To start, I view Nigeria today as the sum total of policies today and those taken in the past. In that sense, I like to view Nigeria as the result of ideas. If you do A, you shouldn’t expect any other result than B. @TheLiberalForum @nonso2 #TheLiberalForum
So Nigeria today is working as designed, whether the design was intentional or not. As bleak as things might be now, there’s a real chance - for this generation - to un-design a lot of what’s clearly gone wrong @TheLiberalForum #TLFPoliceTownhall
Every successful country I can think of went through a period when the ideas were good, the better of reform was grasped and real change came about. Not often painless or easy but it was done nonetheless #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
In Nigeria’s case, my view is that the 70s - under the high of oil - was when a lot of really terrible ideas (with hindsight, because they looked good at the time) took root. The centralisation of Power and resources was almost total #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
Land in particular was a big one. It’s such a fundamental part of wealth creation in any society. Yet the power over land was centralised in government hands in the belief that Govt knew best #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
Centralising power and resources in a big diverse country comes with an incredible amount of responsibility that, even with very competent and honest Govt, will be a big and tall order for any country #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
All said, the past cant be undone. But the future is a blank sheet of paper. You have options as to what gets written on that paper. So let’s think in 40 year timeframes - what do you do today to ensure there’s stable electricity in 2058? @TheLiberalForum #TLFPolicyTownhall
Or to put it another way - NNPC is untouchable and unreformable today but was it untouchable in 1980? It took a while to get here and it will take a while to change the future as well #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
There was no stable electricity in 1978 and there’s no stable electricity in 2018. It is very possible to arrive in 2058 and there’s still no stable electricity @TheLiberalForum #TLFPolicyTownhall
If you radically alter the education system today to teach kids how to solve practical problems, to understand how to respond to incentives and engage with information, how will 2058 look? #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
So my first big idea will be a radical redesign of the education system. Not buildings but what is inside the education being dispensed itself. #TLFPolicyTownhall
Lately I’ve seen enough to know that a lot of area boys and political thugs are probably software engineers born in the wrong place. So an education that frees people to go look for answers by giving them the basic tools @TheLiberalForum #TLFPolicyTownhall
There are also many questions that have not been answered because they have not been asked. What kind of Govt do you need and what do you need it for? Resources will always be limited and every naira will be competed for #TLFPolicyTownhall @TheLiberalForum
If you’ve somehow arrived at the point where the vast chunk of your budget is spoken for in advance and everyone is fighting over scraps in reality, your Govt is automatically severely constrained in what challenges it can rise up to #TLFPolicyTownhall
What will 2058 look like if you’re spending more than 80% of your budget today paying salaries and running Govt? Infrastructure to cope with an increasing population doesn’t build itself #TLFPolicyTownhall
So a big/hard question has got to be who gets what and why? Behaviour/habits tend to compound so even if oil goes to $200/barrel, Nigeria will find a way to spend more of it on recurrent stuff. Things won’t just change just because #TLFPolicyTownhall
‘Diversification’ or extra tax resources won’t solve the problem either. The country has to learn to operate within certain hard constraints. To constantly be spending money with one eye on the future #TLFPolicyTownhall
If you operate within that hard constraint, then you’ll build infrastructure. You can’t eat a bridge - you build it to solve problems for today and it will be there tomorrow. #TLFPolicyTownHall
As things are, you might as well not have a Govt because its capacity to respond to any problem is severely limited as a result of choices made in the recent past. It cannot rise to the education challenge, or health or security. And they keep coming #TLFPolicyTownHall
What kind of problems will you like your Govt to be able to to respond to and what needs to be changed today to make such a response possible? If the response requires funding, how do you reorder priorities towards such a response? #TLFPolicyTownHall
So I think the problems are of such a broad nature. I’m not so sure recommending policies into dysfunction is anything more than putting plaster on internal bleeding. As much as there are problems today, the future could be worse #TLFPolicyTownHall
Education. Repurposing government. Reordering public finances. Dedicating one eye to focus permanently on the future. They are hard things but they are not impossible. And they’re harder when you don’t even talk about them ✌🏾 #TLFPolicyTownHall
