Governing The Economy: Choices, Trade-Offs and National Priorities II
Alex Otti
It would help to note that in contemporary economic parlance, development goes beyond growth in nominal GDP, it is about the experiences of the population, the expansion of employment opportunities, consistent assault on the menace of poverty and measures at cutting extreme inequalities, driving inclusiveness and leaving no one behind. It is, therefore, not just enough to spend resources on the development of physical infrastructure; the expected social and economic returns have to be estimated in advance to determine the medium to long term benefits of such investments vis-à-vis other competing demands.
The same applies to social welfare programmes that prioritise cash handouts or the distribution of food items to poor households. The question of returns and sustainability has to be addressed: does it actually make long-term economic sense to commit humongous sums to short term consumption, what if such funds were directed transparently to investments in agriculture, power or public works so as to create real employment for the poor? This is about teaching the hungry to bake their own bread instead of the tokensim of receiving a small loaf every now and again. A productive alternative to economic handouts not only yields superior, long term economic benefits; it preserves the dignity of the beneficiaries. Another area of concern is the size of public resources wasted on abandoned projects — infrastructure initiatives that are discontinued just because the administration that initiated them is out of office, even when such projects are clearly viable or on the verge of completion. How can genuine progress be made when governance is personality-driven? The bottom line is that there are multiple channels of wastages that have to be closed and the savings arising therefrom redirected more prudently.
Several nations of the world are doing better than us on multiple fronts, not because they are better endowed, but for the simple reason that they have consistently made better political and economic choices. Democracy remains the best vehicle for inclusive growth and development but perhaps the time has now come to evaluate how ignorance amongst the voting public, weak internal governance mechanism within the party hierarchy and the near-absence of clarity in the disposition of critical state institutions can hamper the delivery of the full promises of democratic governance. Policy inconsistency amongst political leadership remains a major albatross in our polity and you can link it to the weakness of our institutions and the growing culture of populist opportunism.
This year holds a lot of importance to what will happen to our country and the states in the decades to follow because we are on the eve of another major election. This is the best time to take civic education seriously; the citizens must know what issues will be determined at the ballot next year and how all of it is tied to our future. As earlier mentioned, poverty and prosperity, employment and joblessness, security and anxiety, prudence and rascality will all be on the ballot in 2027. The nation and our different states and constituencies will go in whatever direction we choose; it is as simple as that. My only prayer is that efforts be made to properly educate the public on these options so they can make their choices with the benefit of full information. The truth, however, is that a political choice must be made in about nine months and the implication of our decision on the economy will be far-reaching.
To take the population out of the misery of unemployment and the indignity of poverty, two development indicators that are of express importance to majority of our people, certain trade-offs must be made because once you eat your cake, you cannot have it back, at least not immediately. Cutting our appetite for foreign goods and travels would be a good place to start but that would only be foundational.
Evaluating the impact of social welfare expenditure vis-à-vis expected benefits from direct investments in productive ventures should follow quickly. The next consideration in this regard relates to the development of a holistic template to guide project conception, funding and delivery. The idea is that no project should be initiated if there are no clear provisions for full term funding, even after the lifespan of the administration that initiated it. It also follows that no similar project shall be introduced unless those earlier initiated are delivered, especially when there are no structural or legal impediments.
Progress requires collective sacrifices from all stakeholder groups. At any rate, sacrifices in themselves are never enough, there must be clear goals and expectations; the public must know that their sacrifices will amount to something in the long-run, not self-punishment. If public expenditure decisions are made to draw resources away from social welfare programmes and push them to infrastructure development for example, the public must begin to see efforts in that regard immediately. Important questions about long term benefits must also be answered. It helps to communicate all of these through regular stakeholder engagements to clear ambiguities and build confidence. Above all, the leaders must be at the forefront when it comes to making sacrifices in order to bolster trust.
The sincerity of officials within the leadership hierarchy must never be in doubt; when a decision on cutting down recurrent expenditure is made, all public spending related to the acquisition of luxurious vehicles, lavish state dinners and self-serving overseas trips must be frozen immediately. The message for all of us is that our people respond more to what we do, than what we say. Economic growth certainly requires trade-offs like putting more resources into capital projects and less to recurrent expenditure, higher investments in education and health over white elephant projects and prioritising public security over political patronage.
Since we assumed office in 2023, a central motor vehicle management policy was adopted to fix as many abandoned vehicles as can be fixed, invest more resources in the acquisition of locally-made vehicles and drastically cut down the number of functionaries entitled to official vehicles. We also looked deeper into the nominal roll to identify possible channels of malpractices; it was not long before we discovered thousands of ghost workers and other evidence of malpractices within the system.
We have since dealt with those, using technology tools and new evaluation processes that saved the State reasonable sums of money. We have also expanded our independent revenue base by more than 300% in the last 35 months through engagements with different economic groups and of course, the introduction of ICT tools in revenue mapping, mobilisation and remittances. However, the main reason we have done better at internal revenue mobilisation is that our people can see where their money is going to; they clearly understand our philosophy of governance as partnership between the government and the people. The lesson here is that citizens are much more sensitive than we appreciate, their response to government policies and programmes is tied to their everyday experiences. Fixing our economic governance template requires sending the right kind of signal — one that assures the people that the pains of the reforms would lead to enduring economic freedom for everyone in the fullness of time.
Beyond getting it right with political behaviour, our priority has been firmed on efforts at cutting multiple productivity barriers across economic frontlines. To address infrastructure gaps, our next focus is on power and public transportation. It has to be made clear that small and medium sized generators, or generators of any size at that, cannot sustainably support our giant economic dreams. Latching on my previous encounter with Geometric power in Aba, we worked with the company to generate, transmit and distribute power to Aba and environs.
Having achieved that, we are now working on getting reliable power to the rest of the state. I am glad that the energy sector is now liberalised to accommodate participation by states. Abia is already taking advantage of this new window of opportunity to the fullest. We have already started an energy sector partnership framework where government lends its weight to de-risk initial outlays by independent investors but operations and governance must remain in the hands of the private sector for efficiency and transparency while regulation resides with the state.
Closely connected to power and energy, in the development equation, is transport infrastructure, particularly rail and road networks. This is directly linked to our broad spectrum of economic development aspirations including food supply, employment, reduced production costs and lower cost of living. It is my considered opinion that the development of the transport sector should be made a matter of urgent national priority with every tier of government committing a reasonable share of its periodic revenue to the development of the transport ecosystem within its domain.
In Abia, we are working with the private sector to develop a rail master plan for the state. While we understand that this is a long-term project, we also believe that the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. We have no doubt that regional integration would benefit from rail networks —to link agro and industrial centres to markets within and outside the region.
I am convinced that a lot will change in our economic outlook if we get transportation right, starting with targeted investments in infrastructure, it is on the back of this that we launched our Electric Buses towards the end of last year and the fleet will be doubled by July. With respect to economic development, it is our opinion that nothing will change if the most reliable public transport system are commercial motorcycles, tricycles and mini-buses. Of course, investment in social infrastructure, particularly, health and education where we have consistently allocated 15% and 20% of our budget in the last 3 years cannot be overemphasised.
Lastly, and probably more importantly is the issue of security. There is a reason security of lives and property is captured in our Constitution as the primary responsibility of government. For over 20 years, insecurity has taken so much from our national treasury while drastically cutting the volume of resources that could have been deployed to drive development outcomes in other needs areas.
Insecurity stifles economic growth, steals talents and keeps production assets dormant. Given the sensitivity of this issue, one may not exhaustively discuss it here but it remains important that everyone gets involved in securing their environment. I’m glad that the issue of state police is receiving serious attention by this government. That is expected to localise policing and bring in more stakeholders into the mix.
Our security challenges, very much like every other setback in our economy, are not intractable but again, there must be a firm commitment on the part of every stakeholder to identify and deal holistically with all channels of disturbances, with particular respect to violent crimes, terrorism and activities that challenge the sovereignty of the Nigerian nation.
Let me conclude by returning to where we started: you cannot separate national economic realities from the decision of political actors. This is an open invitation to all of us, especially young professionals in the room to begin to show more than a passing interest in political discourse. Prudent application of public resources, respect for rule of law, independence of institutions and all such ethos that promote transparency in the public sector are down to the choice of leaders we make, our pattern of interaction with public institutions and the level of commitment we apply to our patriotic duties as citizens and stakeholders in the democratic process.
Our institutions need to become more resilient but again, that would not happen by just wishing or talking about it, we need to make committed and unwavering demands to move the needle. When we consistently elect the right leaders, build independent institutions to protect long term public interests and cut out abuses by political actors, we can then move the gear to monitoring the procurement process in public institutions, cutting waste and blocking channels of leakages because every kobo matters.
(Concluded)
The above is the concluding part of Governor Otti’s presentation at the 5th edition of The Niche Annual Lecture Series Held at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, on Thursday, April 23, 2026.