Full transcript of “POS 207 Political Economy of Nigeria”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 my name is a DJ Sunday and today we are going to continue with our previous discussion on political economy thus far we have been able to understand what political economies we looked at political economy from the auto dose perspective or what you may call the classical perspective we also looked at the Marxist political economy and of course we tried to look at the differences between the mattress and the uttered of political economy I one of the sessions we also talked about class and class struggle we looked at the nature of class on the band's own perspective and from of course from the Weber a perspective upon the perspective of half now apart from plus we also looked at class struggle as you know an
0:45 antithetical relationship between two different classes one class trying to maintain the status code the other class trying you know to change this country school in one of the sessions were also looked at historical materialism and dialectical materialism and of course we try to do demystify the concept of dialectics in relation to materialism we saw all the laws of balances and all the principles of Dianetics and of course we said historical materialism can also be called mode of production and under that topic and we try to look at the various stages of human society how we one society metamorphosed from one stage to another from the era of primitivism to the era of you know socialism and of
1:31 course how one states is a negation of the negation well ladies and gentlemen today were able to look at a very interesting topic the political economy of nigeria a student of political economy it is good to understand political economy from a charity coup perspective and also from a practical perspective what I going to do today is to integrate over to its core knowledge we've had and to look at practical issues issues that are concrete and of courses in Nigeria of the case in points and so the political economy of Nigeria simply means that we want to take a look at the interaction between politics and economy in Nigeria that's what we call the politic economy of ninja and remember that face class who said politics and economics
2:17 are inseparable and of course it is the relationship between politics and economy that gives you political economy as we were taking a look at the political economy of 90 right means that our segment here is that we are confronted with the challenge of trying to show how politics relates to the economy and of course the relations between economy and politics within the policy code you know Nigeria if you take a look at the political economy of Niger what comes to your mind first of all is to look at the nature of politics in Nigeria and of course the nature of the Nigerian economy okay natural natural state has a very good economy in fact mentira is the largest economy in Africa followed by South Africa and so to
3:05 understand the nature of nature's economy means that we have to take a look at the variables that boost the economy of Nigeria Nigeria as a country relies so much on petroleum on oil and of course the highest source of foreign exchange the head source of you know of income potential as the state is well but remember that before the discovery of oil and we caught your plate remarkable impacts as far the economy of nature was concerned do you remember the grand old pyramids and all of that these sobs are the major boost are the major economic backbone for the danger an economy but today oil has taken over and of course our government have become so much reliant on oil so the points
3:52 that meteorites described as a more new cultural economy an economy that depends on one economic variable rather than an economy that can you know diversify and you see that the prosperity of Nigeria is tied to oil when there's oil boom the country is happy because we generate a lot of money when there's a slide in the price of crude oil in international system it affects the Nigerian economy because the economy of Nigeria is tied to oil and so if a student was to look the nature of man German economy the student must identify the economic base the economic forum of Nigeria and like I said the economic base of Nigeria is petroleum because nature of course is
4:38 richly blessed and of course we're number six as far as oil production in the world is concerned and so that tells you why we so much rely on oil but that I decide is important for every country to diversify and so we're not doing well we're not doing as much as we should do as a country because we're relying on one source of income and the present administration has promised as part of the agenda to diversify the dendron economy to begin to tap into solid minerals to tap into other sectors or bring about you know economic growth and development but if you ask me I don't think they don't well the present ambition has not done well as far as diversification of the economy is concerned our national budget is tied to
5:26 the price of oil within international markets and that tells you the degree of open reliance on oil and this is not a permanent resource at any point it could be over and so when we no longer have oil what happens to the economy it means that we need to wake up and begin to see how to diversify the Nigerian economy issues in NGO and political economy very important what are the emerging issues what are the content issues as far as mentor and political economy is concerned what are the indices and variables that you come to our mind we are discussing the political economy of Nigeria why is Nigeria not as prosperous as we ought to why is it that in Nigeria you
6:12 still have high degree of property whereas Nigeria become the headquarters of poverty in the world why do we have cases of insecurity in Nigeria why do we have cases of you know unemployment in Nigeria all this boils down to issues in ante on political economy how can a country be so rich yet as it is among the poorest of the poor how can they contribute a giant of Africa yet our citizens lack basic amenities how can a country be you know the most populous black nation in the world yet half citizens cannot afford basic necessities of life to the point that Nigerians survive on less than one
6:58 dollar per day these are issues these are questions that we must put forward if you want to look at issues revolving around you know the political economy of Nigeria what is the nature of politics in Nigeria because the nature of politics in Nigeria the political behavior of Nigerians the political behavior of the political class has remarkable impact on the economy of Nigeria and so that we said in our first class you cannot isolate economics from politics another Michael Mack said the economy is a soft structure upon which the superstructure is based that is politics how do we manage the Common Wealth of our nation after political
7:43 club been able to manage the resources of Nigeria to the point of delivering the dividends of democracy your answer or your guest is as good as mine and so he shows within the political economy of Nigeria and issues we provide around corruption and mismanagement a misappropriation of funds yes you are very rich as the country but how do you manage these resources well had leaders who abused a position to you know for their personal encouragement the abuse the opposition to loot the resources of Nigeria thereby enriching themselves and making the larger proportion of men jurors live in abject poverty as I speak to you we're still discovering phones routed by
8:29 general Sonia Bahji somebody that died almost 10 years ago we're still recovering monies loot by him and also tell you the mentality of our political class resources that can be equally distributed resources I can be used to maximize the collective interest of Nigerians as Ike invented and egg butter by this political class for you all the interest and of course Europe is now areas where they go you know to dump this money to keep this money for safekeeping a d'tetramand of Nigeria and so issue of corruption is one very important issue that you must identify when you are taking a look at issues in the NGO and political economy then of course issues surrounding
9:16 misappropriation of funds issues surrounding mismanagement or phone because you have people who do not have the acumen to manage this resources your people who lack the leadership quality and the leadership acumen to hold position of government but of course how do they come into power people come into power because politics are become primordia politics are become sentimental politics are become true vanity within the political system of Nigeria and so you have people make your cars taking about political position and giving about bringing about negative economic consequences and so these are issues that we must also discuss when we are talking about Nigerian political
10:02 economy there are the larger stage where an economy that is so much dependent an economy that is not self-sufficient an economy that does not drive itself what am I trying to say do never rely solely on oil but how many refineries in Nigeria is working how many of our refineries are working how can you produce crude oil and you like the refineries to refine this into a finished product another way the idea of dependency comes in at a manifestation of new colonialism Manjeera now has a new colonial economy an economy is not owned by Nigeria or if you like
10:48 an economy that is owned by Nigeria on the surface but in the inside the economy is managed by outsiders outside that determine the pace for Nigerian economy though the country is supposed to be an independent country but economically we are not you have crude oil you have to exploit this soil take them out refine them and we put them into danger why would you have crises why would you are issues about around of wealth subsidies why would you have issues I an increase in the price of well because the cost of production is much but the logic is that if only we have functional refineries then the cost
11:33 of producing crude oil in Nigeria will be minima and of course the price of the other market will also be minimal the way of an economy that is not industrialized an economy that were only interested in consuming were not interested in producing were not interested in manufacturing we are hundred percent dependent on others part of the very important is discourse as far as natural political economy is concerned independent economy in an economy that is not moving with the trend of time when an era of globalization but it seems that we are left behind because they are not moving with the trend of time but I was brewing up in Kaduna State I knew we had a lot
12:20 of textile industries in Kaduna and these textile industries were able to accommodate a lot of people the working class had jobs to do the way there was increase in employment but ladies and gentlemen where had those tested industries today dying comatose they have gone into a distinction because our leaders have lost focus because our leaders are no longer interested in enhancing industrialization we're interested in importing also the degree of importation and of course the move of more to national corporations in our economy has become the bane of industrialization in nature we do not have the technical know-how and we don't seem to be interested in having the technical
13:07 know-how and soon Algeria needs to be induced relies and until we get to that point then our level of dependency will continue doesn't need to promote industrialization because industries are the drivers of development industries to bring about economic growth and development but until we embrace that until the political club begin to think in that line to break away from the shackles of dependency then we continue to have this recurring decimal and these crises will continue you know to persist as far as natural political economy is concerned recently we had a lot of debates on whether or not the salary of workers should be increased and of
13:54 course we are series of protests and crises by liberal Union you know putting pressure on government to increase the minimum wage wallah recently it has been signed to though the minimum wage is now 30,000 but what is the implication of minimum wage meaning grease on the Nigerian economy what is the implication of the Nigerian citizens was a good idea yes it was a good idea but if were to look at it from from the liberal perspective the argument to be that because of an increase in minimum wage that to bring about inflation because price of goods and services will increase but of course other political scientists from Africa have a different mentality to dance it is better you increase minimum wage and allow the
14:39 working class to confront the market forces sometimes these market forces are not universally applicable what words in UK may not work in Nigeria and that's why we are different remember when the price of war was increased to 145 the argument was that you may go to liberalize the economy and eventually to think about competition and the price of oil crash it's four years now the price has no cash so many of these liberal economic perspectives may not miss us what because our political system our internal contradictions are different for what is obtainable in some parts of the world and so ladies and gentlemen what we have been able to do today as far as the political economies concerned of Nigeria's concern is to look at the
15:25 nature of natural economy I would say the economy is dependent of course on oil that we have failed to diversify were filled to key into agriculture key into solid minerals and other areas that can bring about economic growth and development I was a part of the issues as well as major political economies concern is an issue of corruption in the role of multinational corporation in an economy the unwillingness of the political class to diversify didn't join economy and of course issues of mismanagement a misappropriation of fort so that is one gentleman when we see the next session will begin to take summary look at what we have done so far in because
