Mallam Nasir El-Rufai became rather famous (or infamous) as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory during the Fourth Republic's Obasanjo Administration. His claim to fame (or infamy) lay in his project of demolishing buildings within the FCT that did not conform to the Abuja Masterplan.
El Rufai was praised by many in the media and commentariat, and much was said about people not obeying rules and how important orderly planning was ....
.... but does it ever occur to anyone that our constitutions, statutes, edicts and "masterplans" never take the reality of Nigeria into consideration?
Sometimes, the people who put these documents together seem to be thinking and talking about an alternate place in a different universe and not Nigeria. Sometimes they seem to be trying to superimpose whatever they saw when they were schooling abroad on top of the realities of Nigeria, without understanding why those places they saw abroad came to look like that, and why whatever they saw there is not applicable to Nigeria.
Sometimes they seem to be copy-and-pasting from a textbook, or adopt standard-issue, one-size-fits-all plans drawn up by foreign consultants and institutions. Sometimes, they don't seem to be aware that the advice they receive from abroad is heavy on the strategic interests of whoever is giving them the advice and light on anything of relevance to us.
Fundamentally, we have not really discussed what our strategic interests are, besides saying things like "An Africa-Focused Foreign Policy", "Non-Aligned", "Pan-Africanism", "Africa Must Unite", "African Solutions for African Problems" and other political slogans which sound like they are saying a lot when they in fact say very little or nothing of substance. At the end of the day, we seem to drift along without any particular plan, inasmuch as we have libraries full of voluminous plans we have drafted and re-drafted over the last 52 years.
The Abuja Masterplan was not, and is not a realistic document. Governor Babatunde Fashola's plan to rid Lagos of the destitute by deporting them to their states of origin is laughable; if he really thinks this plan will work, then he is not who his many fans say he is.
El Rufai was praised by many in the media and commentariat, and much was said about people not obeying rules and how important orderly planning was ....
.... but does it ever occur to anyone that our constitutions, statutes, edicts and "masterplans" never take the reality of Nigeria into consideration?
Sometimes, the people who put these documents together seem to be thinking and talking about an alternate place in a different universe and not Nigeria. Sometimes they seem to be trying to superimpose whatever they saw when they were schooling abroad on top of the realities of Nigeria, without understanding why those places they saw abroad came to look like that, and why whatever they saw there is not applicable to Nigeria.
Sometimes they seem to be copy-and-pasting from a textbook, or adopt standard-issue, one-size-fits-all plans drawn up by foreign consultants and institutions. Sometimes, they don't seem to be aware that the advice they receive from abroad is heavy on the strategic interests of whoever is giving them the advice and light on anything of relevance to us.
Fundamentally, we have not really discussed what our strategic interests are, besides saying things like "An Africa-Focused Foreign Policy", "Non-Aligned", "Pan-Africanism", "Africa Must Unite", "African Solutions for African Problems" and other political slogans which sound like they are saying a lot when they in fact say very little or nothing of substance. At the end of the day, we seem to drift along without any particular plan, inasmuch as we have libraries full of voluminous plans we have drafted and re-drafted over the last 52 years.
The Abuja Masterplan was not, and is not a realistic document. Governor Babatunde Fashola's plan to rid Lagos of the destitute by deporting them to their states of origin is laughable; if he really thinks this plan will work, then he is not who his many fans say he is.
There are poor people in Nigeria.
There are unemployed and underemployed people in Nigeria.
I don't know what the real statistics are. Most of the statistics they use in their $1-a-day and $2-a-day talk sound fabricated, but there are a lot of people in Nigeria who are economically disadvantaged.
It is a reality.
And it is a reality that these people are going to migrate to cities, and are going to find a ways to live and places to live where they don't have to pay a lot in transportation costs to get to wherever they hustle daily. The daily hustle brings in only so much money, and you don't want transportation to eat up most of it.
Telling them to go back to their villages doesn't make sense. If there was anything waiting for them in their villages, they would not have left in the first place. If you had done something to develop their villages' economic potential, you wouldn't now be wringing your hands as to what to do with them in the cities.
Even in the cities, urban redevelopment is always sold as a plan to build "affordable housing", but in practice usually means housing that is not affordable to most Nigerians. Indeed, the Abuja Masterplan is an odd document that effectively moved federal civil servants to a city where federal civil servants could not afford the rent.
There are unemployed and underemployed people in Nigeria.
I don't know what the real statistics are. Most of the statistics they use in their $1-a-day and $2-a-day talk sound fabricated, but there are a lot of people in Nigeria who are economically disadvantaged.
It is a reality.
And it is a reality that these people are going to migrate to cities, and are going to find a ways to live and places to live where they don't have to pay a lot in transportation costs to get to wherever they hustle daily. The daily hustle brings in only so much money, and you don't want transportation to eat up most of it.
Telling them to go back to their villages doesn't make sense. If there was anything waiting for them in their villages, they would not have left in the first place. If you had done something to develop their villages' economic potential, you wouldn't now be wringing your hands as to what to do with them in the cities.
Even in the cities, urban redevelopment is always sold as a plan to build "affordable housing", but in practice usually means housing that is not affordable to most Nigerians. Indeed, the Abuja Masterplan is an odd document that effectively moved federal civil servants to a city where federal civil servants could not afford the rent.
Look, we all know that our local, state and federal
governments do not have the resources to create a European-style welfare state. Actually, the Europeans don't have enough resources for that either, and no one ever honestly talks about why they are able to keep their welfare states in spite of their resource deficiency ... but this blog is not about Europe.
If you are the government and you cannot provide welfare to the teeming poor, why would you make it government policy to block the poor from making money for themselves? Okay, you think street traders make the streets look unattractive, what do you want them to do? Sit at home and starve? Or maybe go into crime?
There are economic reasons why the "Keke Napep" and "Okada/Achaba" industries exist; the fact that you don't like them does not mean that there is no place for them in the Nigerian market. If there were an economic basis for everyone in Nigeria to be driving a private limousine, that would have happened long ago without government intervention.
I get that commercial motorcyclists are notorious for flouting the laws; but if you are going to ban an industry notorious for flouting the law, start with politicians. Our problems with enforcing our laws constitute an entirely separate issue that should be resolved in and of itself. If you effectively banned all "okada", there would still be lawlessness in the land. We can become a society that enforces its laws, or we can remain a society that doesn't, while banning "okada" as though it makes a difference.
In fact, what is wrong with our policy-makers anyway? They think people's adaptation to economic difficulty makes the city look less beautiful, but rather than ease the economic difficulties, they try to sweep the poor people under the carpet so they don't have to see them
If you are the government and you cannot provide welfare to the teeming poor, why would you make it government policy to block the poor from making money for themselves? Okay, you think street traders make the streets look unattractive, what do you want them to do? Sit at home and starve? Or maybe go into crime?
There are economic reasons why the "Keke Napep" and "Okada/Achaba" industries exist; the fact that you don't like them does not mean that there is no place for them in the Nigerian market. If there were an economic basis for everyone in Nigeria to be driving a private limousine, that would have happened long ago without government intervention.
I get that commercial motorcyclists are notorious for flouting the laws; but if you are going to ban an industry notorious for flouting the law, start with politicians. Our problems with enforcing our laws constitute an entirely separate issue that should be resolved in and of itself. If you effectively banned all "okada", there would still be lawlessness in the land. We can become a society that enforces its laws, or we can remain a society that doesn't, while banning "okada" as though it makes a difference.
In fact, what is wrong with our policy-makers anyway? They think people's adaptation to economic difficulty makes the city look less beautiful, but rather than ease the economic difficulties, they try to sweep the poor people under the carpet so they don't have to see them
It doesn't work, but they keep doing it.
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