This blog believes in advocating for policies and practices which would truly transform Nigeria. The chronic electric power shortages that has bedeviled Nigeria is a humongous disincentive to the uninhibited flow of Foreign Direct Investment. No one should be fooled that investors would come amidst insoluble and productivity-crippling electric power deficits. Secondly, the simplistic thinking that a return to agriculture alone would salvage Nigeria from the disadvantages of the mono-product economy is also false. This writer argues very robustly in support of the latter thinking. Enjoy our first non-naijaGRAPHITTI written PALAVER TREE COMMENTARY!
Agriculture Alone Not The Answer To Nigeria’s
Mono-Product Economy
By Bámidélé
Adémólá-Olátéjú
No meaningful development can be achieved without a vibrant
power sector and a defined manufacturing base. Sadly, the country’s
manufacturing base shrank in the last 10 years and services grew!
Nigeria’s impulse-driven consumerism
and complacent solipsism gnaws at me; it is infectious and in the open for everyone
to see. It is unsustainable, yet the higher-ups seem unconcerned by it, preferring
to import rice from Thailand for distribution in exchange for votes. They tout
the rote catechism of lending institutions whose neoliberal ideals only serves
to perpetuate poverty.
I begin this piece by giving full
disclosure that I am a farmer. My motivation is to call our attention to
Nigeria’s race to the bottom, its mono-product economy and the fallacy inherent
in touting Agriculture as the solution to our problems. Agriculture alone is
NOT the answer. Agriculture is extractionalist. Without a manufacturing base,
investments in agriculture, export of commodities and cash crops is a sure way
to maintaining dependency and poverty. Nigeria can never be an economic
powerhouse even if its agricultural output improves a thousand folds. No
meaningful development can be achieved without a vibrant power sector and a
defined manufacturing base. Sadly, the country’s manufacturing base shrank in
the last 10 years and services grew! Key industries relocated their operations
to Ghana – a country with more stable power and political sophistication.
The reason behind my postulation is
very simple. If Nigeria spends one hundred Naira to manufacture a product
within, the money that is used to pay for materials, and other factors of
production like labour moves through the economy as each worker, trader,
artisan spends it. The multiplier effect of one hundred Naira worth of primary
production of that singular good, will add several hundreds of Naira to the
Gross National Product (GNP). If this good is manufactured in America instead
of Nigeria, the money will be spent in America and the circulation of that
money will be within the American Economy. This is the major reason
industrialized product-exporting/commodity-importing nations are wealthier
while underdeveloped product-importing/commodity-exporting nations are poor. It
does not matter whether the country is the world’s largest producer of a
commodity/crop or not. Once the country does not produce finished products from
that produce/good, it will remain dependent and poor.
The trend in Africa these days is to
leapfrog industrialization into service-based economy, which is largely founded
on consumption. Nigeria is particularly notorious the world over for
conspicuous consumption and ostentatious living. We are noted for consuming
what others produce. In the last three years, many luxury dealerships have
opened shop in Nigeria and they are recording unprecedented sales and humongous
profits! The incentive is on trade instead of manufacturing because the visit
of production (power/diesel cost) is too high. Why should manufacturers go
through the rigours of raking in a kobo here and a Naira there when you can
simply issue a cheque and take out billions from government coffers? Why
produce, when you can bring in a container load of any consumer good from
anywhere and sell it in a day with large profits? China is an economic
powerhouse today because of its manufacturing base is shored up by cheap labour
from its huge population. Nigeria and indeed the whole of Africa can go nowhere
with Agriculture alone. If we do, we will only be feeding other people’s
affluence and enhancing their living standards while depressing ours.
Industrialized countries grow rich by selling capital-intensive products for a
high price and buying labour-intensive products for a low price.
Capital-intensive enterprise ensures high barriers to entry and cheap products
given the economy of scale while labour-intensive products have low entry
barriers and are expensive given the scale of operations, which are usually
small. This trade imbalance explains the expanding gap between rich countries
and poor countries. What it means is that wealthy nations sell products to be
consumed and not the tools of production. The result is the monopolization of
the tools of production in the hands of the economically strong while the
economically poor revel in consuming products whose price is dictated by the
seller. Invariably, this lopsided power structure assures a continued market
for the product.
In global trade, poor countries lose
when they export commodities. Why? Commodities, as expected, are a lot cheaper
than finished products. This unequal trade is historic given the extrationist
ideology under colonial rule. Unequal trade continues today and it spells
intergenerational poverty for third world countries. This nation must wake up
from its slumber and miseducation by its elites who has refused to propound
sound policies that will advance the country fortunes. On the surface, it may
seem that investment in agriculture to fuel export in goods such as cocoa,
cotton, peanuts, cassava, soybean, gum arabic, sesame seed would be beneficial
to Nigeria because it will generate foreign exchange. Nothing is more
deceptive. Unequal trade constitutes unequal yoke and unequal exchange. Nigeria
may gain currency from the sale of these agricultural products (same goes for
mining), but lose when beverage companies brings in processed beverages like
chocolate milk and repackage it here, when we buy brocade and lace from
Switzerland and so on.
The reason is that processed goods
require additional labour and are thus more costly. Another sad example lies in
our deforested tropical rainforest. All the Irokos, Mahoganys and other
hardwoods that were in the forest for over 300 years were sold for at most
N15,000 each! That is roughly $100. Of course we buy back furniture made of
hardwood veneers (yes, veneers not the real thing) for over $1,000.
Particleboards and plywood are sold back to us at astronomical rates because we
do not have the capacity to process timber. We export timber and import it back
in the form of finished lumber products, at a cost that is greater than the
price we got for the timber.
One of the biggest problem Nigeria
faces as a nation is its rent taking mentality. It has rendered everyone lazy
and materially aggressive. Apart from this, Nigeria has not been able to
unleash the entrepreneurial spirit in its citizens, given its prostrate power
sector. Without stable power we can’t achieve anything! The government should stop
mouthing the IMF/World Bank slogan of export more commodities for a better
future and a buoyant economy because it won’t happen. Falling prices in
commodities trade in the past have met with large increases in export volume by
commodity producers, yet it has not translated into higher export revenues. The
result is a declining terms of trade for many commodity-exporting countries.
This lopsided trade causes steep declines in the purchasing power of commodity
dependent countries. As exports declines, they are unable to purchase imported
goods and services necessary for their survival and for developing and
maintaining critical infrastructure. Agricultural products export cannot help
fight poverty. Nigeria needs to start processing its own produce if it wants to
escape the poverty trap otherwise it will always feed factories in
industrialized nations and help provide jobs for their citizens.
We cannot wallow in sin and ask for
God’s bountiful grace. A local example can be found in the expansion of
Shoprite – a South African chain that is fast growing and reaping bountiful
profit for its home country. Over 80 percent of Shoprite’s revenue comes from
the sale of groceries. Before Shoprite came into Nigeria through its local
partners, no rich Nigerian thought it worthwhile to invest in the changing
taste of the emergent middle class who wants a better, neater and more
organized shopping experience. They prefer to loot, stack and spend than to
invest in real sectors of the economy. The South African chain came in and
found new markets for their agricultural produce and finished products. Today,
about 90 percent of its groceries comes from South Africa where stringent
conditions of quality and packaging are adhered to. The chain has since
expanded to more than five stores in five years. The lesson therein is; when it
comes to commodities, “the importer decides and controls the quantity and
prices, making an unstable market,” as opposed to what obtains with
manufactured goods. While commodities generate low-grade jobs, manufacturing
employs skilled labour for higher wages. The chain of production in
manufacturing is longer, it creates a multiplier effect on employment and
causes the expansion of the domestic market.
Last Word
While we are killing ourselves, and
cursing each other out over crude oil, the Chinese are here grabbing our land,
growing cassava and exporting everything to China, including the peels. I know
because I see them. They are everywhere farming our lands, doing
makeshift/just-in-time-manufacturing and sending the goods back to their
country. No one will stop them after they have bribed their way in. The
re-colonization of Africa has started. If in doubt, look at us from within.
Look at how other African countries have sold their land to foreign interests.
Very soon we will be workers on plantations owned by foreigners in our
fatherland. You heard it here!
This blog originally appeared in the PREMIUM TIMES.
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