A son of the winner of the June 12 1993 presidential Election, Chief Moshood Abiola, Lekan, who is the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change for Abeokuta North/Obafemi Owode/Odeda Federal Constituency, in this interview with NIYI ODEBODE and FIDELIS SORIWEI, bares his mind on the state of the nation and democracy in the country.

Between 1999 and 2010, you did not come out to contest. Why are you contesting now? How would you assess our democracy?

We’ve gone through dictatorship and my parents and a lot of other people were in the forefront in the fight against dictatorship. We didn’t want the military anymore and thank God that at the end of the day, we were successful. We now have a democracy. We have had two elections so far and each of these elections has been below par. Even the manner in which the candidates were selected in many cases was also not very good. So, we have never had the chance of having our best people rule us. Although we now have a democracy, we do not have the best people in charge of our affairs, if we did, things would not be this bad. You can hear the sound of a generator in the background. Look at how big this house is. Do you know how much it costs to run this house with a generator every day? After 12 years of democracy, we cannot fix the power situation. So, any Nigerian that has good ideas about how he can contribute something to this country should come out and try.

Your parents paid the supreme price for democracy. The expectation was that in 1999, some of your siblings would come out to vie for strategic positions, but you stayed away. What is responsible for this change of mind?
I don’t think that going for a political position is like a birthright. If your father is a good football player, it does not mean that automatically you too must be a football player. Look at Michael Jordan, none of his sons is playing basketball today. So, just because my father was a democrat, who won election, does not mean that all his children must follow that line. Everybody has his destiny. When I decided to come out as an individual, I was looking at the situation. I am not happy with the state in which Nigeria is, right now. I am upset about it and I am sure many people are upset about it. We have a lot of people who don’t have jobs. Salaries of those who have jobs are not even enough. Right now, crude oil is $101. This should be oil boom. When we had the oil boom in the 1970s, the oil was about $40 and we were only producing less than a million barrels a day. Today, we are doing like 2.2 million barrels a day and oil is $101 per barrel. It is disgraceful that we are having economic doom right now, when in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, where crude oil is their main source of income, you see them building tallest buildings in the world and new railway systems. It is very sad. Unemployment is high. The interest rate is 24 per cent.

Do you have faith in democracy now?
You know that the good thing about democracy is that every four years or so, people have the time to chose and change their leaders. Now Nigeria is having that in April. April is a decision time again for Nigerians to come out and say, “We are tired of these people. We are tired of the PDP in the Presidency. We are tired of them in Senate. We are tired of them in the House of Representatives.” The only thing we know about the Senate and the House of Representatives is jumbo pay. We don’t know them for any other thing. These are the people that are meant to be doing oversight, making sure that the budget is implemented, making sure that roads they said they voted billions voted for, have been built. All you hear is that they are collecting jumbo pay. By the grace of God, Nigerians will make the right choice. They have already come out to register in large numbers. I hope that on that day, they will choose the right people to represent them. Americans have already said that in 2015, Nigeria is going to disintegrate. If we fail this time around, it might be like that.

Your father, mother and many other Nigerians made sacrifices for the country to enjoy democracy. Do the kind of people in power now merit being there?

We have had Obasanjo (former president). We had him for eight years. Everybody acknowledged that the country did not move forward at all. He basically did not move the country at all. He basically imposed Yar’Adua on us. Yar’Adua would never have won free and fair primaries but he was imposed on us. The election was not free and fair. Everybody knows that. You know Yar’Adua was very ill and for two and a half years, we did not see anything from him. So, whether he was a good president or not, the fact is that he didn’t have the health to do the job. We all know how that ended. Now Goodluck (President Jonathan), who was not prepared, who would not have been anyone’s choice, for the President, has now become the President. He was picked because the South-South people were making a lot of noise. To sort of appease the South- South, he was made the vice-president. If such a man becomes President, what can you say about him? What I can see about Goodluck is that December 31st, it (government) took out a $1bn and they shared it among themselves. The excess crude account before Yar’Adua died, the foreign reserve was like $13bn, now it has only $3m left, not $3bn; from the $13bn that Yar’Adua left. Goodluck Jonathan distributed a billion dollars, a day before the New Year. While everybody was going to the churches and the mosque for the New Year, they sat down, and divided $1bn. Where has the money gone? We don’t see it on the roads. We don’t see it in power. We don’t see it in security. We don’t see it anywhere.

Do you believe that INEC can conduct free and fair elections in Nigeria in April?

I think that Prof. Attahiru Jega (the Independent National Electoral Commission chairman) will try. I think he too has a lot at stake. We are going to have a better election this time around than we had in 2007. Jonathan is going around saying that he wants free and fair elections. The President is saying he wants free and fair elections, and the other day, Jega too said that he swore by the Koran. For any Moslem, you cannot swear by the Koran and play.

How would you assess the support you have got from your father’s political associates? Do you feel abandoned by them?

I am disappointed. You know, but then I am not particularly surprised. I would have been surprised if they were actually being supportive. In the Action Congress of Nigeria (the leadership), they claim they are democrats and progressives. I wanted to come through the ACN because it is the strongest party for the opposition in the South-West. I am from the South –West. They have so many supporters in Lagos, Osun, and other states. Most of the people in the ACN are the people that I have always known. People like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former Governors Olusegun Osoba and Niyi Adebayo, Governor Rauf Aregbesola. I went to them and a lot of the members, the bonafide members embraced me. They were very happy and I had a lot of support, I went to different wards, I went to meet different leaders and everybody was happy that I was coming out. Then I heard that what I wanted to get, a son of one of the leaders, Chief Osoba, was interested in it and that I should go and meet Osoba to discuss this issue with him. They (some party members) said, “This particular seat that you are looking for, Osoba’s son is interested in it. We have left it for him, so you should go and see Osoba.” So I called him (Chief Osoba) and he gave me an appointment and I went to his house. I said, “I came out for this position and they (some members) are telling me that your son is interested in the seat” He said it was true his son was interested. I asked, “What are we going to do now?” He said, “Well you can go for a seat in the House of Assembly or you can wait for an appointment.” I said to myself, “Why can’t you tell your son to go to the Assembly? And why can’t you tell your son to wait for an appointment? The fact is that I am older than your son.” That was what I was saying in my heart because I could not be arguing with Akinrogun (Osoba). He is older than me and I have to respect him.In my heart, I said, “I have more experience in politics than your son. I have been part of Buhari’s campaign team in the past. Apart from that, I have been married for over a decade or so. Your son is not even married. So, why should I step down for him. The Electoral Act states that there should be primaries.” I told him, “Sir, I will go and think about it.” I went back home in Abeokuta and I called my uncles, aunties, and other family members. In fact, Hafsat (his sister) was even there. Hafsat was even more upset than me. She said, “How could he tell you that you should step down for his son? For what? Who is his son?” She got really angry. I said according to the party’s constitution, we are going to do primaries. So I now started going around trying to get ready for primaries until, they (the party leaders) called a meeting at Akinrogun’s house, where he said that there would not be any primaries and that they would handpick candidates and that whoever was not picked should not worry. He said people not picked would be given appointments. They could go the House to Assembly. I was the only the aspirant who raised his hand. Others were angry but kept quiet. He said I should speak. I said, “ Sir, consensus by definition means everybody is in agreement. So if in a particular case, you pick somebody, and people are not in agreement, what do they do?” He said they could appeal to the appeal panel of the party. I asked who would be in the Appeal Panel? He said the leaders of the party. I asked him if it was the same leaders who made the initial decision that we would appeal to. He said yes. I said thank you very much. At that point in time, I just had to leave; I knew that was the end of the road for me in the ACN.

You said you had an edge over his son; when Osoba asked you to step down for his son, what was in your mind? Did you miss your father’s support then?

I would have stepped down. But I did not because the man was telling me about how he too was about to be killed by Abacha; about how he suffered because of June 12. And when I got home, and I was thinking about it, I said “You said Abacha wanted to kill you, but he didn’t (laughs). You are still alive (heavy laughter). Both my parents are dead. So what are you talking about? Where is my dad today? Mummy oh, I am sorry, she is in the grave. You are telling me to step down for your son? That you suffered for June 12? If you suffered for June 12, and you are still alive and your wife is still alive, then, what can we say has happened to us, the June 12 that fell on our heads? That was what happened to me. I went to join Buhari’s party. The General supported me. He called the leaders of the Congress for Progressive Change in Ogun State and told them to give me all the necessary support and they did that. I met other leaders and they all said no problem.

You are also close to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and other leaders in the ACN. Did you tell Tinubu about this issue and did he intervene?

I am not into politics to cause trouble; I am in politics by the grace of God to get into the House of Representatives to represent the people of Abeokuta North/ Obafemi Owode /Odeda. That is what I am going there for. I want to keep my eyes on the ball. It is not for me to be going from one person to the other trying to cause trouble between Asiwaju and Akinrogun. There is no way that Asiwaju will call Akinrogun to tell him that his son should step down. I don’t want anyone to step down for anybody. What I thought would have happened was that there would have been primaries. That would have been proper. When they said that they were going to handpick candidates, I realised that it was the same handpicking that they were doing in different parts of the South-West basically. It was the same handpicking that they did in Oyo State and in a large part of Lagos and Ekiti states and in other places. So I didn’t want to go and meet Asiwaju for that even though I knew that Asiwaju would not be happy with the situation. He wouldn’t be happy but what could he have done? Their policy is to handpick and their chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, said they know best who they trust to fly the ACN flag. It is just that unfortunately for them, the trust ends with their wives and their children. So if my own father is not alive, I guess no one can trust me to fly the party’s flag.

Why are you supporting the CPC?

Someone like Buhari, whom I am still supporting has picked Pastor Bakare. It is a wonderful masterstroke because a lot of people used to think that he is a religious fanatic and that he would Islamise Nigeria and things like that. So by picking someone like Pastor Bakare, everybody now knows that it is not possible. Even though in a democratic set up like Nigeria, it is impossible for you to Islamise Nigeria because, to pass any law, you have to go to the Senate and the House of Representatives, but still they use that against him. He has picked Pastor Bakare, who is very intelligent; apart from being a preacher, he is also a lawyer. He is somebody who is also into social activism. I think that it a wonderful choice by the grace of God and I pray that they will finally succeed this time around to tackle the problem of corruption. Corruption is one of the major problems that we have in this country today. If you have very good leaders like General Buhari and Pastor Bakare, then you have less of corruption.

What is you view about our lawmakers?

When people who should not be there end up going there, then they do what they should not be doing. The main thing is to bring the dividends of democracy back to their constituencies. It is not to start going to stuff your pockets. But I have met some of them; I asked them, bawo le se ma gba iru owo yi (How can you be collecting such money?). Many of them showed me text messages from their constituents – “My wife wants to give birth. Someone wants to get married.” One of them said, “Look I am sending N30,000, N20,000, N15,000 to party members. At the end of every month, N4m or N5m goes to all these people.” They said that if they did not collect the money, they would not have money to give to their people. When the lawmakers don’t give their people money, the people say they are useless. So I guess you cannot blame them 100 per cent too. This is because the financial burden on a representative or a senator is huge. But, if we can have a good government that can somehow turn this economy around, the burden will reduce. We have to sit down and decide what we are going to do about the Naira. We have to call a national summit. We should call the CBN governor and the minister of finance and ask, “How can we get the Naira to 40 to one dollar? How can we get it to 20 to one, what can we do to strengthen the Naira because the more the Naira loses value, the poorer we become as a people.” We have to do something urgently about the naira. From one Dollar to one Naira in the 1970s, it is one to 155 today. The South African Rand is seven to one Dollar. And they don’t have more reserves than we do. We have more reserves than them, they only have enough reserves for five months for import.

There is this belief that Chief (Moshood Abiola) was more pro-IBB than Buhari. Specifically, there is this rumour that chief was one of the people that caused the down fall of Buhari,

Yes, I have heard the rumour. I think it is just a rumour. Definitely, my father did not really like some of what Gen. Buhari did. But, looking back now, you see Gen. Babangida was a very close friend of my father; they were very close at some point, and then he annulled the election, a big mistake on his part. I think he has apologised, maybe not openly but he feels sorry about it. That singular move has cost him heavily.

Has he apologised to the family?

Yes, he has sent some messages to our family. In fact, when he thought he would be running, he gave some indications that he wanted to visit the family house. He had come before. He wanted to come and visit the family and talk to us. So he has made some efforts to reach out to the family.

Has he personally apologised to the family?

He hasn’t said sorry, but he said what happened was unfortunate (laughs), which I guess is close to saying it. You know I don’t want to be accusing him anymore. I know that he is not going to be coming back to power anymore so we can just forgive but not forget. We should forgive him as a nation for the annulment of the June 12 1993 election, because the Bible teaches us to “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Also, we should focus on reviving our railways and pipelines by possibly privatising them so as to reduce the burden on our highways. We can look beyond that, you know, the man did some good things in power. He built the bridge and some other things. I think people are abusing him too much. He is not coming back to Aso Rock, except as a guest. So we can afford to be nice to him; I think he is a nice man and we just look at that mistake, which I am sure he himself regrets more than anybody else because that mistake alone has stopped him from coming back. As for my father being a part of the coup, I don’t think that military people really talk to a lot of civilians before they overthrow somebody, but even if my father was involved in that coup, I apologise on behalf of my father to Gen. Buhari.

When people who should not be there end up going there, then they do what they should not be doing. The main thing is to bring the dividends of democracy back to their constituencies. It is not to start going to stuff your pockets. But I have met some of them; I asked them, bawo le se ma gba iru owo yi (How can you be collecting such money?). Many of them showed me text messages from their constituents – “My wife wants to give birth. Someone wants to get married.” One of them said, “Look I am sending N30,000, N20,000, N15,000 to party members. At the end of every month, N4m or N5m goes to all these people.” They said that if they did not collect the money, they would not have money to give to their people. When the lawmakers don’t give their people money, the people say they are useless. So I guess you cannot blame them 100 per cent too. This is because the financial burden on a representative or a senator is huge. But, if we can have a good government that can somehow turn this economy around, the burden will reduce. We have to sit down and decide what we are going to do about the Naira. We have to call a national summit.

“I came out for this position and they (some members) are telling me that your son is interested in the seat” He said it was true his son was interested. I asked, “What are we going to do now?” He said, “Well you can go for a seat in the House of Assembly or you can wait for an appointment.” I said to myself, “Why can’t you tell your son to go to the Assembly? And why can’t you tell your son to wait for an appointment? The fact is that I am older than your son.” That was what I was saying in my heart because I could not be arguing with Akinrogun (Osoba). [b]He is older than me and I have to respect him.In my heart, I said, “I have more experience in politics than your son. I have been part of Buhari’s campaign team in the past. Apart from that, I have been married for over a decade or so. Your son is not even married. So, why should I step down for him. The Electoral Act states that there should be primaries.”

jensinmi:


You should see how people line up with all sorts of letters and excuses at constituency offices of Senators and Reps to collect money.
My Child needs school fees - N20,000
My daughter is sick - N50,000
bla bla bla - N30,000

Albeit not all our Senators or Rep are into sharing what they get with the people, a lot of them are under a lot of pressure to give money out to ordinary people and to their party men.

Kilode?!:

As long as we continue to mix our cultural socio-political ideas with oyinbo western democracy, we won't even scratch the surface of our political problems.

Lekan believes the older guy should be respected, his word accepted and his interest should go above that of the younger guy, yet he wants democracy? Osoba is also using that same belief to push his own agenda.

That is the same reason why constituents believe senators should give them cash looted from the public treasury.

Our people are disconnected and confused about the workings of a western styled democratic and economic system. The politician too are confused.

Mixing up oyinbo socio-political philosophy with ours is at the root of our problems. We are a confused people, and it won't end until we get sincere and address our confusing psychological issues on a national scale. We need a cultural revolution people.

IMO, We cannot be both oyinbo and Africans at the same time and succeed. We have to choose one philosophy and make it paramount.

eku_bear:

Very interesting interview indeed. Not sure I agree with his sentiment that the naira should be strengthened. Main thing is that it doesn't get any weaker, that everyone feels confident that $1=150 naira for now and for the future. Stability, essentially.

oyb:

feck that

three years ago naira was 128 to the dollar and dropping. that soludo Arrow weakened the naira, anmd the buying power of nigerians everywhere

i still vex when i think of the ride i'd have bought if the dollar was still 128 naira

Does that type of stuff help?

If you define a "New Naira"that equals 150 old naira, then you get 1 dollar = one "new naira."

But does this fundamentally change anything?

eku_bear:

At times I wish we'd just dollarize the economy, like some other countries have done. Life would be so much better if you knew your money would always be good.

Of course, if you do that then people think you want to enslave Nigeria, blah, blah blah.

Lots of good ideas cannot be implemented due to old fears like this  

KnowAll:

1 dollar = N1.50 NEW Naira. It works, because today in Ghana if u make c10,000 that is $7,500.

Kilode?!:

I may not agree with you on the dollar issue, but I understand where that is coming from. We need to make up our mind as a people and a culture.

If we want to copy, we need to be good copycats. Or the best, else we continue to fail.

If we do not want to copy, we need to create our own systems totally and make sure it fits the realities of our culture and society. We will forever play second or third fiddle if we continue with this Abiku systems we have.

eku_bear:

Me, I want to be a good copycat 

Kilode?!:

Of course you are an American

Seriously though, I'll prefer a good copycat to a confused Nigerian.

My people want oyinbo system and Nigerian at the same time. We need a collective national psychotherapy session

eku_bear:

At times I wish we'd just dollarize the economy, like some other countries have done. Life would be so much better if you knew your money would always be good.

eku_bear:

It isn't so much that I'm American so much as what I've learned as a student. Basically, it makes no sense not to copy. You copy and then build upon what you've copied.

Reinventing the wheel from scratch is a bit of a waste of resources. First understand how the wheel works, master it, then build on top of that.

bk.babe97y:

Not true, just ask El Savador!

But why the cries? The Won is like 10gazzilion to a Dollar, yet, S.Korea's economy is gonna better Ghana's for 2000 lifetimes to come.

The problem is your country produces nothing of repute, outside of oil. . . . .

Ever wonder why China would rather have its Currency with a lower value than all other major economies?

bk.babe97y:

Not true, just ask El Savador!

But why the cries? The Won is like 10gazzilion to a Dollar, yet, S.Korea's economy is gonna better Ghana's for 2000 lifetimes to come.

The problem is your country produces nothing of repute, outside of oil. . . . .

Ever wonder why China would rather have its Currency with a lower value than all other major economies?

eku_bear:

Yeah, I've read mixed reviews about the El Salvador dollarization. But I think for Nigeria it might work out pretty well, since our biggest need is more capital (imo).
The won is quite a bit more stable, I thought? It isn't the exchange rate, but that the exchange rate remains stable. That is the most important thing.
Yeah. But it is hard to start producing stuff when you don't have infrastructure. And to get infrastructure, you need lots of capital. And to get lots of capital, you need loans. Since those loans are denominated in dollars/euro/whatever, the lender needs to have some guarantee that Nigeria won't devaluate its currency so that they'll be paid back their money. Dollarization is one extreme way to do this, another is to build up heavy foreign reserves and aggressively defend your currency.
So China buys lots of dollars in order to keep their currency at some fixed rate to the dollar. The point of this is so that their own exports don't become more expensive.

Anyway, I'd love for Nigeria to have this problem of exporting so much stuff that our currency is in danger of increasing. We are nowhere near that, though. First gotta start exporting. . . or hell, even satisfying local demand and reducing imports.

Kilode?!:

Exactly! they keep their Renmimbi low to keep export cheap, right?

China has a culture that knows what it wants, they are telling the west; you can spend and have all the money, borrow and consume all you want with your freedom culture, but slowly and surely we will suffocate you by using our own austere culture to compete against yours.

I think Germans are like that too within the limits of European liberalism, they relatively managed to avoid a lot of the problems of the last financial crisis too

Germany is not a great civilization by copying every fad and China did not get a cultural revolution for nothing. . .

Katsumoto:

You have a simplistic view of how fiscal and monetary policies work. In a country like Nigeria, a lot of issues need to be fixed before you start to contemplate pegging your currency to the dollar. A currency board has about 5 or 6 mandates which are sacrosanct. Even then, the main aims of a currency board are to fight hyperinflation and stimulate growth. Nigeria does not have hyper-inflation and as such, will not gain much from pegging its currency to the dollar. Nigeria can stimulate growth if it has visionary and sincere leadership. Read about the dollarisation of the Argentine Peso to the dollar between 1991 and 2002.

Argentina was successful in reducing inflation from 3000% in 1990 to about 3.5% in 1994. But Argentina also had to deal with falling foreign reserves, rising unemployment, worsening income distribution, and stagnation of growth. There are many issues that can affect the success of pegging your currency to another currency such as vulnerability to economic conditions in the economy of the mother country, interest rates, price of commodities that the countries buys and sells, and external shocks.

Nigeria should deal with issues of corruption first in its public and banking sectors. Without a transparent system, you are bound to fail with pegging your currency. For instance in a financial crises, you are unable to print money for bailouts (Nigeria needed to print money during the banking crisi) and raise money through increased taxes or through the capital markets.

eku_bear:

@Kilode?!:You are too pessimistic, imo.  Labor is cheap in Nigeria. However, since electricity is expensive, capital scarce, and roads terrible, the actual cost of getting goods to market is high.

We don't need to get rid of the current system we have; far better to implement it properly. 24/7 electricity at reasonable prices => factories sprouting up like weeds in Ogun State to produce goods for the Lagos market, etc, etc.

eku_bear:

What of foreign investment? The only purpose is not to reduce inflation. You do not think fixing the naira to the dollar will help with this? Especially given that currency risk is a big factor limiting the interest of foreign investors? I mean, to some extent our economy is already heavily dollarized, since our main export (oil) is denominated in dollars, no?

eku_bear:

There would have been no other mechanism for dealing with the financial crisis other than printing more money? Why would the FG be unable to raise money through taxes or loans?

eku_bear:

@Kilode?!:You are too pessimistic, imo. Labor is cheap in Nigeria. However, since electricity is expensive, capital scarce, and roads terrible, the actual cost of getting goods to market is high.

We don't need to get rid of the current system we have; far better to implement it properly. 24/7 electricity at reasonable prices => factories sprouting up like weeds in Ogun State to produce goods for the Lagos market, etc, etc.

Katsumoto:

Germany also suffered in the recession but it was able to pull out quickly due to both luck and skilled management. Skill in the sense that it does not have any major competitors in the production of machinery. Luck in that when its main market in the West suffered due to the recession, it was able to find other markets in Asia. German cars have sold more cars to China since the recession and Chinese factories are dependent on machinery from Germany. The German economy is too dependent on exports and it is vulnerable to economic conditions in its main markets. It's mittelstand model is praised around the world but German must increase internal consumption if it is to reduce its dependencies on external economies.

Kilode?!:

Thank you for the clarification. Ultimately, it fits in with the message I'm strenuously trying to pass across; We need to enhance home grown ideas in all areas if we want to compete effectively or we go ahead and become master copycats, Currently, We are failing on both sides.

The Germans are playing to their strengths in Heavy industries and Manufacturing rather than swallowing up economic fads that do not fit into their culture. I understand they were not as invested in the Mortgage instruments that almost collapsed the world in 2007 as their other European counterparts were. Right? If that is true, I won't be surprised, they are culturally more restrained more austere than most Europeans.

Katsumoto:

Labour is cheap but who wants to exploit the Nigerian labour when there is a perception that fraud and 419 is high in Nigeria. Secondly, education standards are falling and the world knows this. There are Nigeria doctors who can not pass their plab exams in the UK. There are Nigerian MBA students who score 700+ (through cheating) in their GMAT and are being found out in their MBA programs abroad.

Even employers in the Nigerian economy are complaining about the quality of graduates coming through the system.

Katsumoto:

Foreign investment will come when there is more transparency and when the government improves its infrastructure. At the moment, Nigeria doesn't inspire confidence; when it starts to inspire confidence and does away with corruption and insecurity, then we might start to see presence. There are Nigerians in Diaspora who have had their fingers burnt by investing in Nigeria; many are being more cautios.

Pegging the Naira to the dollar ties us at the waist to the US economy; we then lose certain abilities to manage our own economy. Like I said, we do not have hyper-inflation and we can stimulate growth through other means. No country that has pegged its currency to another currency has come out of it better.

There are other mechanisms for dealing with a financial crisis such as reducing interest rates (monetary policy) or reducing taxes and increasing spending (fiscal policy). Increasing spending is dependent on a country's ability to raise funds in the capital markets. Nigeria got it wrong by printing money because interest rates and inflation are in double digits. This is one of the problems with Nigeria; there is no synchronisation of fiscal and monetary policy.

Raising taxes increases the hardship on people as more people lose their jobs in a recession. A country's ability to raise funds through the capital markets is restricted in a financial crisis because of a lack of liquidity in the markets. Loans from the world bank or IMF will also be followed by austerity measures which equally increases hardship on the citizens.

Having said all that, Nigeria does not need to borrow from the capital markets or the IMF because it generates enough revenue from the sale of oil. How many oil producing nations are going to the capital markets or the IMF? Instead, most other oil producing nations are building sovereign funds which are being used to invest abroad. Libya, Saudi, Qatar, UAE, etc all have sovereign funds. OBJ started a sovereign fund for Naija (ECA) but this has been depleted from $20b to $400m in 3 years.

Katsumoto:

You are very correct with the above.
No country can be a leader if it always copies. The reason China is still behind the US and EU is because it copies heavily and it is yet to respect IP. It has instituted a system to encourage innovation but the flaw with the system is that it pays out on patent registration rather than actually working prototypes. This has encouraged many Chinese to submits patents that will not see the light of day. As a result, what the Chinese are doing now is that they are buying up foreign companies not for the value of those companies but for the technology behind such companies. But even that can only go on for a while without a culture of R&.

You are also correct about the Germans; they are culturally frugal and that is why there is opposition in Germany to bailout of profligate and irresponsible governments in Europe.