THE EFFECT OF DEREGULATION TO NIGERIA ECONOMY.

It has been a very long while since I put my pen on paper, but the delinquent in our society has forced me to do this, thus, what should be a delightful applause as turned around to be a scornful boo. Suffice you to note however that, Nigeria is a country that gained independent from the British colonial master in the year 1960, which will be approximately 51 years from now, during this period Nigeria was known to have practiced two major system of government in governing her people; this is the Parliamentary and Federal System of government. Nonetheless, suffice me to note that, at the dawn of Nigeria, Nigeria’s economy has been a little scrum satisfactory, but not too satisfactory in the outside sense, due to the fact that she cannot boast of satisfying over 80% of her citizens, leaving most of her citizen in abject poverty and abysmal health. Far gone, Nigeria has odds with her economy, leading to low standard of living of her citizen to a low standard of economy/development; they are given second class level over the globe, if not 3^rd class. However, these are many of the issues that will be addressed in this essay, though it’s rapt to bring to the understanding of many people the evil and peril our so called leaders have exposed us to.

It is amazing to note that the government of Nigeria, which is not made up of 25% of the population spend over 25% of the national budget. What an irony you may wonder, but I want you to ponder on my submission that the government should do something about the budget been allocated to it (slashing or reducing it drastically I will humbly suggest). I was taught in my Government subject while in secondary school that it is very expensive running a Federal System of government, but I was not taught in that same subject that practicing a Federal System will lead to the collapse of a country’s economy or lead to INDEBTEDNESS as Nigeria has experienced in the past in the hands of past leaders.

What is even deregulation that we hear the government gabbing? Deregulation is however a process of government limiting its control in a sector or means of economical production. However, instead of government sizing control of these sectors, private bodies of individual are left to handle such sectors, deregulation can symmetrically mean privatization. Conversely, this is a means of capitalizing the economy, but it is not full capitalism in that sense, because governments still carry out some control measures on these sectors.
In point of fact, one may blame the leaders for the mayhem that has hit different sectors of the country’s economy, because they were the ones who controlled and still control over 50% of the country’s system of production or economical resources ruling out private ownership or let me call it privatization. The good, the bad and the ugly need to be blamed for the present position the country is in, in international scoring or reports, Nigeria is far below the standard of development among her contemporary countries. But sincerely the person I will make my blames to be lenient on his great Obafemi Awolowo (AWO), ruling out nepotism he had visions for his mother land but he was not giving a chance to rule and administer; the truth of the matter is that, he might have done less but no chance to access him, “he was a president Nigeria never had”. The little chance he hard was utilized by him neatly and that was while he was able to establish free education at primary and secondary level, I can go all the way to write his good deeds but that is not my main motive of picking my pen to write, although, Awolowo should not be exonerated because he also have a share of the blame in Nigeria.

And I will like to make my main motive made clear to my readers that deregulation has positive and negative effect to the nation’s economy depending on how the country’s private bodies can handle things in Nigeria and how government can carry out policies that will checkmate this private bodies for the benefit of the citizenry. But the private bodies are not given the chance to operate with ‘free hands’ in many of our economic sector or system of production, especially in areas like Agriculture and petroleum.
From my own point of view deregulation has a lot of positive effect to Nigerian economy, because with deregulation been given a chance in Nigeria we will have private bodies handling the nation’s economy or let me say petroleum industry and thus increasing and given rise to competition of services rendered.
With my recent accessing of things in this country, we many times mistake to a nation, I have found out that, private bodies are not always allowed to have their stake in the running of the country’s economy, if however they are given the chance, they will however be frustrated out of the system of the country. Many factors contribute to this factor, one of which is corruption at its peak in this country, the other is all-out insecurity in the country, another is lack of basic infrastructures in the country, however, I can go on and on to list so many factors that have contributed in making private bodies to shy away from investing and interfering into Nigeria’s economy. As many of us may be harboring doubt about the government generosity when it says it want to deregulate a sector, we tend not to trust the government based on antecedents. I belief that if 10% of our past leaders have been on the right track and have being implementing the right policies for the betterment of the general populace, Nigeria will not be witnessing the enormity we are living with today.
As with the recent happening in the country and the recent scene Nigeria as found herself, many people have the conviction that deregulation of a sector will first inflict hardship and punishment on the people before things begin to normalize in the nearest future which may take years. The government has given deregulation a bad name that the novice have to live with for a very long period in time.
Also, it is in Nigeria however that we see democracy in the form of dictatorship, it is however pertinent to note that, the government of this country to a great extent have not convinced the people into buying to the idea of deregulation. The recent action of the Goodluck Jonathan administration however depict dictatorship tendencies, need me remember the government that; democracy is and ought to remain a government by the people for the people and to the people and not in the reverse as we see in the country Nigeria. The government has failed to understand the people and has failed to understand the different between what is right and wrong.

For the mere fact that “the removal of fuel subsidy” is right and with a good intension does not make the government in action (removing the fuel subsidy at a wrong and bad time for Nigerians). It is shocking to note that the policy of “fuel subsidy” in the downstream or any sector is wasteful and corrupted, however, that does not make subsidy policy the “mother” of all corruption, in other words, Nigerians to my best understanding are clamoring that the government should address and deal with the “mother” of corruption, that is, mismanagement of public funds, non accountability and many more. However, just like Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, special advisers to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Mon, suggested new income taxes on the rich in the society and more public investment in health, infrastructures, security and many more. The Goodluck administration is forgetting something about being a leader and running a country like Nigeria, it is not enough to have budgeted almost half of the Nations budget on security alone, it far goes beyond that in a corrupt country like Nigeria.
Conclusively, it surprise me to hear the government claiming they subsidize a sector in which they have no full control over, most of the activities that goes on in the downstream sector are mostly carried out by private bodies like Shell, Chevron and a whole lot of others, however the whole activities carried out in the downstream sector seems corrupt. Deregulation is advantageous because it gives room to government to invest in other sectors of the economy that will improve the standard of living of the citizenry. However, that is not the case here in Nigeria, as money to be used to build infrastructures and establish a fabulous policies are used to manage the government which we run. Government and politics in Nigeria as being painted to mean a profession to enrich ones pocket and that of the people unborn, I respect civil societies, the citizenry and pressure groups coming out to kick against corruption and indiscipline in governance. It is only in Nigeria that we see leaders totally disconnected from the people in the grass root but dine with people at the higher level. It is so pathetic and sadistic that many Nigerians have to undergo these ill-mannered people attitude.
I will like to commend the action of Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha and Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola, who have tried to build a formidable relationship between the people and government by coming closer to them in all manner, right from school children and the people on the street.

2015 is near and we would be faced with making some formidable choices.
GOD BLESS NIGERIA!

This article was originally written and published by me, Richard Oluseye Anthony (@Roluseye) on this blog in 2009 when I was just entering the University of Ibadan for my undergraduate program. I have really not had time to form my thoughts into writing in the past few years and I hope to resume on that as I have made up my mind to dive into the academia as well as carry out my entrepreneurial skill.