ENSLAVEMENT: DISPOSAL OF OUR COMMONWEALTH TO RENT CAPITALIST JUST TO SHORE UP FOREIGN RESERVES.

Desperation should not be our guidance in an environment of financial uncertainty or recession because it is a timebomb for any policymaker or authority that has to make quick economic decisions in order to prevent total collapse of the economic architecture. Any desperate action policy wise taking under pressure of finding quick wins to the resolution of prevalent economic crisis shall lead us further into economic abyss dug by rent capitalist prodding us along the trajectory of eternal enslavement for their own selfish dominance of key sectors of our economy.

A Man who is at the end of the rope behaves irrationally. Nigeria seems to me is at the end of the rope and about to make an economic policy decision that would create monopolistic monster beyond any epochal characterization given the clamour to sell profitable national assets by influential economic powers. I wonder why?

Our experiences along this trajectory in the past have not yielded anything significant in terms of economic benefits to the nation rather what we have is the creation of instant billionaires, economic saboteurs and rent seeking capitalist those that have taken the country hostage for years we cannot afford to keep repeating the same errors in the name of divestment via the jamboree of raising foreign reserves that will eventually be depleted by the same monopolists or rent capitalist.

The power sector reform a gigantic disaster during Obasanjo administration or the banking sector reform that has created monsterous money laundering institutions that the @efccnigeria is battling with daily are still hunting us today remember those power generating firms and distribution companies that were sold cheaply to cronies with political nexus with the promise of constant power supply ooh!! what a shameful exercise in privatization this is what I call divestment made in hell because we are still in darkness and those rent capitalist are laughing to the banks with billions.

We as a nation have become like a prodigal son, just wondering if we sell all the arable land in the country to raise foreign reserves what next? How are we going to feed ourselves going forward uhm!! By implication we would be slave to those who own the land. Ours is like a son who sold the only house he inherited from his parent because he has momentary financial difficulty and decided to go and live with a friend after which his friend came home and ask him to leave having squandered the money from the sale of the house with his friend, he is now left with homelessness.

If he had not sold the house he inherited from his parent but persevered by restructuring his lifestyle he would not be homeless by now this is the direction we are going as a nation given the clamour to sell our commonwealth.

This ugly situation we have already experienced in the petroleum marketing and distribution sectors of our economy I am afraid we are not being critical in our analysis of advices and suggestions given by those who have more to gain economic and financial wise by selling money making assets that they will eventually buy directly or indirectly via their fronts.

 

Nigeria industrial landscape is looking more monopolistic with monopsony power trenches taking hold thereby killing flexibility in terms of mobility of work force because major industries are clustered in the hands of few monopolists out to maximise profit via rent seeking and aggressive price undercutting.

Please, let those who wish to invest in gas related enterprises go ahead we the people of Nigeria are ready to grant them opportunity to do so but please do not come and ursurp what is our irreplaceable commonwealth yielding dividend for the Nigerian state.

The clamour to sell NLNG is short termism, the future projection of gas market is good we should be circumspect of monopoly/monopolists. I find it difficult to understand the logic of selling business that is making money for the government. Please don't sell NLNG. Let whoever is interested build his own LNG plant we have enough gas reserve in Nigeria.

Government should/can consider the possibility of allowing investors to build and manage/run/maintain Railways, Container ports, Airports or Roads construction with tolling for 25years wherein we get billions from them in terms of concessioning fee and taxation and when the assigned period of 25years elapses the infrastructures concerned become state assets. We can even go as far as concessioning parking facilities by ''Farming'' out zones for 25years for companies willing to invest in metered parking or sale of abandoned office spaces or concessioning sewage districts out to firms willing to invest in sewage infrastructures. All these shall provide win win situation for both investors and government.

On the government side we will have income from tax, concession fees and infrastructures built for the nation while the investors are making money.

We need all these capital intensive infrastructures and government does not have the resources to provide them for the citizenry so let the investors build and operate, no problem there but NO to selling profitable assets.

The so called repurchase clause in the agreement for sale of national assets as expoused by some in government circle will not do the magic we shall end up with legal bottlenecks.

According to Mary B. Machado she suggests that privatization leads to inabilities to undo such a contract. Once sold in particular it is very difficult if not impossible to retrive the public assets. Any attempt which might be sought to retrive the assets, service or utility must meet value figures established by the business owning the asset (Machado. Research project on privatization Shasta Country). Emphasis mine.

Furthermore, we the people shall be the victim because we will end up paying more eventually that is after our rent capitalists have made gigantic profit selling our gas resources. Nigeria is becoming like Russia under Yeltsin where oligarchs hijacked state assets until Putin came in and took it back from those oligarchs. Please do not let us go via this disastrous route.

We must think straight about sustainability and the interest of our children not short term gains. This is Oligarchy conspiracy to take over our commonwealth a final push for total enslavement.

OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher

Twitter: @pearl2prince