OBJ's campaign for privatization started as soon as he came in to office in 1999. I think 13 years is more than enough to access the the effectiveness of economic policies.

As for me, privatization will concentrate the common wealth of the nation in the hands of a few. If not, how can Mrs Alakija, Oduah, Danjuma and all these oil well thieves get wealthier? Save Mrs Alakija who's father is very very rich, I don't see how Stellah Oduah, Adenuga, Danjuma and many other oil well thieves can justify their claim to Nigeria's common wealth if not for "privatization" wrapped up with corruption

The only reason the above mentioned people are able to corner the nation's wealth is because of privatization. How is Danjuma able to have more oil well than South Sudan if not for privatization coupled with corruption?

Privatization in the oil sector is nothing but giving the nation's natural wealth to few. Nigeria is not ripe for privatization. The gap between the rich and poor is too wide for such economic policy. It's better for government to control wealth than for individuals to.

Nigerian government is used to changing a good policy instead of probing the corruption of those in office.

Nairalanders, how can we access the effectiveness of privatization in since 1999?

My own analysis goes as follow:

minimum wage is 18k. Now, lets say gari is one of our natural resources and the federal government decides to privatize/deregulate gari sector. Let's say Dangote and adenuga bought licenses to produce gari. Now, gari is a common household commodity for all Nigerians rich and poor. This means the demand for gari is very high for a population like Nigeria's. Since the demand for gari is high, and whether the price is high or low, people will have to buy gari to go about their daily business, it means that the producers Dangote and Adenuga can increase the price of gari without fear of a drop in demand for gari. The demand for gari is inelastic but supply can be. Any economist will tell you that high demand equals high price and even higher if demand is inelastic. Now, if Dangote cuts gari supply and Adenuga does the same, Price goes up and even when both suppliers return to normal supply quantity, price will remain the same because the demand won't change!

in 18k/month minimum wage economy, should there be a cap on what price of gari should be? if so, why deregulation? It's human nature to seek benefits and we can't blame the private sector for seeking more profit even if it means Nigerians won't survive.

replace gari with oil and you'll understand why deregulating/privatizing the oil sector is bad for an emerging economy like Nigeria's. since oil is a needed commodity for 95% of Nigerians, both direct and indirectly, Nigerians will spend more money on oil and there will be less money for other commodity which means many other sectors of the economy will die because of high price of a necessary commodity.

The reason many sectors will suffer the oil price increase is simple and can be explained as follow: Oke gets 18k/month, before fuel price increase, Oke spend 3k/month on transport, 2k/month on refreshment... The money is divided into different uses giving revenue to different sectors of the economy. Now, after fuel price increase, Oke uses 7k/month on transport. The money for transport will have to be gotten from money used for other stuffs meaning Oke will have to stop spending or spend little on some things to make up for transport. Oke's situation is same for all Nigerians who don't get wuru wuru money (95% of Nigerians). Now, because of Oil price increase, other sectors will get little revenue killing the sectors and jobs provided by those sectors. All this because the government is not willing to take on it's responsibility to the people of an emerging economy. No emerging economy can survive with deregulation and privatization unless credit is pumped into it. But why borrow when you can make do with what you have with the right policies?

I asked, what has privatization done for Nigeria since 1999? it is killing the middle class, the lower class has taken to crime for survival, poverty has ravaged the land, minds of the youths are idle because their brilliant ideas aren't given chance to manifest as their intuitions desires. What do we get with privatization? The rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

All the American mugus that want Nigeria to copy the "american way" should also note that the gap between the rich and poor in the USA has widen over the years. And America is the chief supporter of privatization. Their rich are getting richer and poor getting poorer too. Again, unless credit is pumped into it. So are we suppose to hand our future generations over to bankers simply because privatization is being touted by some rich and mighty folks? Let's do what's right for this nation.


This is not an article. Thanks

Corruption/mismanagement killed Nitel not because it was been controlled by the government.

Corruption killed all the sectors we are now privatizing.

Our economic problem is not government being chief player in industries, it's corruption of the office holders.

Privatization is the only way the rich can corner the wealth of the nation. Can a poor man or even an ok man go and bid for oil well?

^^^^^^
So what do you propose?

HNosegbe: ^^^^^^
So what do you propose?

Give out management contracts if the FG can not manage our amenities. You don't just sell out public amenities because you can't manage it without corruption.

Give out management contracts and if any rubbish happens, we have the management company to blame.

0lumide:

Give out management contracts if the FG can not manage our amenities. You don't just sell out public amenities because you can't manage it without corruption.

Give out management contracts and if any rubbish happens, we have the management company to blame.

Like the Babalakin Management Company (Bi-Courtney) which embezzled billions of fed money earmarked for Lagos-Ibadan road,and still remains one of the most respected Yorubaman by Yorubas, abi? You lots are very shameless.

Adejoro74:

Like the Babalakin Management Company (Bi-Courtney) which embezzled billions of fed money earmarked for Lagos-Ibadan road,and still remains one of the most respected Yorubaman by Yorubas, abi? You lots are very shameless.

Pessimism is not an attitude, it's a state of mind.

So are we are to blame the policy or probe the person involved in the road scam?

I don't like your tribalistic tone.. I'm Yoruba and I don't see Babalakin as a respected Yoruba man. You can really just buzz off if you can.

0lumide:

Pessimism is not an attitude, it's a state of mind.

So are we are to blame the policy or probe the person involved in the road scam?

I don't like your tribalistic tone.. I'm Yoruba and I don't see Babalakin as a respected Yoruba man. You can really just buzz off if you can.

You are looking to get a contract and to make your own cut into the national cake without delivering anything. You be proper thief.

Saying corruption killed government-run enterprise is an oversimplification of the issue, it is much more complex than that. At the of the problem is ethnic disunity, Nigerians have so much been divided that its almost impossible to rally the people around a common cause i.e fighting corruption. I believe a private sector lead economy reduces the friction that disunity causes in the government.

In recent times, we have heard and read about nepotism in the aviation ministry, immigration and the army. It is like that everywhere in the Federal government. I am not advocating privatizing the Nigerian army thoug, but I hope you understand that privating business-like entities like PHCN, Nitel, Banks etc will help in reducing ethnic tension, create a competitive market which is good for the economy in the long run. A good economy will eventually make Nigerians forget their differences and maybe then we can talk about government having bigger control of the business environment.

A classic example is the case of Nitel. The Nigerian government spent over $20 billion over a period of 28 years only to give us less than one million lines, with very poor service if not non-existent. you needed to be a 'big man" before you can get a Nitel line(Same with PHCN now). But the private in less than ten years were able to provide over 90 million mobile lines investing about just ten billion dollars. Apart from when last did you hear hausa complaining about igbo or igbo complaining about Yoruba in MTN, Econet etc. Private companies most likely will hire based on requirement and not some primordial sentiment. But in government, what we have is a situation whereby a change in government brings about a new set of people trying to reverse what the previous one did or trying to bring "his/her people" to "right" the wrongs of the past.

How long are we going to continue with that?

Akanbi_edu: Saying corruption killed government-run enterprise is an oversimplification of the issue, it is much more complex than that. At the of the problem is ethnic disunity, Nigerians have so much been divided that its almost impossible to rally the people around a common cause i.e fighting corruption. I believe a private sector lead economy reduces the friction that disunity causes in the government.

In recent times, we have heard and read about nepotism in the aviation ministry, immigration and the army. It is like that everywhere in the Federal government. I am not advocating privatizing the Nigerian army thoug, but I hope you understand that privating business-like entities like PHCN, Nitel, Banks etc will help in reducing ethnic tension, create a competitive market which is good for the economy in the long run. A good economy will eventually make Nigerians forget their differences and maybe then we can talk about government having bigger control of the business environment.

A classic example is the case of Nitel. The Nigerian government spent over $20 billion over a period of 28 years only to give us less than one million lines, with very poor service if not non-existent. you needed to be a 'big man" before you can get a Nitel line(Same with PHCN now). But the private in less than ten years were able to provide over 90 million mobile lines investing about just ten billion dollars. Apart from when last did you hear hausa complaining about igbo or igbo complaining about Yoruba in MTN, Econet etc. Private companies most likely will hire based on requirement and not some primordial sentiment. But in government, what we have is a situation whereby a change in government brings about a new set of people trying to reverse what the previous one did or trying to bring "his/her people" to "right" the wrongs of the past.

How long are we going to continue with that?

That is why I said management contracts should be awarded. If not for sabotage and corruption, Nitel would have been a popular tel company across Africa.

Technology market is different though. Any one can develop a technology and sell it but I'm talking about already built amenities, natural resources etc.. ethnic bigotry is still corruption. The problem is government and the people in government. The problem is not ethnicity or policy. Having the private sector drive the economy concentrate wealth in the hands of a few rich and connected by default. Look at the shame in the selling of PHCN that the rich and powerful decided to share the national cake in the name of privatization? Even in the private sectors in Nigeria, ethnicity and who you know come to play. Let's be honest here, many of our graduates at work in high offices are there because of who they know. You see, even in the private sector, favoritism still shows it's ugly face.


In the case of giving out management contracts, if a company uses favoritism and not hire qualified people, it's management abilities for the amenity it's meant to manage will fail and the government can actually give the contract to another company. So you see, we can still stamp out that ethnicity bigotry even with public driven economic policies.

Note that I'm not saying the government start buying into every enterprise in the name of public sector etc.. But in big sectors in our economy, the government need to tap into the profits in these sectors so more money will be available for development.

Thanks...

OP -God bless you for this topic. Obj's so called privatisation is one of the biggest heists in living history.

A shameful scenario where the government of the day overrides already weakened state institutions to sell the idea of the government being unable to manage its assets and sells those assets to its top figures and their friends. By first undervaluing them and then giving them away for almost nothing OBJ's regime stripped nigerians of their heritage.

I will never agree that govt is incapable of managing its businesses, infrastructure and assets without private hands. I am old enough to remember seeing in the late 80's federal ministry of works teams fixing federal roads in lagos. What went wrong and are we saying that we gave up on accountability and service delivery in public service?

joeyfire: OP -God bless you for this topic. Obj's so called privatisation is one of the biggest heists in living history.

A shameful scenario where the government of the day overrides already weakened state institutions to sell the idea of the government being unable to manage its assets and sells those assets to its top figures and their friends. By first undervaluing them and then giving them away for almost nothing OBJ's regime stripped nigerians of their heritage.

I will never agree that govt is incapable of managing its businesses, infrastructure and assets without private hands. I am old enough to remember seeing in the late 80's federal ministry of works teams fixing federal roads in lagos. What went wrong and are we saying that we gave up on accountability and service delivery in public service?

My brother the thing tire me o, what we need is deregulation and proper competition for those public companies, we also need the public companies to be better managed.

joeyfire: OP -God bless you for this topic. Obj's so called privatisation is one of the biggest heists in living history.

A shameful scenario where the government of the day overrides already weakened state institutions to sell the idea of the government being unable to manage its assets and sells those assets to its top figures and their friends. By first undervaluing them and then giving them away for almost nothing OBJ's regime stripped nigerians of their heritage.

I will never agree that govt is incapable of managing its businesses, infrastructure and assets without private hands. I am old enough to remember seeing in the late 80's federal ministry of works teams fixing federal roads in lagos. What went wrong and are we saying that we gave up on accountability and service delivery in public service?

I wasn't aware of what happened in the 80s as I was still too much of a baby.. But I know that whenever I wanted to speak to grandma back in Nigeria in early 90s, I call her nitel landline directly and we'd chat about my jibberish all day if she got my time . I kept wondering what happened to these services. I remember grandma receiving my letters. I kept wondering what happened to those services I used in communicating with grandma back then. All dead. The phone don't ring anymore, the letters stopped delivering since 2000.

If u ask me, na who i go ask?

Booking

creating quality and sustancial services to human welfare

Privatization success stories:

Oando - formerly owned by government as unipetrol. Privatized 2002. Now a formidable African brand.

Conoil - from National oil. Now a better managed private concern.

Except those sold to Jimoh Ibrahim (notorious for buying a dying business and speeding the death), most other privatized government businesses have been successful.

And of course, in any privatization exercise the world over, new millionaires would be made.


I spent 4 years in Oando before moving on. Without privatization, I may never have had the opprotunity to work in that company. When run by government, merit was a taboo. Just another government-owned business to place children, relatives and tribesmen of those in authority.

More of Significant failures than success, may be a scale 10:1.

The Privatisation intent was right, but the legal and regulatory frameworks were wrong.

Failure was imminent, as we have witnessed

Privatization has brought us "gooooood" things like: ¡) monkey dey work baboon dey chop. ¡¡) The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, iii) The rich has brought foreigners to run the bought assets and sacked nigerians. iv) it has brought monopoly, if you disagree, ask dangote the price of cement. V) it has increased poverty and unemployment. Vi) it has increased the level of kidnapping because part time and casual workers were laid off and they have to survive, though i detest crime. Vii ) it has encouraged Boko haramism because Textile factories were sold and some were closed down for sale in the North. Viii) it has encouraged "Thievery and looting" at NNPC, ix) it has increased the activities of God fathers to manipulate contracts and destroy the future of the Nation. X) it has brought about an increase in energy tarrif of PHCN and others. Xi) More generator are imported thereby increasing Noise and exhaust fume pollution. Let me stop listing before tears started dropping for our near collapsed state.

Privatization in Nigeria was well embedded in corruption, in theory it is good but practically it failed woefully in Nigeria less than 20 % of privatised coys are successful. Imagine a company like Ajaokuta steel which can cater for the entire Africa is dead and was sold for peanuts same with Alluminium Smelter company ikot abasi,

Where is Nicon insurance etc

Nigerian Communists inbound.

0lumide:

I wasn't aware of what happened in the 80s as I was still too much of a baby.. But I know that whenever I wanted to speak to grandma back in Nigeria in early 90s, I call her nitel landline directly and we'd chat about my jibberish all day if she got my time . I kept wondering what happened to these services. I remember grandma receiving my letters and sending me beads in the mail whenever I send her pictures of me and big sis. As I started coming to Nigeria after I reunited with my mom, I kept wondering what happened to those services I used in communicating with grandma back then. All dead. The phone don't ring anymore, the letters stopped delivering since 2000.

My brother I feel bad that you didn't see nigeria before it totally went to shyte.when I was a child it was already spoiling but there was still an air of greatness and national pride.

The public sector became awash with lazy, corrupt racketeers during the military regime of IBB because he didn't really care about service delivery and rewarded his pals with jobs and promotion. By 1999 OBJ instead of overhauling the system, sold off the assets of all to a few overnight billionaires in his clique, telling us the owners of those assets that he was incapable or uninterested in managing them properly.

All in all the "privatisation" was a robbery

Privatization has done more harm dan good in dis country, infact dat's d main failure of governance of Obj's regime. Sellin govt owned co to same individuals to dier personal benefits, it's pathetic. Do we still remember Nitel, Nicon insurance? It's a pity. Privatization = capitalism
capitalism = corruption & corrupt practices
wic has led to increased poverty, govt negligence, poor economy, infrastructure degradatn and so on.
Privatization is an enemy dat has come, conquered & destroyed dis Country. it's a menace as far as am concern.

Nothing! Except to enrich some crooks.

Kenistry: Privatization has done more harm dan good in dis country, infact dat's d main failure of governance of Obj's regime. Sellin govt owned co to same individuals to dier personal benefits, it's pathetic. Do we still remember Nitel, Nicon insurance? It's a pity. Privatization = capitalism
capitalism = corruption & corrupt practices
wic has led to increased poverty, govt negligence, poor economy, infrastructure degradatn and so on.
Privatization is an enemy dat has come, conquered & destroyed dis Country. it's a menace as far as am concern.

Don't forget 1004 estate, VI. Obj evicted sitting tenants who according to a govt white paper had first right of refusal to buy. There were even pending matters in both the federal and state high courts. The sudden eviction of over 8000 people caused a surge in the cost of rent that lagos hasn't fully recovered from.

Accordingly the lagos state govt was so pissed at the handling of it that it almost frustrated the transfer of 1004 to the new buyers and slammed a major levy on the transaction before it was allowed to pass

Akanbi_edu: Saying corruption killed government-run enterprise is an oversimplification of the issue, it is much more complex than that. At the of the problem is ethnic disunity, Nigerians have so much been divided that its almost impossible to rally the people around a common cause i.e fighting corruption. I believe a private sector lead economy reduces the friction that disunity causes in the government.

In recent times, we have heard and read about nepotism in the aviation ministry, immigration and the army. It is like that everywhere in the Federal government. I am not advocating privatizing the Nigerian army thoug, but I hope you understand that privating business-like entities like PHCN, Nitel, Banks etc will help in reducing ethnic tension, create a competitive market which is good for the economy in the long run. A good economy will eventually make Nigerians forget their differences and maybe then we can talk about government having bigger control of the business environment.

A classic example is the case of Nitel. The Nigerian government spent over $20 billion over a period of 28 years only to give us less than one million lines, with very poor service if not non-existent. you needed to be a 'big man" before you can get a Nitel line(Same with PHCN now). But the private in less than ten years were able to provide over 90 million mobile lines investing about just ten billion dollars. Apart from when last did you hear hausa complaining about igbo or igbo complaining about Yoruba in MTN, Econet etc. Private companies most likely will hire based on requirement and not some primordial sentiment. But in government, what we have is a situation whereby a change in government brings about a new set of people trying to reverse what the previous one did or trying to bring "his/her people" to "right" the wrongs of the past.

How long are we going to continue with that?

Fantastic analysis! I came to post a comment but after reading yours, nothing more to add.

Privatisation is the only way forward in an ethnoreligously sensitive and natural resource dependent country like ours. QED!

I must add that we must not attribute the result of a badly executed Privatisation process to privatisation itself. The result of a badly executed privatisation process should be blamed on the personalities who badly managed the process not on privatisation. If we follow due process during privatisation, the result should speak for itself

Obj's privatization scam is definitely one of the worst things to happen to Nigeria, and this is a country that has had a crap load of poo happen to it. All it did was consolidate much of Nigeria's wealth in the hands of the usual suspects and their cronies. What better way to ensure that the country's wealth remains in the hands of a select few than to mortgage all it's assets to them under the guise of privatization. As the OP rightfully noted, look for the Dangote's and Otedola's to keep rising on the Forbes list, as the gap between the haves and the have nots widen in Nigeria. They screwed Nigeria again. Simple.

Corruption is hydra-headed. How come those privatized enterprise are still functioning just because better management are in position to foster the growth of the establishment. Example is APMT Moeler which controls apapa port . They have been able to run successfully . What happened to our NNSL -Nigeria National Shipping Line? Cabotage laws that supposed to have made us compete favorably. Where are we today if not corruption!

Corruption has killed millions of Nigerians . Is it through bad roads , smuggling,endless factor have been responsible . The corruption in nigeria is akin' to carcinoma.

God help us all