The ERGP and industrialization through SMEs: What is going on?

I know this is the wrong time in Nigeria to ask questions as to the progress in any government project. This is because when politics enters, common sense flies away; at least that is our experience in Nigeria. However, while we sigh, clap, course or jeer, in reaction to politicians’quadrennial dance of shame, which brings every good thinking in government to a halt, let us exercise our own brains with some of the nullities they throw at us. The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Buhari administration promised to take the SME rout to industrialize Nigeria. I am one of those that were excited at that particular component of the plan. I believe if sincerely driven, things, very good, could happen from it. I think it holds the key to some of the radical innovative breakthroughs we have all wanted but failed to see. But that requires some level of thinking and commitment, often not associated with the endowments of our category of politicians, who literally carry a mirror that they frequently peer in to see nothing but themselves and their political future.

Almost all innovations and discoveries that have moved the world forward have come from the West – Europe and America. This is a fact that we have to live with, though we may not like it. Many people have wondered why it should be so in a world where everybody has an open sky at which to gaze freely and think. Some have found explanations of our failure around the fact that the West is developed and have all the facilities and laboratories that empower thinkers to think and create things, while we do not. The South, they argue, has no such facilities and should not be blamed for the lack of innovation among its people. Yet others blame the historical antecedents of the South, including slavery, colonization and neocolonialism, which made it impossible for the South to learn from its own experiences and traditions, and grow. Truly, the exploitation of the South by the West, which climaxed in the scramble and the partitioning of Africa into private properties of European nations, was a great setback. However, that point has been well made. It is now no longer fashionable, after several decades and tons of money from the same West, either as payment for our resources like oil, or grants and aids, to continue to lament colonization and blame it for all the failure of the South. It is therefore, time to be more serious in finding answers to our inability to create and innovate our way out of poverty.

I think our failure to make bold strides in the area of innovation has something to do with our environment – the setting within which we work; and especially our politics. But who determines what our operating environment becomes? We do. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to the Cable Network News (CNN) if Trump was an African or Nigeria leader. President Jonathan used to say that he was the most maligned president of all time. Am sure he has long since withdrawn that title having seen what Donald Trump is going through. The American freedom has been stretched to its limit. Someone needs to remind the American press that they are teaching us something very bad – disregard for our presidency. God help anyone of you in Nigeria that mistakenly takes your freedom even one mile close to any airport from which you could fly to America. Anyway, it does appear that the freedom in the west also helps to open their brains. Our siege mentality must be responsible for our inability to think outside the many boxes of failed states in which we are caged.

Somewhat ironically, there is hardly any field of endeavor in which the world has made outstanding progress, in terms of achievement that Africans and particularly Nigerians, are not in the forefront. But this happens only outside Africa. We recently read of a Nigerian doctor that took out a child from the womb, operated on it and put it back, and it was delivered on full term. Nigerians have set records on Robotics in the United States and made waves in venture capital investments around the world. The territory called Nigeria seems to abhor deep thinking and repel innovation. As the title of a popular book goes, the fault is not with the gods. Rather it is with the system that we have built.

Nigeria recently launched the SME Clinic programme, which was kicked off in Aba. The idea was to encourage SMSMEs by delivering visionary support to these entrepreneurs and thereby help them grow and contribute to national development. One had thought that government was about to do something innovative with the many skills and years of experience residing in these boisterous individuals. For one, I thought we were going to borrow their skills, reform and refine them and use them to kick off the implementation of the industrialization programme of the ERPG. May be we will.

We may recall that one of the practical and, in my view, workable plans in the ERGP is the proposition to industrialize Nigeria through the SMEs. That avowed target or strategy of the plan is yet to find any expression. One had thought that the first thing to do would be to come close to the real business people in Nigeria – the small entrepreneurs making shoes in Aba, labelling and successfully passing them off as made in Italy, to show them what it means to be proud of one’s own output. It is no longer news that many of the beautiful suits we see people wear and labeled something like “Italiano Jabrando” are all rolled out in Aba garment factories under extreme conditions. Ditto for shoe makers in Kano and many forgotten cities bereft of government presence.

The computer villages in many states have become technology hubs that can be propped up to something great. We could appoint technology champions in the different field to mentor these people. We have indigenous computer companies like Zinox, which could be commissioned to lead change in that sector, as agents of government to mentor the boys. These agents will be transparently appointed and challenged to come up with ideas of grooming the mini geeks swarming in these technology centers called computer villages. I believe so many ideas will surface if government calls for open bids on this project. The job possibilities would be great.

What about the apprentice system of Igbo traders. This system is complete. It trains the apprentice in the skills for the particular trade and imbues him with the culture of honesty and patience. An apprentice spends like five years. During that period he is taught to be smart with money (financial management), be patient (sometimes he won’t eat dinner, depending on what hid wrong) and to wait for his time. When he graduates he suddenly draws from the goodwill of the master, by getting supplier credit from his former master’s foreign partners. Big time business has started. Why do you think almost all Igbo businesses have the appellation “International” in their names? We could borrow this singularly successful business model and transform it to a national strategy to develop an indigenous system the world will come to study.

Today, we have all manner of technical and vocational schools overgrown by weeds. We could adequately fund these institutions and link them to the technology centers and SME hubs. But we won’t. But when cattle herders now graze and keep their cattle in the classrooms we scream Fulani herdsmen! Jokes apart, we have a penchant for laying out grandiose plans without execution and monitoring.

Emeka Osuji