By Chidi Odinkalu
Anambra State Gov, @CCSoludo, reportedly claims the entire South East economy only contributed 7.9% to the GDP of #Nigeria compared to Lagos state, Niger Delta and Abuja.
He adds that if these major regions & cities were to shut down, Nigeria would be affected because they contribute a major percentage to the GDP of the country but for the south east, even if it falls under a volcanic eruption tomorrow, the economy of Nigeria will not be affected. Nigerians will only see the collapse as a human disaster and move on with their lives unperturbed because the south east brings nothing but 8%.
Governor Soludo should be thanked for inspiring a necessary debate. He has invited a debate & there should be one about both statistics & interpolations based on statistical claims.
One problem with econometrics is the reduction of human issues to numbers only. Numbers do not always explain every human situation but let me begin with Gov Soludo’s numbers.
He claims that SE accounts for a mere 8% of Nigeria’s GDP. I will get to the credibility of that shortly. But let’s examine this claim.
The SE officially accounts for about 15% of Nigeria’s population. If it produces a mere 8% of the GDP – as the Governor claims – i.e. about half of its weight in population terms, that must make the region (pound for pound) the place with the least productive human beings in Nigeria. That is clearly an unsupportable claim. The numbers thrown around by the Governor are just not viable.
But, let’s go further. The corollary of Governor Soludo’s point must be that Nigeria calibrates its response to insecurity in any part with reference to the economic or political significance of that part to the wider country.
So, can we then find out which part the country has responded to effectively?
May be it is North-West with a reported 29% of the population?
Or SW, the economic behemoth of the country, where kids have been kidnapped & their teachers beheaded & the regime is asleep? By the way, in case no one has noticed, there are active abductions occurring routinely in 4 of the 6 states in at least the SW.
The gateway city of Ilorin is significantly shutdown by the activities of terrorists.
Maybe it is in the reputed breadbasket of the Middle Belt?
Or perhaps it is in the regional borderlands of the NE which has been aflame for the better part of 2 decades?
The Niger Delta may appear mostly stabilized but that is through pipeline security contracts to the militants, who are the cause of the insecurity there. That is not effective response; it’s sovereign capitulation.
There is just no evidence to support the underlying rationale or thesis of the Soludo argument.
Instead, what appears evident is that the Nigerian state is historically dissolute. It din’t begin today & it has not been improved until today.
In a country with unviable statistics in which informal economies account for over 70% of productivity & employment, it is dangerous at best & surely misleading to formulate these kinds of arguments based on GDP numbers for the formal economies.
What Governor Soludo achieves through his argument is to promote or excuse irresponsibility as a directive principle of state policy.
Section 17(2)(c) of the 1999 constitution requires that “governmental actions shall be humane”. The provision before that equally requires the actions of government to be measured with reference to their capacity to promote dignity of all citizens.
That is not accomplished by telling any part of the country that they’re expendable.
It is not politics, it is not economics, it is not law, & it is not political economy.
I am obviously not making an argument in support of Monday #SitAtHome & I certainly have no interest in doing that.
But when people are complaining of inequity, it is not an effective or useful response to tell them they are useless & irrelevant, especially when they are in a country that has demonstrated an incapacity & unwillingness to care.
