How to get Nigeria back on track, by Tinubu, Soyinka, others.

From left : Governor Abiola Ajimobi, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Mr. Brian Browne and Mr. Howard Jetter at the book launch on Saturday.

 

IT was meant to be a presentation of the book jointly written by Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and United States former Consul-General in Niageria Brian Borwne in Chicago, the United States (US), but it became a forum where suggestions were offered on how to get Nigeria’s economy out of the woods.
Literary icon Prof Wole Soyinka, who wrote the foreward to “Financialism - Water from an Empty Well”,  and co-author Tinubu, warned of the consequences of leaving the dwindling economy in the hands of half-baked and inexperienced managers to fix.
 At the Rainbow Push Headquarters in Chicago, venue of the presentation on Saturday were civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson Jnr, Borwne, many Nigerian professionals resident in Chicago and other parts of the US,  former American diplomats, and civil rights leaders. 
In the audience also were: Governors Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) and Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Nigerian lawmakers, council chairmen and youths. 
Soyinka warned that it was dangerous to allow leaders who lack the wherewithal to lead the country on the path of economic perdition. 
According to him, one of such leaders ruled Nigeria for about eight years recently and only succeeded in multiplying Nigeria’s economic woes. 
His words: “I have no qualms declaring that I am not fully economic literate. That is why I leave it to the experts to figure out. First, let it be clearly stated that I am not in the least embarrassed or ashamed to acknowledge myself as an economic illiterate. 
“This is quite unlike a former head of state, who was thus dubbed and never forgave his perceptive analyst, even after his death. That economist was my late friend, Prof Ojetunde Aboyade, the only ‘specialist’ from whom I received any insightful…”
 While presenting the book, Soyinka acknowledged Tinubu and Browne as key figures in the unfolding world where the book they have both written opens a new window of how the world’s financial system was designed to the disadvantage of many people.  
Soyinka said: “The skewed world of economics needs to be challenged. A world where the umbilical cord between produce and tally-card was slashed when no one was looking, and the latter has come to be a thing-in-itself, empowering a parasitic class of finance controllers who place the mere tally over and above the material goods – yet succeed in making the rest of the world fall in line! 
“The collapse of the dominating economies of Europe and America is a call for re-thinking, away from orthodox assumptions and givens, under which satellite economies in a distant continent like ours have taken a severe beating, whether or not their governments choose to admit it”. 
Rev. Jackson Jnr, who moderated the book presentation and signing, said the time has come for both Africa and African –American perspective to fuse into one because both are challenged by similar issues. 
He welcomed the fact that the exposition in the book raises fundamental issues.
He provided answers to why Africa and African –Americans live under a discriminatory economic system. 
Tinubu stated the rationale behind the book publication, saying he was provoked by the injustices of the economic system and how the contradictions eventually caught up with the players, who left the low level income earner and small businesses with the short end of the stick.
Tinubu said: “Productive capitalism relies on the discipline of the market place. What now occurs is that powerful actors exploit the licence the market place affords them. In doing so, they endanger the very economies from which they unduly profit. 
“In other words, they have emptied the well yet continue to seek to take water from it. These people practice a speculative brand of economics. My co-author and I, have given this mutation of capitalism the name of ‘financialism’. Financialism is capitalism so shorn of all restraint that it cannibalizses itself” 
The former Lagos State governor decried the wiping away of the earnings of the struggling segment of the society and demanded a new thinking and approach on how to deal with the problem. 
“Recurrent crises show that something is profoundly wrong with the global financial system. Unless we want to suffer these damaging jolts for the foreseeable future, we need to make systemic corrections. 
“Both developed and emergent nations have committed the similar sin of turning what should be productive economies into factories of financial speculation that generate more financial paper than they do material products that real people can use to improve their living conditions”. 
Giving Nigerian leaders food for thought, Tinubu said: “Nigeria needs to be put to work. We have a lot of catching up to do. Asian governments support the industrialisation of their economies. Wise European nations are starting to retool their industrial base. “Nigeria cannot hope to achieve prosperity simply by exporting exhaustible natural resources. We must follow the historic route that all large nations have followed in reaching national prosperity. We must make, create and export what we make and create”.
 Browne argued that recession has put black America into a structural recession. 
He said: “The financial system has become over inflated and incestuous to the point of killing the productive sector.”
Brian maintained that Africans cannot be orphans on their own land and the 21st Century story of Africa must be written by Africans. 
Ambassador Howard Jeter, who reviewed the book, stated that the two perspectives from Africa and the United States offer an invaluable insight into the global financial structure and offers practical solutions and challenges what we know as impositions.
 Aregbesola and Ajimobi also aligned with the call for a more global equitable financial order.

The Nation.