The 30th Nigeria Economic Summit (NESG) will be held in Abuja from Monday 14th to Thursday 16th October 2024.
As a participant or observer of summits over the past 30 years, I have observed that the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), a private sector platform conceived in 1993 and incorporated in 1996, has become “Africa’s leading private sector I testify that I have continued to believe in the vision of “becoming.” It is a think tank dedicated to the development of a modern, globally competitive and inclusive Nigerian economy. ”
We commend the founders for their foresight and thoughtfulness, as well as the resilience of NESG’s subsequent board members. The NESG story shows that, contrary to the advice of America’s 44th president, Barack Obama, Africa truly needs “strong” men and women to overcome its legacy of underdevelopment and build sustainable institutions. I support it.
NESG 30 is a tribute to the late Secretary Ernest Shonekan, Mr. Pascal Dosey, and the late Mr. Alhaji Ahmadu Joda, and is dedicated to analyzing economic data and sharing views on the Nigerian economy, and is dedicated to the analysis of economic data and the sharing of views on the Nigerian economy, and to encourage similar governments and We pay tribute to their efforts in building the NESG, which has outperformed dozens of private economic institutions. . Despite its controversial influence, at least in the consistent orthodoxy of market policy ideas.
At the age of 30, the key question to be answered is: To what extent have NESG institutions, built on the “fundamental principles” of “free market economics” and “private sector investment,” fostered growth and development? That’s true. This point cannot be overstated. The institutions to which men and women belong are merely means. The last step is “development.”
Fortunately, there has been some policy reflection and self-critical evaluation within the NESG itself. Not because of the abysmal performance of the economy caused by the “philosophy” that NES II, dating back to 1995, repeatedly claimed to be “market-oriented.” The Chairman of the 27th Nigeria Economic Summit, whose theme was “Securing our Future: The Fierce Urgency of Now”, Asue Ighodalo, described the main current characteristics of the Nigerian economy as “rising unemployment, widespread insecurity, , and a decline in investment in key sectors.
Last year, at the 29th Summit, NESG Vice-Chair Amina Maina lamented that “What was once a promising, high-growth country is now suffering from underdevelopment.” This means that Nigeria’s growth and development figures have not improved significantly in quantity and quality since NES1 in 1993. On the contrary, it is. There is a new slide to “under development.”
Token progress ignores sustainability. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s headline inflation rate declined to 32.15% in August 2024, a decline of 1.25 percentage points compared to 33.40% recorded in July 2024. This is far from the target of 21% inflation in 2024. Budget proposal.
Despite the new NBS comprehensive methodology for unemployment rate calculation, the unemployment rate increased significantly by 5.0% in the third quarter of 2023, an increase of 0.8% from the second quarter of 2023. Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is reported to have grown by 2.98% (YoY). ) The growth rate in real terms for the first quarter of 2024 is higher than the 2.31% recorded in the first quarter of 2023, but lower than the 11.52% between 2000 and 2004.Despite organized labor struggles that have raised the national minimum wage in nominal terms six times since 1981, sustained naira devaluation and spiraling fuel price increases have exacerbated wage poverty.
So, in an era of persistently low growth, high unemployment, deepening inequality, mass poverty, and stag inflation with rising prices, NESG and its addictive market (and only market!) Where does the validity of policy recommendations come from?
How will the #NES30 be different from the standard from the lost 30 years of development?
Vice President Kashim Shettima spoke for the hearts of many Nigerians on behalf of President Bola Tinubu in Nasarawa recently. “Enough is enough”: dire statistics, “low educational outcomes, high pupil-teacher ratios, large numbers of young people not employed, educated or trained…high birth rates, alarming maternal mortality rates, etc.” “Underage mortality rates and life expectancy among vulnerable populations are low,” he declared.
Senator Kashim Shettima spoke at the launch of the Nasarawa State Human Capital Development (HCD) Strategy Paper. I recently read about “Human Capital Development” for the first time and it warms my heart.
At 30 years old, the NESG should commend the government for putting ‘development’ back into Nigeria’s economic discourse, and putting people, not just ‘numbers’, at the center of it.
The fundamental objective of the national principles espoused in the 1999 Constitution is the welfare and security of the people. I echo Finance Minister Wale Edun’s optimism that recovery is on the way within the ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda, given improving figures such as non-oil revenues, reduced national debt burden, and instrumental and fiscal deficits. I sympathize with that point of view.
However, this figure must be reflected in the quality of jobs, working conditions and living conditions. This requires collaboration with reformed private sector platforms like the NESG that allow elected governments to ‘do business’ in fulfilling their promises to voters.
Fortunately, this year’s NESG theme focuses on “Coordinated Action for Growth, Competitiveness and Stability.” Undoubtedly, NESG has “made great strides in the areas of research results, program implementation, seminars and conferences.”
But it has to reinvent itself. It replaces the market orthodoxy of TINA (there is no alternative) with the heretical view that there are many paths to development.
Nigeria is in the process of development due to neoliberalism, which is a one-way street with no return. It is time to reform existing reforms and end the useless concept of market fundamentalism, which pits states against markets in mutually destructive competition.
Promote a favorable view of the state in order to make markets work. Stop idolizing a market that keeps failing. As a result, the burden will be placed on the state through economic stimulus packages.
John Macmillan rightly points out that “the problem in developing countries is not that markets don’t exist, but that markets don’t work well.” Let’s take the downstream oil industry as an example.
For decades, the market has focused on building the first legacy public refineries and now private refineries, and innovating the trade of local crude oil and naira crude oil, local crude oil and local refineries. We were unable to deliver the product until we worked productively with you. It promises an escape from the corruption of wholesale imports in the name of market principles.
First, we will reinvent the market by developing domestic supply chains through refineries (whether private or public). Nigeria once had four National Development Plans (NDPs) with double-digit growth rates, but sadly since then the IMF/World Bank-driven frenzy for abhorrent debt repayments by an unaccountable military regime debt repayment SAP was exchanged.
Although the NESG has certainly matured, the era of its market policy ideological tenets is the same as the national policies that China (along with a consistent development plan) applied to secure the second and first place in the world economic league. It must give way to a pragmatic mixed bag of market policies. To lift many people out of poverty.
(Issa Alem, MNI)
