by Victor Terhemba.

While at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, I over heard a Bureau de change “Mallam” telling a prospective customer that $100 equals to N 46,000. Just then reality really hit me. I could still remember like it was yesterday when my mum would send me $100 as monthly pocket money and it would amount to just N 15,000. It’s certain the Naira will fall further against the dollar, but how did it get to this level?

The economy is battered and in shatters but we haven’t changed our obstinate ways of spending recklessly yet. Several times,  the CBN and FG have designed policies to help save the naira but it keeps depreciating. I’ve heard economic experts say what and what should be done but all those grandiloquent economic grammar they spout are only good for a classroom, it doesn’t suit the reality of the real world. Whether they float or sink the Naira, whether they devalue the Naira or not, the Naira will continue to be in the shadow of the Dollar.

And of course there are some myopic and naive political apologists that blame the present situation on the mismanagement of resources by PDP and inexperience of the APC led government. But the build up to this abhorrent economic situation predates PDP or APC. Many of us have the illusion that we actually have an ‘Economy’. We stopped having an economy since the 1980’s.

The simple fact of the matter is that apart from oil, which accounts for over 90% of our revenues, we really don’t have much of an economy. We hardly produce anything, we import even toothpicks! So, exactly what policy is going to be implemented that will turn Nigeria into a top exporting economy in the near term? Where are our Apples, IBMs, Disneys, GMs, General Electrics, Coca Colas, Empire State buildings, Statues of Liberties, Lockheeds, Citibanks, JP Morgans, ExxonMobils, NBAs, Super Bowls etc? Let me bring that closer home. There was a time long ago when Nigeria had a truly strong economy and the Naira was one to the dollar – even exchanged for higher than the USD, but that Nigeria is not this Nigeria. Sadly that Nigeria was laid by the British, and this Nigeria – fueled by the damaging Indigenization Decree, has been the creation of us Nigerians.

Back then we had a booming economy. We were either the top, or among the top exporters, of Timbre, Cocoa, Groundnuts, Rubber, Palm oil, etc, in the world. Nigerians not only holidayed at home in their villages, at Yankari Games Reserve, at Obudu Cattle Ranch, at Oguta Lake, at Ikogosi springs, at Gurara Falls, at Mambilla Platueau, etc, we attracted international tourists who brought in loads of foreign exchange. Even Nigerian schools were foreign exchange earners because they attracted foreign students.

We had different car assembly plants – Peugeot, Volkswagen, Anamco etc. Nigerian government officials only bought vehicles assembled in Nigeria for official cars. We had a thriving sports industry. We were not Man United or Chelsea fans; we were Rangers or Abiola Babes fans.  We also had companies like Lennards and Bata producing school shoes in their thousands, we had the thriving Nigerian Airways and the Aviation School in the north that produced some of the best pilots in the world.

In those days if you were brilliant you were respected much more than the crass money-miss-road contractors of today. Back then it meant something to ‘know book’. Our Textile industry was alive and well but now the gigantic Nigerian Textile Mill built in 1957 in Kaduna has long been comatose. I could go on and on. Today however, no thanks to our parents (and we must call them out the way Wole Soyinka did his generation) and many of us, we have destroyed everything. Today for instance Nigerian football (which comes easy to me obviously) doesn’t appeal to us, we have to fly across thousands of miles to watch ‘our’ clubs play. Every year we collectively burn billions of Naira being fans of clubs that give us nothing back, but some ‘entertainment value’ – simple pleasures for which we are ready to destroy the future of our children.

Well people, payback time is here. Even with our ta-she-re money we all want to wear designer clothes and carry designer bags: Armani, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton etc. We have little money but films are no longer nice to watch at home, it has to be the cinema. We all want to drive jeeps with American specs, our children must now school overseas and acquire the necessary accents to come back home and bamboozle their ‘bush and crass’ contemporaries that they left behind. And when these children go abroad they instantly begin to view their mates and friends back home as inferior beings, so they cut off communication.

Who holidays in Nigeria anymore, is there Disneyland here? No one buys made-in-Nigeria school bags for their children, after all no Superman or Incredible Hulk or Cinderella on them. We are no longer top exporters of anything and the demise of oil means we have zilch… zero. A country of 170 Million fashion-conscious people has no textile industry. We take delight in showing how our made-in-Switzerland asoebi is different class to everyone else’s.

When we help our musicians grow and pay them millions, they repay us by immediately shipping the monies overseas to produce their “i-don-dey-different-level” music videos. It makes no difference that distinctly Zulu dancers are dancing to a Nigerian highlife song.

As stars concerned they also wed and holiday overseas to impress us all. All the musicians who acknowledge their Ajegunle roots now speak in a cocktail of strange accents to symbolise how much they have blown their monies overseas. Were we a more serious people, the highly popular Kingsway Stores of the past would probably have a thousand outlets across Nigeria today supporting a massive agriculture industry among others, but today we have the likes of SPAR, Shoprite, dominating the retail industry while Kingsway is dead.

And we Nigerians make it a special point to shop from the foreign retail outlets who have ‘cleaner shops’, ‘better this and better that’. For our personal pleasure, we don’t mind them dominating us in our own backyard and shipping proceeds overseas. I could go on and on, but I don tire.

So if we don’t depend on the Naira and on our own economy, then we shouldn’t expect any magic.  Until we begin to support our own and promote the production and patronisation of local contents, we will still remain in the circus (actually Nigeria and Nigerian are a joke and living a joke).  Even as you are reading this, stop for a moment and look around you. What you see will probably explain why we are lucky it is not N 1000 to the USD yet. And don’t think for a moment that it cannot get there. Just continue to wear your Armani gear and Swiss-made lace. Continue to spend your money on Foreign football clubs, listen and patronise only foreign music and films, and encourage your children to do same.

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Victor Terhemba Is a talent manager, political analyst and social commentator from Lagos. He’s also the acting media officer for Kowa Party (Lagos state). He tweets @@inkrediblesmog. Email: Victor.terhemba6@gmail.com