MACROECONOMICS is inextricably inclusive of econometrics – the measurements , estimation , determinations and calculations of quantities of economic factors or items – and without reliable econometrical measurements and estimates, the assessments or projections of economic policy choices cannot be scientific, realistic or reliable. The policies of government regarding the management of hard currencies as foreign earnings of Nigeria cannot be realistically formulated, advised and adopted unless certain data and indices are correctly collected and Marshaled. How much foreign exchange do industrialists in Nigeria optimally require for businesses to thrive in Nigeria? What is the estimate of capital flight out of Nigeria in the annual average? What are the volumes and values of the different industrial and domestic consumables imported into the country annually, averagely? The acute shortage of the net foreign earnings of Nigeria translates to inflationary pressures on the national economy, it being grossly import dependent .
Now, there is worsening unemployment rate, hyper-inflation and annihilating or extreme poverty for an increasing majority of Nigerians, such that the present national socioeconomic circumstances can only be reasonably described as a state of emergency . The critical question now is this, how can we effectively curb this running inflation and bring down soon the values of the necessaries , especially the food items? This critical question resolves automatically into: how can we immediately increase and start to progressively diversify production in Nigeria and how can we immediately achieve diversification of distribution of national income, and in equitable ways in Nigeria? This critical question cannot be usefully answered in an article like this; at least a large book of many chapters would have to be urgently written in the first instance if the application of the intended recommendations or prescriptions would not, most likely, be failed by the government operators.
Predictably, the value of the naira would most probably continue to deprecate, at least in the short – and medium – terms, unless we secure huge and perennial foreign loans, grants, aids and/or earnings . How do we manage the worst possible scenarios? Nigeria certainly and urgently needs original, comprehensive and circumspective thinking . This is what this writer has been offering the country repeatedly over the period of more than thirty years ago, at the risk of being tagged a sufferer of delusion of grandiose by sceptics and loose – thinking intellectuals . How do we in Nigeria urgently and effectively start and continue to address the issue of endemic corruption in Nigeria? It has been variously and convincingly established that the unitary constitution – the 1999 constitution – the over – centralisation of powers of government of Nigeria, peculiarly breeds corruption in Nigeria, but we cannot immediately restructure Nigeria into a true federation . So, what can do we do urgently before the country completely breaks down?
What can we do between now to assuage the worsening pains of Nigerians? As had been done by classical economists – social scientists – the stages of industrialization , economic growth, have since a long time been categorised into five thus : one, stage of pre-conditions for take – off of industrialization; two, stage of take-off of industrialization ; three, stage of transition to industrial maturity; four, stage of industrial maturity; five, stage of search for industrial quality. Nigeria is at the stage of very bad pre-conditions for the take-off of industrialization. And we need original, peaceable, revolutionary, pragmatic measures urgently. Socioeconomic development is a function of faithful and competent leadership, human and material resources, and time. And if Nigeria will effectively or successfully exit the very bad socio-economic situation in which it is now, original innovations are urgently required in critical sectors of the economy as priorities. All socioeconomic sectors are a concatenation- a system of, of course, intricately intersecting subsystems – and a great deal of versatility and erudition is required in the innovator of the veritable solutions. The sectors of education, urban and regional planning , housing development, electricity power, energy, manufacturing, engineering and technology, transport, commerce, agriculture, health, finance, judiciary, democracy, security, international trade, etc, are interlinked, interconnected and intersecting subsystems of the economy as a system; and they require deep and vast understanding, versatility, in the legislators and the executive actors, or in the alternative, in the consultant to be urgently employed on contract by the government. Knowledge of history, economics, econometrics, sociology, political science, political economy, psychology, religion, philosophy, pedagogy , industrialization, urban and regional planning, jurisprudence, law, demography, historical physical sciences, public administration , public finance, etc, is required of the veritable innovator of the veritable solutions to the challenges of Nigeria today .
