in industrial production. Factory workers soil their hands with the production processes: they carry the raw materials; they carry the equipment; they climb and operate the machines and do all the impossible things, just to make sure that the goods roll out of the machines and that the goods are supplied to the citizens.
- Nigeria wasting rice, yam, fish amid food crisis – Report
- NIGERIA DAILY: What’s Next For Banks After Mergers
Meanwhile, just like the farmers who are grappling with rising costs, the managements of the factories, of companies know how much their costs have risen over the period, say in the past year. They know how what used to be fixed and variable costs have all become variable in the current economic milieu in which we are, so they can no longer put their hands on the cost of production.
Unfortunately, for most of these people above, it is difficult for them to tell their stories in full.
We were almost getting to a point where our economy would be run or operated from political offices. We were almost there, where political appointees would gleefully pontificate on what policies the government should make and even tell us the effect of such measures while the policies are yet to be thought through or debated.
We were getting to the point where Nigerians were being told to go to the radio or television to buy goods and services that they needed. Nigerians were being told that a 50kg bag of rice would be sold to them at N40,000 per, but neither they nor the bewildered Nigerian consumers know where that brand of rice is coming from.
It is like they are telling us how much a basket of tomatoes will sell for even before the farmer clears the land to plant. They tell us how much a bag of rice is selling at, but that price is completely out of sync with the reality on the farms or the road to the farms. We cannot be fixing prices of goods, including farm produce or factory products on television or over the radio, without recourse to the state of agriculture and the industrial sector.
We cannot continue to run this economy on this ad hoc basis or chance. Our economy must be run from the farms, factories and all the places were production takes place. These are the places that make or mar an economy and this must be so in so in our case
As a reporter, I speak to people who are engaged in the real sector from time to time. I speak to farmers and factory workers, and of course to people in the financial services sector and other segments of the service sector, who oil the wheel of the production system. I speak to cocoa farmers across the cocoa-producing states, including Abia, Cross River, Ondo, Oyo, etc.
Their story is the same. They are grappling with rising labour and input costs. Farm workers want to have their share of the minimum wage because they too are subject to the same high cost of everything. So, a farm worker who was paid, say N3000 per day a year ago, today charges at least N5,000 per day, plus a meal to be taken at the farm. Multiply that by the number of workers a farm owner engages in a day, times of course the number of days he needs to weed one hectare of farm, and other services that must be performed from clearing the bush to drying the cocoa seeds, before he sells his output.
It is the same for oil palm producers, who have also had their costs rise astronomically: from daily paid workers, who, like their cocoa farm counterparts, must also eat as they work and the farmer has to provide this food separately in addition to the daily wage.
My pain is that some of the government officials who pontificate on prices have no clue as to what the real sector is enduring. Certainly, this is not the best of times to be a producer in Nigeria.
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
