Policy Making or Policy Implementation: At what stage can government be said to have misfired? -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

As a public affairs analyst, there are times that I have had to struggle against the temptation of believing that government was wrong to take certain steps when they did and that I was right to voice out a condemnation. But every time I looked at the outcome of most of the policies, I find it hard to refrain from branding the government as foolish, insensitive, detached and unsympathetic to the people whom the policies affected.

I understand that many things went into the process of making policies particularly for a Third World country like us. External considerations like the influence of the IMF, the prying presence of the Multinational Corporations and the very packaged temptation that come to us as Foreign Aids/Grants; wield their influence on policy making. Internal considerations like ethnicity, religion, social status, political interest and stakeholders and stuffs, also influence policy making.

It is also not out-of-place to talk about the dynamics of foreign trade, natural disasters/catastrophes and globalization and how they affected the process of policy making. These and many other factors are well established in the science of policy making as factors to be considered. By the way, policy making according to Wikipedia is decision making that involved co-opting a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes.

Policy implementation is itself influenced by a number of factors some of which can actually be avoided if the decision makers are diligent enough to be focused on achieving a rational outcome. Now, the question becomes: at what stage can government be said to have misfired? This is where I get worried every time I talked about perceived failure of these policies.

I’d like to think that policy failure actually begins with the policy makers, the considerations upon which such policies were built and the personal resolve of those involved in implementing them without fear or favor. In our country Nigeria, ill-timing and the selfishness and incompetence of leadership has made useful policies to end up accomplishing the exact opposite of what it intended to first achieve.

For instance, the recent directive by the CBN to commercial banks to impose a 2% regime on cash deposits and a 3% regime on cash withdrawals on sums of up to 500, 000.00 and upwards looked more like a policy that did not realize it was dealing with a highly impoverished masses; probably because it was more concerned with meeting the demands of the foreign influence in whose mercy Nigeria’s future rested due to heavy indebtedness.

Why was it normal to implement such a policy considering the fact that the huge foreign debt the country did owed to the international monetary fund (IMF) has not affected the poor masses directly? It was normal because our leaders are puppets to imperial powers who clearly understand the average Nigerian mindset of greed for easy riches and how to keep the entire country in their firm grip forever. They know that whatever grants/foreign aid that came to Nigeria ended in the pockets of a few.

So they borrow us these monies anyway and through this means, they remote us. Policies that favored the masses are thwarted, projects that benefited the public are abandoned and left to dilapidate and the loan becomes impossible to be paid. It becomes a yoke on our neck. Recently, the huge foreign debt was divided among 200, 000 000 Nigerians and it turned out that each Nigerian owed about 150, 000 naira or more.

These are the realities, despite the VAT and the multi-taxes that the innocent public paid to the government. In another instance, the government has borrowed money to improve the electricity supply and, foreign grants have been received to encourage distribution of pre-paid meters but all of these ended in the pockets of a few. In the last 16 years policies geared towards resuscitating electricity have clearly failed.

In yet another instance, in 2012 the subsidy on fuel was suddenly removed creating in the process a hardship that should’ve been avoided. The timing was not only wrong, it was during the festive season and that left many stranded especially those who had travelled. Was anything wrong with that policy? I bet there was nothing. But it failed alright; why?

Recently, the Nigeria Customs Service began a raid on car marts across the federation; they alleged that about 90% of cars in the country are without certified customs duty. Whether this was true or false remained to be seen but it was needful to point out that another policy is about to fail at the point of implementation. If we cast our minds back to the First Republic; two policies are worthy of mention.

They are the Free Education policy of western Nigeria and the Northernization policy of northern Nigeria. These two policies took place during a democracy and within the same tenure yet one succeeded and the other was not so successful. The question is: what made the difference? Free education was a policy that targeted the human resource capital. An investment in the peoples’ future was an assured investment.

Education and enlightenment opens the eyes of the people to the potentials that existed all around them. Conversely, the northernization policy targeted the subjugation of certain ethnic group and the elevation of another. The knowledge that certain people always wanted to dominate in an environment that was not their ancestral land was a knowledge that created a wall and prevented mutual economic interaction; this was what the northernization policy exemplified.

In the few instances so far provided, it is easy to see that policies frequently failed at the implementation stage. It is also easy to see the role that leadership played in ensuring that policies succeeded or failed. Now, I chose to talk a little on leadership particularly on what leadership is NOT. Leadership – for me – is a form of authority that is directed by the character of the leader. It is NOT a place or a position that made one to act right or wrong but a place or position that SHOWED who you are.

Every time I hear folks’ definition of leadership; I see the reason why it is misunderstood. Leadership is a noun and a noun is a name …. of a thing. So leadership is simply a name of what we have assumed! This means that anybody can assume that name. Hence, the focus on this matter should be on the individual or the person that assumes that name. if we understood leadership as a name, it becomes easy to embrace the responsibility.

The first responsibility in leadership is character. Most people see leadership as an office rather than what one assumed and this is why we forget to be responsible for our actions. Only a naïve person would become irresponsible after he assumes the title of say, Professor. The fact of becoming a professor in a certain discipline does not make the individual surrender his will to be directed by the title rather it is the title that ought to be directed by the individual’s character.

This is why a stable character is less likely to misfire irrespective of what he/she becomes. Policies fail – like I said earlier – at the implementation stage but that is because our leaders lacked requisite character. They downgraded themselves every time and they did not realize that the position will always remain even when they are gone from such positions of authority.

I have taken the time to examine leaders like Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew and our own brother Paul Kagame and, I came to the inevitable conclusion that individuals who understood that leadership SHOWED who we are or that it enabled one to make impact on others; did a mastery of that. I also discovered that those who did not realize these things, made a fool of themselves while in that position.

For instance, a man like President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, whose tribe was practically annihilated in the 1994 genocide; would have ordinarily dissipated his energy trying to revenge IF HE WERE A NIGERIAN. A leader like Nelson Mandela – whose black brothers suffered untold hardship in the hands of the Apartheid government – would have chosen to oppress the white South Africans IF HE WERE A NIGERIAN.

A man like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore would’ve decreed a ‘northernization policy’ or even a ‘majority-carried-all policy’ IF HE WERE A NIGERIAN. Nigerians continue to argue that we got independent at a time too early to have enabled us know the right direction to take after independence and I maintain a solid ‘No we did not’, as my reply.

And for folks to understand my mind, I would ask in return questions like: In 1973 when the first phase of the indigenization policy was carried out, was Gowon under any pressure to drive off the foreigners who prospered under the Nigerian economy? He was never! Also, I would ask: When former SA president nelson Mandela declared he had forgiven his jailers; was he under pressure to do so? He was never!

He decided to forgive and went the extra mile to preach it so his angry brethren can understand he really meant forgiveness for his jailers from his heart. Choice and the power to choose are available to every man regardless of social status; our leaders choose to make the country poor, backward and uncompetitive just because they chose to do so. Therefore, even if our independence came in 1994; for me, nothing changes.

Just last week, the federal government of Nigeria announced border closure and the enforcement of its previous ban on rice import. What a policy! What a leadership without a human face! For all intents and purposes, any right thinker will give thumbs down to this idea for several reasons chief of which are:

(1)    It is not possible to force every Nigerian to accept the homegrown Rice.

(2)    Homegrown rice does not necessarily need a ban on imported species to thrive. It needed only to be better processed, better packaged and affordable.

(3)    Nigeria’s homegrown music artiste did not enjoy any ban on foreign movies and music to thrive. They worked with more than enough passion and good sense. Today, they are the envy of even the foreign artiste who now came down to collaborate with them on projects.

(4)    Our homegrown products also needed to be exported so that people of other countries can appreciate us. For if we think it was better to approach it the way we are going; I’ll bet you that not much will come out of it. Enforcing it on Nigerians will never make these products globally competitive.

Now, as an immediate response to the closure; a 50kg bag of rice has gone up to twenty-three thousand naira and so, how does this increase the purchasing power of our currency? Without a stable electricity supply, without functional refineries and without the right policies that can sustain economic growth for a long time; how can the closure of our borders and the ban on rice import help the system?

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh is an advocate for attitudinal change. 08062577718.