Nyerere remains one of the worst post independence African leaders. Don’t @ me
One of the ways I’ve learnt to think about economic development is that it’s not always about getting policies/ideas right. Otherwise China or even America will be poor countries today. It’s often about *limiting* the damage from poor decisions
A bad policy that is reversed after 2yrs is very different from the exact same policy in place for 10 years. Leaders will get things wrong all the time. But for how long? Are those mistakes compounded by further mistakes?
And the *only* bulwark against such mistakes is the institution of educated and economically developed people, at critical mass, who can give leaders a fight or something to think about
(Sorry got sidetracked) This is why I believe in economic development above any and everything else. It’s the only insurance against bad ideas because economic development creates the people who can offer that resistance
Nigeria’s borders have been closed since August. It is not that people don’t think or know it’s a bad idea. But the people who can actually do anything about it are too small and can be safely ignored
The smaller the number of economically developed people you have, the longer bad ideas will remain in place. And these bad ideas *include* non economic ones. You need economically developed people to stop the judiciary being bastardised etc
What is the thing that can change bad policies in Nigeria today? Luck, that’s it. If Buhari has a bad policy in place, you might get lucky and the person who comes after him thinks different and changes it.
