Within a month of assuming office, the ultra-rightist ruling party, the All “Progressives” Congress, has shocked Nigerians with radical austerity measures that are traveling deep into common lives.
What President Tínubú is doing is known in economic history as the shock doctrine. It was coined by Naomi Klein in her book “Shock Doctrine” to refer to the theories proposed by leading market economists – most notably Nobel Prize winning Milton Friedman – of the Chicago School, coincidentally the said alma mater of Nigeria’s incumbent president.
The shock doctrine has been applied in some economies of the world most notably Chile and, partially, in the UK under P.M Margaret Thatcher. In1973, General Augusto Pinochet toppled the left-wing government of Chilean President Salvador Allende in a bloody coup that killed several thousand. The coup brought on a regime that murdered several thousands more who resisted the shock doctrine that tailed the entry of the Pinochet junta. Suppose we do some comparison, it might be deduced that the murders during the End SARS protests were a dress rehearsal for what is to come. Recall that President Tínubú blamed the victims of the murders, and has not condemned the massacre of surrendered, flag-waving, anthem singing, unarmed, mostly young protesters by the Nigerian Army. Shock Doctrine operates vertically with brutal violence.
The president’s shock therapy has touched every facet of public life, but has excluded the private lives of the top 1%. In November 2010, as stated by the former Governor of the Central Bank Lamido Sanusi, the Nigerian legislative branches allegedly gulped about 25% of the national revenues. That allegation was never successfully refuted and those mammoth spendings have not been cut, at least not that anyone has heard about. In fact, despite earning jumbo pays and robust monthly allowances that put strain on the treasury, legislators are empowered to determine their own salary and guaranteed protection from having to disclose the amount they receive. Exclusion from the burden of austerity policies has continually eluded the powerful, rich and mighty. Recently, in a garish display of insensitivity, a mile-long motorcade escorted Tínubú during his visit to Lagos and Ogun states, blaring sirens and burning fossil fuels paid for by taxpayers. Those cuts are secondary, of course. What must receive a further cut is the subsidy on staples. Only common people have to suffer as austerity hits.
For many years, organised civil society has resisted commercial interests in Nigeria’s public sector. But its capability to mobilise internal credibility has floundered. This internal weakness of civil society has emboldened the ultra-rightist governments to push on their policies, thereby lifting oligarchic interests above the happiness of the nation and its peoples.
Meanwhile, Tínubú has contrived a strategy of plea, begging Nigerians to endure his ruinous “baby steps” as he pushes those lessons he learnt from the Chicago School of (Bad) Thought down the open throat of the Nigerian people. You can easily predict bad times ahead when a president and his economic team think prices are a natural phenomenon that can stabilise without interference from the government. Tínubú and his team recklessly believe that prices take care of themselves in a “free market”. The truth is, nothing is free in Nigerian markets, except monopolistic interests exercising unlimited freedom to exploit Nigerians mercilessly.
With a willing collaborator in the presidency, the monopolistic oligarchy will only ask for more. Its handshake has traveled from the palm and has reached the jugular of the Nigerian people. Yet, those policies will not work. Pardon my pessimism, but history is a great teacher and in all of recent economic history, the shock doctrine has had little success compared to its brutal appearance in the “underdeveloped” world. It sucks more blood than it gives.
Tínubú’s economists are leading him to the edge of the precipice, a typical example of a willing, blind creature leading an army of other willing, blind creatures. Tínubú loves Lee Quan Yew. Well, what’s not there to love about the transformer of Singapore, the wet dream of every aspiring authoritarian? But remember that Singapore as a state is smaller than one-fifth of Lagos and in possession of infrastructural leftovers from the colonial regime which Nigeria lacks? Nigeria does not have the physical infrastructure to assure itself of the over-praised self-healing abilities of the free market. Without publicly directed local production of finished oil, the “unsubsidized” costs will keep soaring like a flock of vultures. In free markets, prices hardly go down unless there is an interruption from the government. If you think the subsidy removal braggadocio of Mr President is going to work, you are just hopelessly naive.
Without local refineries and other corresponding infrastructures functioning, the price dynamics will not obey the command of the current “commandist” regime in Nigeria. Economics is scientific, not commandist. After all, the military commands better, but when they were in power – for close to three horrible decades – nothing happened. And one should hope they would not return.
Tínubú is whimsical. His policies are nothing but a prolonged national torture. He and his cronies can be amused and the end will neither be so amusing nor in the least funny. It will only deepen the suffering and poverty of the people, resentments for the government, probably drive Nigerians into more irrationality or, God forbid, a coup. Austerity is just as the word entails; austere.
@RealOjoAderemi
ojderemi@gmail.com
