Who is Nigeria’s Lula for Vision 2020?

Those who are in the business of envisioning for Nigeria may need to read the Brazilian story more closely. Barely seven years ago, not a few doubted Brazil’s capacity to eventually emerge as an economic giant. The sceptics pointed to the obvious disabilities that could impede taking a leap by the country: official corruption, high rate of violent crime, a history of political instability, environmental problems and mass poverty. The country has also suffered a number of crises in its economic history. All that was before the former labour leader, Luiz Incacio Lula da Silva, was elected president.

Only last month The Economist newspaper described Brazil as the “Latin America’s Big Success Story”. Whenever the “emerging economies” of Brazil, Russia, India and China are referred to with the now famous acronym, BRIC, not many people would raise questions anymore about the B in this shorthand of global economic discourse. It has been projected in some quarters that by 2020s, Brazil could be the world’s fifth-largest economy. The future of Brazil is being painted in the most optimistic colour because it has chosen a proven path to development. The projections about the future are based on the cherry reading of the present socio-economic and political indicators. Contrast this with Nigeria. At about the time Brazil is expected to be the one of the five largest economies trouncing Britain and France, Nigeria is envisioned to be one of the largest 20. With 10 years to the target date the Nigerian economy is still run on generating sets and no one can say with verisimilitude when this disability will be corrected. While Brazil is reputed to have been consistent with the implementation of sound economic policies for about 20 years now, Nigeria has hardly implemented any annual budget satisfactorily in the last 10 years. Perhaps the summation of the lessons from Brazil is that the acknowledged success story of today and the immense promise of the future derive from a well-thought out public policy. There is no running away from the fact that competence in governance is central to any vision of development.

This is a function of the government that cannot be performed with privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation and other neo-liberal prescriptions. Those who are envisioning for 2020 should come to terms with the reality that good policy articulation and implementation in economic management is the business of government and not that of any private sector, much less a putative one like Nigeria’s. The evidence of competent implementation of the policies abounds in the Brazilian economy, polity and society. The most glaring piece of evidence is in poverty reduction. According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, global poverty should be halved by 2015. As at last year, Brazil was acknowledged to have achieved this goal. The economic story of Brazil is not just about the 5% annual growth rate; it is even more significant about the qualitative transformation in the lives of the poor people especially. The percentage of inequality is dropping within its population of 192 million people. It is not enough to talk about the size of an economy, as policymakers are wont to do here in Nigeria; it is also important to employ workable social policies to rescue those below the poverty level from sinking deeper into the abyss of misery. As you envision growing the economy you must also tackle crippling poverty so that more people could be real participants and actors in the economy of the future. It makes no socio-economic and even political sense that the more you grow the economy the more unequal the society becomes. Brazil has come about its success for which it is being toasted across the ideological spectrum not simply because of its growth rates. The country has invested heavily in human capital development. It has accomplished 97% school- enrolment for children. Those children would stand a chance of benefiting from better jobs with good remuneration in the rosy economy of the future being predicted for Brazil. Even then, it justifiably savours the glory for the present accomplishments. To be sure, Lula has continued with the free market reforms inherited from his predecessor, President Fernado Henrique Cardoso; yet the state under him has also actively intervened in fixing decent minimum wage and raising pensions. Lula has embraced the market as a reality while simultaneously strengthening the role of the state. It may interest our deregulators and other apostles of free market that there have been instances under Lula when the government actually pay stipends to the poor on a massive scale. In Nigeria, the question of social protection is simply answered by ignoring the issue. The most creative formulation that has come from some of our experts and policymakers is that social security is not realistic in our context. They are quick to lecture you on how it does not make economic sense and how it would create social parasites just feeding on the state. Yet, poverty reduction cannot be comprehensively discussed without confronting the question of social security at least. Now, this situation of hypocritical silence on social security is certainly not good enough. In the drive for development in Brazil, the state has actively mobilised the people in the sectors of education and healthcare delivery. The government of Lula has admirably invested heavily in education and healthcare delivery. The government reportedly had to pay some poor parents to keep children in school and to orient people to go to health clinics. The process of development is enhanced by popular participation; in fact it would be better when there is the popular control of the process so that policy choices are in favour of the majority of the people who happen to be the poorer. In Nigeria, the interests of the poor are the easiest to be treated as trade-offs as the rich control the process. Doubtless, Brazil still has its dark sides and it is yet to say confidently, “farewell to poverty’, to borrow from the manifesto of Bahorun M.K.O. Abiola in the June 12, 1993 presidential election. The same November 14th-20th 20009 edition of The Economist that toasts the success of Brazil also puts the other side of the matter like this: “It is a place of misery where 17% of homes do not have running water and too many families live in home-made shacks by motorway bridges. A place where many people convicted of serious crimes go unpunished, and those in prison live brutalised existence.”

However, the point at issue is that on the balance Brazil is considered to be on the path of sustainable development because central to its strategy are the anti-poverty programmes. It is a strategy with a good dose of social content. This is another aspect of the Brazilian economic story that speaks eloquently to the Nigerian situation. Above all, Brazil is acknowledged to be steady on this developmental path because it has a leadership giving direction. Lula who will be leaving office in about 11 months time has proven to be a transformational leader. He has done justice to his leftist background. He has pushed further the free-market reforms he inherited without his government abandoning its responsibility, as our unbridled privatisers would prefer here.

The Brazilian economy has not been badly affected by the global economic crisis as was conventionally expected. The economy is said to be growing again after a minor shrinking. Lula’s tenure has become a turning point for national progress because he has pursued vision beyond occasional exhortations and branding, as it is the case in Nigeria. In seven years and with a well-focussed leader, Brazil has recorded a turn-around in its socio-economic climate. Nigeria does not have to wait till year 2020 before the evidence of good leadership could be shown. That is why those envisioning for this country must also think of a Lula that can lead so as to make the vision a reality. Hence, this envisioning thing should go beyond technically setting targets for growth and be moved to a serious engagement with this troubled political economy.