The Trumpet Newspaper Issue 624 (May 29 - June 11 2024)

Opinion
MAY 29 - JUNE 11 2024
TheTrumpet
Democracy, governance and
credible elections (1)
Page9
Continued from Page 8<
Again, that’s where the late Obafemi
Awolowo excelled as a leader! But how
come successive leaders have not been
seeing the link between the minimum
wage, the purchasing power parity and
investments? Call it an election gimmick
but that’s why Governor Godwin Obaseki
of Edo State deserves a standing ovation.
Well, it’s not that N70,000 as minimum
wage for workers in the State is fair
enough but then, the Governor has
demonstrated that a worthy credit analyst
would prefer Benin City where the
purchasing power parity is N50,000 to
Gusau where the purchasing power parity
is N31,000. In a way, Obaseki has shown
that, for any economy to attain its
potentials, it is better to have 15 million
people who are on a living wage of
N105,000 per month than to have 200
million people who are on a minimum
wage of N30,000 per month.
‘Ojú to dilè ni iroré ń so.’ (Pimples
usually infect an idle face. The notorious
truth is that we can’t have functional
democracy, good governance and
credible elections without a sound
educational system. Had Nigeria also
been blessed with a sensitive political
class, Nigerians would have been
benefiting from free and compulsory
education as far back as 1974 or 1975. Of
course, the difference would have been
that Nigeria would not have been having
all these problems because of a better
educated population. Matter-of-factly, the
better educated the people are, the better
and the saner the choices. A better
educated population is a better informed
and more productive population. But
when politics fails to deliver its goods to
the people, waiting for much chemistry
to work at the same pace for development
to show up becomes the norm.
Obviously, that’s what Awolowo got right
and that’s why people like Joseph Stiglitz
won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
Secondly, compulsory education is
the best form of population control. On
the day of Nigeria’s independence in
1960, the United Kingdom as the parting
colonial power had 7 million more people
than Nigeria. Whereas Nigeria’s
population grew from 44,928,342 in 1960
to 229,152,217 in 2024, the British
population has grown by only 15.34
million since 1960. The implementation
of the Education Act of 1947, which
made education free and compulsory up
to the age of 18 in the UK, led to the
halving of her population within one
generation. Why and how? Educated
people “marry later” and have fewer
children. What’s more? Educated
populace is better skilled, has higher
Nigeria Democracy
purchasing power parity and many other
advantages. That’s why countries like
Italy and Japan have declining population
growth. They are actually begging and
bribing their citizens to have more
children. For Nigeria, the story is
pathetically different!
Forget the delusion of grandeur,
unless some steps are taken in the right
direction, Nigeria as a country may be
fast sliding into irrelevance. For example,
South Africa is currently the biggest
economy in Africa, of course with the
soundest fundamentals. She is followed
by Egypt and Algeria and only God
knows the true occupier of the 4th
position between Nigeria and Morocco.
South Africa has strong institutions of the
State. As a matter of fact, the ruling
African National Congress (ANC) is
already terrified of losing the
forthcoming elections. Most importantly,
she has basic industries like iron and steel
and machine tools. So, she manufactures
and exports cars to Europe. Unlike
Nigeria, South Africa doesn’t assemble
cars. As former President Donald Trump
once said, “If you don’t have steel, you
don’t have a country.” In terms of
fundamentals therefore, how to arrest
Nigeria’s descent into irrelevance should
be the key question.
But how did we get here? When
Nigeria decided to throw away the
Lyttleton’s, 1960 and 1963 Constitutions,
it became obvious that the country was
gone. Brazil currently operates the 1988
Constitution, which is the 7th enacted
since the country’s independence in 1822,
and the 6th since the proclamation of the
Republic in 1889. Look at today’s Brazil!
She’s currently the world’s 9th largest
economy. Not only that, 92% of all new
cars sold in Brazil are powered, not by
Petroleum Motor Spirit - PMS, but by the
ethanol derived from sugarcane. For
greater certainty, Brazil is a huge
producer of sugarcane. Impliedly, had
Nigeria kept up her existence on the 1960
and 1963 Constitutions, she’d have been
powering not less than 92% of her cars
by ethanol derived from cassava. After
all, dear country is currently the world’s
largest producer of cassava with an
annual output of over 34 million tonnes
of tuberous roots. What this means is that,
instead of buying a litre of PMS for
N700.00, ethanol derived from cassava
would not have cost more than N130.00.
Besides, that would have been a boost for
agriculture and industry would have been
competitive because its cost would be
lower. Added to these is that the destiny
of employment generation in the country
would have been given a lift-up.
● To be concluded.
● KOMOLAFE wrote in from Ijebu-
Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria
(ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)