taharqa: Maybe cos NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that has a functional AutoIndustry have done what you are suggesting??

Canada does that.

geeez: Haters repeat after me:

Eko o no baje

Then flatheada chorus:

O baje ti

O like wahala o.

mbulela:
Being reserve bank governor is not about all that plenty talk that Rewane is always talking on tv. For the reserve bank governor,we need men with proven records of building institutions and team players not men who have been running one man consultancy most of their adult lives and spouting textbook economic on tv.
The case of Elumelu has been discussed earlier in this thread. We need to keep these banking cowboys far from our public space. Let them stick to enjoying their loot in the private space and keep deceiving gullible folks with all these videos posted here.

Atedo Peterside and Ben Akabueze are my choices, all these cowboy bankers that nearly killed the sector during Soludo's time should not move near the post.

KIRIJI: These Igbos are irredeemably da.ft. So becuase the ilorin monarch assumes are fulani nomenclature automatically means the entire kwara state is under fulani control? The Governor, Deputy governor, Senatotrs, Legislators, Local government chairmen, and Ward councillors are all Yorubas. So where is the fulani subjugation coming from?

The Emir is more yoruba than fulani, infact it has been that way for a long time but our friends from the east do not know this. Ilorin is a yoruba town and the state is led by a yoruba man.

I think there is a need to hope that the development spreads all over the country, SE, SS, NW and NC and even NE when they are through with killing themselves. Lagos state is too crowded, we need to depopulate the state by spreading development. I am happy with Dangote's investments in the SW.

Segeggs: can you provide a source to the above cajole tactics?


Sauce or am not eating this bullsheet.

Fasehun OPC is behind GEJ (contract things), Afenifere is also behind him because Tinubu has made them redundant, they will do anything to see Tinubu's downfall even to the detriment of Yoruba land.

naijaking1:

Akingbola remains an idol to enterpreneurship in Nigeria!
In any societies, he would be praised for his innovation and foresight. In Nigeria, where the bad people ALWAYS win, I'm not surprised that the man is not respected.

Erastus ko, Erasmus ni, someone who could not run a bank successfully, please how much is intercontinental shares right now? Confirmed round tripper and money launderer.

I will prefer Ben Akabueze as the CBN governor, he was a banker and has served meritoriously in the LASG.

OAM4J:

Ok, guess we are saying the same thing; the awards were bought, likewise his MSc in Economics. Then he used mago-mago and man-no-man + politics to rise to the position of First Bank MD and later CBN Governor. He merited none of them at all, right?

Am learning more and more!

BTW, am not Sanusi's fan or one of his praise singers. I just didnt know till today that he is intellectually limited, but thanks to you and others, am learning.

Why are you wasting your time arguing with these guys, they are die hard Sanusi haters, someone who shouted when money was missing in the coffers is their enemy, it has been so for them in the last four years, nothing the guy did has been good, meanwhile their messiah Soludo messed up the banking industry and with the Stock Exchange woman "stole" people's investment.

jerseyboy:

Uzi, you are one of the few Edo state indigenes who still thinks OshiOmoOle is a performer. Please place a call to 10 people resident in the state for a survey. That bubble busted a while ago only remains outside Edo state. As for Osun state where the next election will be much more competitive than most are expecting, the jury is still out on Ogbeni.

They have outperformed the government they replaced in all of the states (Ekiti I do not know much about).

superstar1:

We don't have to do that.

They are heritage. You can't buy those roofs with money.

I bet you, it adds to skyline of IB

We need to modernise, if the buildings are strong we can just change the roofs and move on, else, we might need to build a new city in the future.

customized13: good idea or maybe u can jst demolish all those houses, I bet ibadan will be unclothed, we demolish such houses in the east to avoid accident.

I believe some of those houses will be demolished as soon as the ancients that live there die off, some of them are ancestral homes and the politics is something else, beyond that, there is a need for Ibadan people that live in lagos to build more houses in ibadan, I think the problem is that of rent, it is so low that it is not attractive to build for commercial purposes.

pazienza:

Now,this puts things in perspective,and reinforces the fact that ndigbo depends less on their government as shown by the relative lower salaries of our states,and also frown at taxation by their govt as shown by the relatively lesser IGR by our states.

No it does not, Lagos is part of SW so you need to add that of Lagos as well.

superstar1:

Molete is part of the brown roof. Very ancient and beautiful area

Oremeji is a quarters that evolved in the 50s. Same with Agbowo and Iwo road.

I have mentioned the places of the 90s for your.

That is what they call evolution of. A city. Every part of a city must be able to tell the story within a time frame of the lifetime of the city.

What we need to do in Ibadan is change those roofs, plaster those buildings and paint them shikena and our brothers from the East will not have anything to say. It is pertinent to point out though that we have been unlucky with governments in Oyo state, that city was more beautiful in the 60s than it is now, I hope Ajimobi will bring better development.

customized13: that isn't ib, ib doesn't have as much vegetation as I see in that pix.

You want to contest ibadan with me, where do you think IITA is?

Ibadan Skyline

eggheaders:

Is this fool crazy I live after Niger road in your best area Onitsha gra and the road connecting the place from abs junction is rubbish. While Ibadan can boast of 14 gras with standard road network. Do you care to show us your paradise in woliwo, opoko, odokpor, fegge, awada and akunnie.

I do not know the slums that he is talking about that is not in the SE.

ketoprofen:

And I repeat, if Ibadan were very small, will it have the same number of mansions as Onitsha?
no
The money is not there with the ppl.

It actually has more mansions than in Onitsha, have you been to the GRA areas in Ibadan? You will be shocked at what is there.

ketoprofen:

Where did u see red mud? and what's wrong with red mud?
gully erosion is a natural event, if u like go and yab japan with tornado tnz, japan is a progressive country.
.
but aside the natural disasters in yorubaland ( esp lazy genes, redundant brains), the man made ones like creation of slums is like adding insult to injury.
u see the difference?

You do know that your people are sizable in the SW, if they can run away to live in slums, what do you think is the condition of the SE?

eggheaders:

Bro with this villagers all his fair in a war. We don't have mercy on them, can't you see the lies they have pollute Google servers with about Yoruba. If you too tey for here self you go begin see civil war kwashiorkor children.

Let us debunk their lies in a clean way, those ladies are victims of circumstances, I have posted some pictures of Ibadan skyline and defended the google search.

ketoprofen:

Oyo is also bigger than Lagos.
how does that make Oyo better or finer or more presentable than Lagos.
don't use size to defend ur poverty and low life.
America is big and developed too.

There is a need to do more in our SW states, infrastructure is good, we also need the people to have money in their pockets, inasmuch as one east is being tribalistic, we also need to look at the message and do something about the ills that plague our region.

Italiano1:

Which of these is your sister?




Oloyin beans na food, at least we are not starving and desperate to the point where innocent young girls are used for commercial purposes

Guys lets be cool, those ladies in the picture do not deserve to be portrayed like that, lets keep this clean.

one.east1:



Who owns google? Is it not Americans?

As you can see in the picture, all of the google results are from nairaland, please engage your brain nau.

one.east1:



Show us the skyline of ibadam and stop this long grammar...biko

The ones I can find apart from the ones you have posted.

one.east1:



This is Onitsha skyline..

Now show us ibadam skyline...

I am from Ibadan so I should defend it, you keep showing us the old part of Ibadan, the owners will not bulldoze those buildings because they take pride in the structure, those buildings belong to the whole family and nobody can do anything about it. There are more modern areas in Ibadan like the CBD and the GRA areas. I have travelled the length and breadth of alaigbo and I can tell you the same thing exists, is it Okigwe, Uturu, Mbaise, Onitsha or Aba. Enugu city is okay but what of Emene, even Enugu sef is a very small city compared to Ibadan.

If Buhari gets a nomination he will have my vote. I will vote for him not, like some have averred, because he is a northerner and a Muslim or because I think his candidacy is good for the north and Islam; I will vote for him not because I think he will make a good democrat or that he was not a dictator. I will vote for Buhari as a Nigerian for a leader who restored my pride and dignity and my belief in the motherland. I will vote for the man who made it undesirable for the “Andrews” to “check out” instead of staying to change Nigeria. – Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

BUHARISM: Economic Theory and Political Economy By Sanusi Lamido Sanusi [LAGOS]

I have followed with more than a little interest the many contributions of commentators on the surprising decision of General Muhammadu Buhari to jump into the murky waters of Nigerian politics. Most of the regular writers in the Trust stable have had something to say on this. The political adviser to a late general has transferred his services to a living one. My dear friend and prolific veterinary doctor, who like me is allegedly an ideologue of Fulani supremacy, has taken a leading emir to the cleaners based on information of suspect authenticity. Another friend has contributed an articulate piece, which for those in the know gives a bird’s eye view into the thinking within the IBB camp. A young northern Turk has made several interventions and given novel expressions to what I call the PTF connection. Some readers and writers alike have done Buhari incalculable damage by viewing his politics through the narrow prism of ethnicity and religion, risking the alienation of whole sections of the Nigerian polity without whose votes their candidate cannot succeed.

With one or two notable exceptions, the various positions for or against Buhari have focused on his personality and continued to reveal a certain aversion or disdain for deeper and more thorough analysis of his regime. The reality, as noted by Tolstoy, is that too often history is erroneously reduced to single individuals. By losing sight of the multiplicity of individuals, events, actions and inactions (deliberate or otherwise) that combine to produce a set of historical circumstances, the historian is able to create a mythical figure and turn him into an everlasting hero (like Lincoln) or a villain (like Hitler). The same is true of Buhari. There seems to be a dangerous trend of competition between two opposing camps aimed at glorifying him beyond his wildest dreams or demonizing him beyond all justifiable limits, through a selective reading of history and opportunistic attribution and misattribution of responsibility.

The discourse has been thus impoverished through personalization and we are no closer at the end of it than at the beginning to a divination of the exact locus or nexus of his administration in the flow of Nigerian history. This is what I seek to achieve in this intervention through an exposition of the theoretical underpinnings of the economic policy of Buharism and the necessary correlation between the economic decisions made and the concomitant legal and political superstructure.

Taxonomy

Let me begin by stating up front the principal thesis that I will propound. Within the schema of discourses on Nigerian history, the most accurate problematization of the Buhari government is one that views it strictly as a regime founded on the ideology of Bourgeois Nationalism. In this sense it was a true off-shoot of the regime of Murtala Mohammed. Buharism was a stage the logical outcome of whose machinations would have been a transcendence of what Marx called the stage of Primitive Accumulation in his Theories of Surplus Value. It was radical, not in the sense of being socialist or left wing, but in the sense of being a progressive move away from a political economy dominated by a parasitic and subservient elite to one in which a nationalist and productive class gains ascendancy. Buharism represented a two-way struggle: with Global capitalism (externally) and with its parasitic and unpatriotic agents and spokespersons (internally).

The struggle against global capital as represented by the unholy trinity of the IMF, the World Bank and multilateral “trade” organizations as well that against the entrenched domestic class of contractors, commission agents and corrupt public officers were vicious and thus required extreme measures. Draconian policies were a necessary component of this struggle for transformation and this has been the case with all such epochs in history. The Meiji restoration in Japan was not conducted in a liberal environment. The Industrial Revolution in Europe and the great economic progress of the empires were not attained in the same liberal atmosphere of the 21st Century. The “tiger economies” of Asia such as Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand are not exactly models of democratic freedom. To this extent Buharism was a despotic regime but its despotism was historically determined, necessitated by the historical task of dismantling the structures of dependency and launching the nation on to a path beyond primitive accumulation. At his best Buhari may have been a Bonaparte or a Bismarck. At his worst he may have been a Hitler or a Mussolini. In either case Buharism drawn to its logical conclusion would have provided the bedrock for a new society and its overthrow marked a relapse, a step backward into that era from which we sought escape and in which, sadly for all of us we remain embedded and enslaved. I will now proceed with an elaboration of Buharism as a manifestation of bourgeois economics and political economy.

The Economic Theory of Buharism

One of the greatest myths spun around Buharism was that it lacked a sound basis in economic theory. As evidence of this, the regime that succeeded Buhari employed the services of economic “gurus” of “international standard” as the architects of fiscal and monetary policy. These were IMF and World Bank economists like Dr. Chu Okongwu and Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, as well as Mr SAP himself, Chief Olu Falae (an economist trained at Yale). At the time Buhari’s Finance Minister, Dr Onaolapo Soleye (who was not a trained economist) was debating with the pro-IMF lobby and explaining why the naira would not be devalued I was teaching economics at the Ahmadu Bello University. I had no doubt in my mind that the position of Buharism was based on a sound understanding of neo-classical economics and that those who were pushing for devaluation either did not understand their subject or were acting deliberately as agents of international capital in its rampage against all barriers set up by sovereign states to protect the integrity of the domestic economy. I still believe some of the key economic policy experts of the IBB administration were economic saboteurs who should be tried for treason.

When the IMF recently owned up to “mistakes” in its policy prescriptions all patriotic economists saw it for what it was: A hypocritical statement of remorse after attaining set objectives. Let me explain, briefly, the economic theory underlying Buhari’s refusal to devalue the naira and then show how the policy merely served the interest of global capitalism and its domestic agents. This will be the principal building block of our taxonomy.

In brief, neo-classical theory holds that a country can, under certain conditions, expect to improve its Balance of Payments through devaluation of its currency. The IMF believed that given the pressure on the country’s foreign reserves and its adverse balance of payments situation Nigeria must devalue its currency. Buharism held otherwise and insisted that the conditions for improving Balance of Payments through devaluation did not exist and that there were alternate and superior approaches to the problem. Let me explain.

The first condition that must exist is that the price of every country’s export is denominated in its currency. If Nigeria’s exports are priced in naira and its imports from the US in dollars then, ceteris paribus, a devaluation of the naira makes imports dearer to Nigerians and makes Nigerian goods cheaper to Americans. This would then lead to an increase in the quantum of exports to the US and a reduction in the quantum of imports from there per unit of time. But while this is a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient one. For a positive change in the balance of payments the increase in the quantum of exports must be substantial enough to outweigh the revenue lost through a reduction in price. In other words the quantity exported must increase at a rate faster than the rate of decrease in its price. Similarly imports must fall faster than their price is increasing. Otherwise the nation may be devoting more of its wealth to importing less and receiving less of the wealth of foreigners for exporting more! In consequence, devaluation by a country whose exports and imports are not price elastic leads to the continued impoverishment of the nation vis a vis its trading partners. The second, and sufficient, condition is therefore that the combined price elasticity of demand for exports and imports must exceed unity.

The argument of Buharism, for which it was castigated by global capital and its domestic agents, was that these conditions did not exist clearly enough for Nigeria to take the gamble. First our major export, oil, was priced in dollars and the volume exported was determined ab initio by the quota set by OPEC, a cartel to which we belonged. Neither the price nor the volume of our exports would be affected by a devaluation of the naira. As for imports, indeed they would become dearer. However the manufacturing base depended on imported raw materials. Also many essential food items were imported. The demand for imports was therefore inelastic. We would end up spending more of our national income to import less, in the process fuelling inflation, creating excess capacity and unemployment, wiping out the production base of the real sector and causing hardship to the consumer through the erosion of real disposable incomes. Given the structural dislocations in income distribution in Nigeria the only groups who would benefit from devaluation were the rich parasites who had enough liquidity to continue with their conspicuous consumption, the large multi-national corporations with an unlimited access to loanable funds and the foreign “investor” who can now purchase our grossly cheapened and undervalued domestic assets.

In one stroke we would wipe out the middle class, destroy indigenous manufacturing, undervalue the national wealth and create inflation and unemployment. This is standard economic theory and it is exactly what happened to Nigeria after it went through the hands of our IMF economists under IBB. The decision not to devalue set Buharism on a collision course with those who wanted devaluation and would profit from it-namely global capitalism, the so-called “captains of industry” (an acronym for the errand boys of multinational corporations), the nouveaux-riches parasites who had naira and dollars waiting to be spent, the rump elements of feudalism and so on. Buharism therefore was a crisis in the dominant class, a fracturing of its members into a patriotic, nationalist group and a dependent, parasitic and corrupt one. It was not a struggle between classes but within the same class. A victory for Buharism would be a victory for the more progressive elements of the national bourgeoisie. Unfortunately the fifth columnists within the military establishment were allied to the backward and retrogressive elements and succeeded in defeating Buharism before it took firm root. But I digress.

Having decided not to devalue or to rush into privatization and liberalization Buharism still faced an economic crisis it must address. There was pressure on foreign reserves, mounting foreign debt and a Balance of Payments crisis. Clearly the demand for foreign exchange outstripped its supply. The government therefore adopted demand management measures. The basic principle was that we did not really need all that we imported and if we could ensure that our scarce foreign exchange was only allocated to what we really needed we would be able to pay our debts and lay the foundations for economic stability. But this line of action also has its drawbacks.

First, there are political costs to be borne in terms of opposition from those who feel unfairly excluded from the allocation process and who do not share the government’s sense of priorities. Muslims for example cursed Buhari’s government for restricting the number of pilgrims in order to conserve foreign exchange.

Second, in all attempts to manage demand through quotas and quantitative restrictions there is room for abuse because there is always the incentive of a premium to be earned through circumvention of due process. Import licenses become “hot cake” and the black market for foreign exchange highly lucrative. This policy can only succeed if backed by strong deterrent laws and strict and enforcible exchange rules. Again it is trite micro-economic theory that where price is fixed below equilibrium the market is only cleared through quotas and the potential exists for round tripping as there will be a minority willing and able to offer a very high price for the “artificially scarce” product. So again we see that the harsh exchange control and economic sabotage laws of Buharism were a necessary and logical fallout of its economic theory.

Conclusion

I have tried to show in this intervention what I consider to be the principal building blocks of the military government of Muhammadu Buhari and the logical connection between its ideology, its economic theory and the legal and political superstructure that characterized it. My objective is to raise the intellectual profile of discourse beyond its present focus on personalities by letting readers see the intricate links between disparate and seemingly unrelated aspects of that government, thus contextualizing the actions of Buharism in its specific historical and ideological milieu. I have tried to review its treatment of politicians as part of a general struggle against primitive accumulation and its harsh laws on exchange and economic crimes as a necessary fallout of economic policy options. Similarly its treatment of drug pushers reflected the patriotic zeal of a bourgeois nationalist establishment.

As happens in all such cases a number of innocent people become victims of draconian laws, such as a few honest leaders like Shehu Shagari and Balarabe Musa who were improperly detained. The reality however is that many of those claiming to be victims today were looters who deserved to go to jail but who would like to hide under the cover of a few glaring errors. The failure of key members of the Buhari administration to tender public and unreserved apology to those who may have been improperly detained has not helped matters in this regard.

This raises a question I have often been asked. Do I support Buhari’s decision to contest for the presidency of Nigeria? My answer is no. And I will explain.

First, I believe Buhari played a creditable role in a particular historical epoch but like Tolstoy and Marx I do not believe he can re-enact that role at will. Men do not make history exactly as they please but, as Marx wrote in the 18th Brumaire, “in circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” Muhammadu Buhari as a military general had more room for manoevre than he can ever hope for in Nigerian Politics.

Second, I am convinced that the situation of Nigeria and its elite today is worse than it was in 1983.Compared to the politicians who populate the PDP, ANPP and AD today, second republic politicians were angels. Buhari waged a battle against second republic politicians, but he is joining this generation. Anyone who rides a tiger ends up in its belly and one man cannot change the system from within. A number of those Buhari jailed for theft later became ministers and many of those who hold key offices in all tiers of government and the legislature were made by the very system he sought to destroy. My view is that Nigeria needs people like Buhari in politics but not to contest elections. Buhari should be in politics to develop Civil Society and strengthen the conscience of the nation. He should try to develop many Buharis who will continue to challenge the elements that have hijacked the nation.

Third, I do not think Nigerians today are ready for Buhari. Everywhere you turn you see thieves who have amassed wealth in the last four years, be they legislators, Local Government chairmen and councilors, or governors and ministers. But these are the heroes in their societies. They are the religious leaders and ethnic champions and Nigerians, especially northerners, will castigate and discredit anyone who challenges them. Unless we start by educating our people and changing their value system, people like Buhari will remain the victims of their own love for Nigeria.

Fourth, and on a lighter note, I am opposed to recycled material. In a nation of 120million people we can do better than restrict our leadership to a small group. I think Buhari, Babangida and yes Obasanjo should simply allow others try their hand instead of believing they have the monopoly of wisdom.

Having said all this let me conclude by saying that if Buhari gets a nomination he will have my vote (for what it is worth). I will vote for him not, like some have averred, because he is a northerner and a Muslim or because I think his candidacy is good for the north and Islam; I will vote for him not because I think he will make a good democrat or that he was not a dictator. I will vote for Buhari as a Nigerian for a leader who restored my pride and dignity and my belief in the motherland. I will vote for the man who made it undesirable for the “Andrews” to “check out” instead of staying to change Nigeria. I will vote for Buhari to say thank you for the world view of Buharism, a truly nationalist ideology for all Nigerians. I do not know if Buhari is still a nationalist or a closet bigot and fanatic, or if he was the spirit and not just the face of Buharism. My vote for him is not based on a divination of what he is or may be, but a celebration of what his government was and what it gave to the nation.

Slncere 9gerian:
-------------------------

He must have lived in a different time, maybe he is talking about the Shagari regime, what I witnessed in Buhari's time was law and order, you guys are known PDP apologists anyway, so Buhari can never do good in your eyes.

Those of us who lived under Buhari are happy to have witnessed such a good leader, order was restored, things moved well until the CIA and Babangida decided to truncate our joy.

African countries have not had it good after separation, Sudan and Ethiopia/Eritrea come to mind. The disintegration of Nigeria is going to be violent and I do not see it happening for some time. There are too many vested interests in the Nigerian project for it to happen without violence, the international community will also not allow it except it is peaceful. The aftermath is also going to be very very violent, the North will descend into chaos because the BH guys will want to take over, the Christians in the North will want to defend themselves, the Niger Delta guys will fight for resources internally and externally, Biafra will need to fight the Niger Delta for resources and the spill over of the war in the North will bring refugees East, Yorubas will have to deal with the North and fallout of religious wars, so many things will happen in the event of a breakup. I will rather we have a true federal constitution where states can develop at their pace and control the bulk of governance power.

I do not know where people get there information that blacks are treated as slaves in Saudi Arabia. A black Saudi man will be attended to first at their airport even before Obama. The Saudis enjoy a standard of living Nigerians can only imagine, their laws are strict but not difficult to abide with, I have worked there and will rather live there than in Nigeria.