Poverty generators and the challenge of microfinance (5): The value of heroes
One of the big international best-selling news events of the moment is the return to power in Malaysia of Dr Mahathir Mohamed, its former Prime Minister and undisputed “founder of modern Malaysia”. Dr Mohamed ruled that South-East Asian country as Prime minister from 1981 to 2003. During this 22 years in power, he took Malaysia from a poor insular agrarian economy to a powerful industrialized nation, and one of the famous Asian Tigers, which some of you became professor by merely studying how they performed their miracle.Although he ruled with what many called “iron hands”, the tag of dictator has failed to stick on him, because he voluntarily resigned as Prime Minister. Dictators do not normally resign from office. They finish their terms, either self-allotted or by the terms of the elections that bring them in. Then they seek additional terms, which they finish and also ask for more. If the rules or constitution do not allow it, they amend them both (rules and constitution) and continue to rule (read the many African leaders; from Mugabe to Museveni to Kabila, name them).
Mahathir Mohamad, who graduated as a medical doctor, is 93 years old. His return to power has somehow silenced those who believe that the only place for those of us who are greying rapidly or actually very old (if you are over 70) is either in the museum, as exotic African art pieces, or in “the other room”. I mean the old people’sretirement room.
Anyway, without any doubt, I believe that Nigeria’s president, who has been much vilified for his age, must be having a good laugh at those “jokers” who have been speaking glibly about his age and what Nigeria has lost by electing whom they consider a very old man. They even went further to form a movement or two, just to make the hollow point that only young people have the capacity to rule Nigeria. They sound as though Nigeria has never been run by young men before. Fortunately, they met their match in the President. He quickly signed into law, all they brought in their potpourri of wishes, and more, knowing that the animal that has pursued him since he took power, and even threatened to knock him down on a few occasions, will have them for breakfast on the morning after their inaugural, assuming they survive the first lesson or round one of Nigerian politicscalled Campaign Finance 101.
National sovereignty apart, I believe it may not be inappropriate if our president shakes Dr Mahathir Mohamad with two hands, if and when they meet. Age is it in Africa and President Buhari is a humble man. And if they do meet on this soil, where elders are hardly wrong but highly respected, then some country-to-country protocols may face modification. That man is much older than any of President Buhari’s old uncles in Daura. In fact, if real African protocol is followed, President Buhari, in his obvious simplicity, will most likely address Mahathir Mohamad as “my brother Prime Minister, Uncle MahathirMohamed; Rank Dede”. For the life of me, that man is over 20 years older than the man we call old in Nigeria. He is Buhari’s big old “uncle”.
After many years in retirement; two prime ministers down; jailed twice, and the other, the son of another revered prime minster, grabbing dollars like a boy raise in Ajegunle, Mahathir had to come back on popular demand. That should not only substantially resolve the fears of those whose only reason for opposing the president is that his is very old, but also make us ask some questions.The man is a truly living hero of Malaysian success story. He was never corrupted by power and never allowed criminals to hide under him after committing crimes against Malaysia. He respected the laws of the land and punished anybody who abused his office. Even the successor he anointed could not escape his blind justice.
I had the rare privilege of meeting Prime Minister Mahathir in 1990, as Coordinator of the Federal Government Delegation to the South-East Asian countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, led by the late Aare OnaKakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Chu Okongwu, then Minister of Budget and Planning. Dr Mohamed was like a god in Malaysia during his reign. Even today, he is still like one and continues to exude an aura that is nothing short of the esoteric. Such image is not wielded by low energy men (apologies to the Twitter King, President Trump), or strawmen of opaque character propped up by brute force and the media.
His agricultural programme anchored on the farm settlement model of his Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) is not just iconic; it made the oil palm tree (which we falsely claim to have dashed them) into a spiritual plant that became everything for Malaysia. Malaysia not only became number one in the world in palm oil production but had over 50 derivative products developed from palm oil.
After over i8 days in Malaysia and Indonesia, going from one industry to another, the Nigerian delegation saw how agriculture could become a leading agent for reversing rural-urban migration. The farm settlement became the new choice residence that attracted graduates from the cities to the farms. The story of Malaysia’s agricultural miracle under Mohamad is long. Suffice it to say that we copied what we saw them doing at FELDA and on return, we proposed and Babangida approved the establishment of the Nigerian Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) – a copycat of FELDA modified and improved for our needs. Dr Idachaba and my humble self, wrote the draft NALDA Decree in my office in the Federal Secretariat. But trust Nigerian civil servants, they appointed themselves directors and began to fumble with the implementation of a major technical project we developed, complete with expected annual intake of people returning from the urban centres. Soon NALDA became a multi-million naira-spending cassava farm project for youth coppers. The rest is the usual Nigerian history.
We also copied the idea of mortgage refinancing from Malaysia and recommended it for implementation. Cagamas Berhad, the Malaysian mortgage insurance corporation, was already impacting the housing stock in that country very massively at that time. Unfortunately, we could not get the mortgage corporation on stream and it took over 25 years to happen in the form of the current Mortgage Refinance Corporation of Nigeria.Malaysia became fully industrialized under Mohamad. The national car, the Proton Saga, was already well over 60 per cent homemade. Mohamad gave us a sample as souvenir for his brother President, Ibrahim Babangida.
I hope my readers still recall the topic of this article. Surely, it sounds like we have gone off track but I assure you we are on point. Lack of true nationalistsis a poverty generator.Mahathir came back through a new opposition party he formed specifically to challenge the ruling party he had led for 22 years. He had no access to the machinery of power. He is not rich. He won. According to him, “we have removed many of the corrupt civil servants and will recover all money they stole and then prosecute them”. Already one of the past prime ministers who succeeded him had been jailed earlier for corruption. What an affront to a “former god”. Were there no courts in Malaysia to stop government from prosecuting such a mighty man? He should have fled to Nigeria. Mahathir will spend only two years and the former prisoner may be prime minister again. He should remember to flee to Nigeria if Mahathir comes after him thereafter.
EMEKA OSUJI