by Ronke Kosoko

No matter how challenging, it is the responsibility of the government to communicate, communicate and communicate because change can’t be sustainable when the younger generation does not understand what the government is doing.

Having read Abang Mercy’s conversation with presidential adviser, Reno Omokri in her ‘Conversations’ series, these are my observations. Reno Omokri stated thus:

“Before GEJ, the oil majors were sourcing all their heavy equipments from outside Nigeria, but local content law compelled Shell to award a contract worth $50m to SCC, a Nigerian company for the production of deep pressure underground pipes”. He also said “Same for Nigerdock which was awarded contract to build platforms by the oil majors”.

He was right about the opportunities as a result of local content but Nigerdock is owned by the Syrians with a “Nigerian camouflage”.

It’s also worthy of note that in the 50years of oil exploration in Nigeria, IOCs used a made in Nigeria pipe for the very first time in 2011 as a result of the enforcement of local content act. Nigerian businesses are now being awarded ship building/repair jobs usually being done abroad. Also, a pipe mill is now being built in Nigeria to meet industry pipe demand estimated at over 800,000 tonnes per annum. This will help replace aged pipes and development of new fields. Before President Jonathan’s administration, all these were done abroad including the repairs of oil rigs, transformers etc. The establishment of the pipe mill is one of the mid-term targets set for the industry and would further help define the success of the Nigerian Content Act. The project construction as well as operations would drive development in the industry providing thousands of training and employment opportunities.

Reno Omokri should however help tell His Excellency that the major challenge government need to address is to bring Nigerians up to speed with developments in these industries. Many no longer believe in government and that is understandable, there is no reason why I should believe in a country that robbed me of the opportunity to get a PhD at 25 but I chose to do otherwise! Government needs to explain more because none of our schools teach these things and they are too complicated to be taught on twitter. A visit to our university would reveal a lot about the gargantuan disconnection between the Nigerian school system and industry development. Mr. President’s spokespersons most times act in defense when they are meant to explain, this is complicating issues! Investors are busy and won’t take up government’s job of educating its people. No matter how challenging, it is the responsibility of the government to communicate, communicate and communicate because change can’t be sustainable when the younger generation does not understand what the government is doing.

Of the world’s 1,226 billionaires, America is home to over 400 billionaires because the country promoted local content, same with China. Nigeria can’t differ in its quest for economic emancipation without entrenching this mindset in its populace especially the younger generation who forms 70% of the population.

Most times when we school abroad, we tend to automatically think Nigerians should know what we know. This is leading to frustrations among those who have been poorly educated with limited exposure. This administration should do more in bridging the communication gap between government, school, industry and the younger generation. We need campaigns in schools; we need to teach development economics and political economy at every level. Every President from IBB-ABACHA-OBJ tried to do what President Jonathan is trying to achieve (liberalization of the economy) but gave up. It’s not easy to lead a country like Nigeria but the mission is not impossible. We must address HUMAN CAPITAL and COMMUNICATION GAP issues else, all reforms will end in the garbage as soon as the players leave the corridors of power.

The Coordinating Minister attests to the fact that Nigeria is rich but the wealth is not trickling down! President Jonathan had once spoken about this but what machineries have we set in motion to address the situation? Reno continues to celebrate foreign data about Nigeria’s economic growth ignoring the human capital development index. As an economist, I understand the power of graphs but showing graphs is not enough, we must translate graphs to food for the citizens. Graphs can’t solve capital problems, quality education, competitive skills, enabling environment for creativity to thrive. We must come down from our high horses! Leadership needs a lot of humility to accept this truth; citizens also need a lot of patience to come to terms with the reality that our economy is truly improving.

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Ronke Kosoko is an Economist and Employment Solutions Strategist at Employment Clinic. She tweets from @ronkeemployment

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.