It is often said that it would amount to madness to continue doing a particular thing in one way and expecting to obtain a different result. The mode of operation must change for a different kind of outcome to be obtained. Now, nobody doubts that our nation, Nigeria, is in need of change. Indeed, it can be claimed that it is that realisation that swept the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) into power in the 2015 elections. And we had actually witnessed some interesting changes in the land since then, like the announcement by several state governors that the salaries and allowances of high-level government appointees would be reduced by as much as 50 per cent.
Now, one wonders whether those announcements were actually followed through with action. The development was seen as a significant one in Nigeria, where the leaders’ tendency has mostly been to impose belt-tightening measures upon the people, while they continue to feed fat and not have to give up even the tiniest portion of their own perks. While the federal and most of the state governments were owing their workers several months of salaries, it was not certain if the commissioners, ministers or special advisers had to go without receiving even one month of their salaries and allowances.
We need to embrace change in many other areas of our corporate life too, for us to be lifted out of the present mire. One such area was pointed out in Abimbola Adelakun’s article in The Punch newspaper of Thursday, June 25, 2015 on ‘Ogogoro and the Nigerian parable’. The point made in the piece, and which was widely acclaimed, is the need for a complete re-think of our approach to certain activities that might be considered as “illegal” or involving the “substandard” production of certain goods, like ogogoro. Instead of hounding down the people involved in the ogogoro business, Adelakun argued, would it not be more beneficial for the country, specifically in terms of job creation, to seek to standardise the process and empower the people who are involved in that cottage industry?
This applies equally to the people who are accused of operating “illegal” refineries. Could the attitude, rather, not be one of seeking to help them to improve upon their operations and at least contribute that much to the development of the nation’s economy? We complain that our legally established refineries are either not functioning at all or functioning optimally, and yet we do not seek to encourage those who are contributing to making refined fuel more available in the country. It is clear that we need a totally new orientation, one which will stop criminalising ordinary people’s efforts to make a living for themselves and at the same time contribute to growing our economy.
The point of view stated above finds support in a response to Adelakun’s ogogoro article written by Professor Fakinlede, Dean of the Faculty of Technology at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). He states: “Just like Customs really expect us to clap that they have burnt millions of naira worth of contraband textile instead of sewing prison uniforms, clothing the Internally Displaced Persons or the destitute, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control thinks its job is done when it publicises arrests and destruction of substandard regulated products!” Rather than continue this senseless destruction of probably useful articles and sending to jail individuals who actually should be treated as innovators, there ought to be government and private support to transform them into our industrialists – or, at the very least, to help them effectively and profitably run their small-scale enterprises. Professor Fakinlede argues that “if the chemists and chemical engineers of Nigeria were tasked with providing simple processes for ensuring the quality and safety of the local distillation of these products, the market could expand and provide jobs and other derivatives in medical and other applications.”
The time has come to stop criminalising everything that does not conform to our narrowly defined laws. While those who are stealing us blind, robbing the nation of billions – and even trillions! – of naira continue to move freely and enjoy their ill-gotten wealth, hard-working people are being accused of engaging in illegal practices, simply because their installations are crude and rudimentary. If our governments had busied themselves with providing the services they were voted into power to give us (like running water and electricity), those crude refineries would be much better operated today. We are living in times that require out-of-the box thinking and a dynamic, innovative approach to governance. Let us hope that the sheer magnitude of the challenges facing us as a nation at this time will force our leaders to move away from the well-worn ways of doing things, and begin to seek solutions that have the potential of bringing about the kind of radical change that many of us are hoping for.
Specifically, our young and energetic Nigerians must be encouraged in every way possible. The devil will always find a job for idle hands; and certainly idleness – and the resultant poverty – has pushed many of them into criminal behaviour. But that need not continue. Let us recognise the efforts many of them are making to survive, and give them that extra push which will transform them into real businessmen and women.
• This is a revised version of an earlier article.