It was Democracy Day two days ago. Buhari had instituted it so in commemoration of the June 12, 1993 presidential election which Chief Moshood Abiola was declared winner of, decades after it had been annulled. President Buhari, in an exercise of political expediency had instituted the day to replace May 29, the political handover date for the fourth republic that had served as democracy day since 1999.
To those who must tag the era by its politics, Democracy Day matters. But to those for whom the primary tag is humanity, the day was dreary like every other day since the ascension of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Primary on virtually every mind was how to eat, however tasteless and however lacking in nutrition.
It is still some six weeks to the end of July when prices of food usually drop from the peak following the first harvests. But would we see the normal pattern this year? The rains were late this year. So, would the early harvest keep to time? And unlike previous years when food inflation was driven by shortages, this year’s is driven more by the foreign exchange rates.
For the very first time, people cannot afford tubers of yam and creative sellers have resorted to cutting tubers into pieces for indigent buyers to pick in bits. A ‘painter’ measure of beans has crossed the N7,000 mark. With the most miserable bit of meat selling for a minimum of N2,000, what would be the source of protein for the masses? Will children across Nigeria suffer kwashiorkor like children in Biafra did during the civil war?
Just in case you think I am alarmist, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says Nigeria has the second highest level of stunted children in the world! A whopping 32 percent of Nigerian children under the age of five are affected, with some two million of them suffering severe acute malnutrition! And we should clap and celebrate Tinubu’s democracy day?
Tell those children it’s democracy day. And tell them that the policies of fuel subsidy removal and the free fall of the naira will be beneficial sometime to come. Tell them that there will be a remnant of them by the time the benefits kick in.
And just a few days to the Democracy Day, Kimberly Clarks, the American hygiene products company announced that it was folding up its operations in Nigeria. The company had been in Nigeria for some 15 years, manufacturing personal hygiene products like the Huggies diapers, toilet rolls, feminine hygiene products, etc. Just two years ago, it opened a $100 million factory at Ikorodu, Lagos. Now, it’s shutting all that down due to the harsh operating environment. How else would it be, given the tax farming that Tinubu is known for, and the competing pressure of state and local government tax authorities? They all descend on investors as if investment is a crime. An industrialist that commented on the incipient closure expressed little surprise, noting that industrialists pay as much as N3 million monthly for power. We all have a fair idea of how much power they get. Those that hinged their hopes on the demography and the resultant purchasing power have had their hopes crashed with the currency devaluation that left the population severely impoverished.
Kimberly Clark has joined a growing list of investors whose exit is leaving Nigeria de-industrialised. Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi, Procter & Gamble etc have all divested from Nigeria. Those remaining are just struggling to survive. I bought a travel pack toothpaste the other day. To my surprise, the price was N500 at which I had bought it late last year. I smiled at seeing a product whose price remained the same over seven or eight months. But when I opened the paste to use, I found out the tube was 60 percent paste and 40 percent air. Other fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) had followed the concept of reducing quantity and increasing prices.
The effect of this de-industrialisation may be lost on the government, particularly if its tax projections are covered. But it affects the psyche of the populace, including tomorrow’s investors.
Back in the mid-1990s, I interviewed Ronke Onadeko for an American magazine. Ronke’s company based in Lagos, had a fruit drink which was contract-produced for it at Ibadan. Her product was doing well in the market.
I asked her how she came about the concept of contract manufacture and she gave me a very profound answer. As a student at the University of Lagos International School, they undertook excursions to manufacturing outfits like Unilever, PZ, Nestle, Cadbury, etc. The impression formed on her tender mind was an industrial Nigeria that made things.
After her tertiary education at Rhode Island, US, she returned to a different Nigeria. The Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) foisted on the Babangida administration by the World Bank had altered Nigeria. The Naira had been severely devalued and manufacturers could neither retool nor import raw materials. That was the first phase of the programmed decline of Nigeria.
Armed with her industrial project to make fruit juice, machinery became a challenge. Previous capital had been eroded into nothingness through devaluation. But she refused to accept defeat. She decided on going round the challenge of machinery through contract-manufacturing since she couldn’t climb it. It was all in the mind. The minds of Nigerians based on their reality will shape their tomorrow.
