The Philosophy Of Vision 2010 Of General Sani Abacha’s Military Administration

The Philosophy Of Vision 2010 Of General Sani  Abacha’s Military Administration

Introduction

The struggle to accelerate the pace of socio-economic development in Nigeria is a daunting the challenge which dates back to the colonial days, with the launching of the famous “Ten-year Plan of Development and Welfare” for Nigeria by the colonial administration (Akpakpan, 2004). Although very minimal progress (except in the building of few schools) could be ascribed to this period1, it provided the springboard for further economic reforms and „planning‟ of the Nigerian economy. The underlying consensus was (and still is) that the existence of the government in an economy is to promote societal welfare. Economic policies represent a set of a contract between the government and the various socio-economic groups in society.

 A social charter or contract is said to be implied as to the people (citizens or principal) “surrender” their sovereignty and collective resources to a group of other people (governments or agents), who in turn to make policies and deployed the available resources of the state to ensure the common good. In order to properly organized and managed the use of resources to achieve desired goals and objectives, governments normally initiate economic frameworks, blueprints, roadmaps or plans which guide and coordinate economic activities within the economy. Thus, from 1960 to date, several plans and economic policy reforms aimed at putting the country on the right track has been undertaken. For instance, four consecutive development plans were formulated and implemented between

1960-1985.

The first plan was launched in 1962 and due to the disruptions and distortions caused by the political

crises, military coup and the ensuing the civil war of independence by the Biafrans, it was extended to 1970. This was successfully followed by the second (1970-1974), third (1975-1980), and the fourth (1980-1985). But in spite of these laudable efforts, evidence in the country tends to suggest that these plans failed to achieve the desired targets of socio-economic transformation of the economy, partly because of poor implementation and where they were vigorously implemented, achievements tend to be disappointing. As shown by Olaniyi (2004), Nigeria‟s GDP growth rose from about 2% in the period 1966-69 to 7.6% in 1970-79, but dipped to 5% in the period 1980-83; inflation rate increased from 3.8% in the period 1966-69 to 15.4% in 1980-83. In another study, Uwatt (2004) showed that unemployment increased from 2.4% in 1960 to 10.4% in 1979 from where it reduced to 3.4% in 1983, but disappointedly rose again to 8.2% in 1985. Similarly, the poverty level increased from 28.1% in 1980 to 46.3% in 1985 with about 17.7 million and 34.7 million Nigerians wallowing in poverty respectively (see FOS,1996).

General Sani Abacha Administrative Economy

With the change in the country‟s leadership from Babangida to Abacha via a short-lived Interim Government of Shonekan, a comprehensive and well-articulated framework, tagged “Vision 2010” was put forward for Nigeria. Sadly, after a year or so, the vision 2010 dream was abandoned and the social welfare of Nigerians continued to decline (Akpakpan, 2004:22). With the return of democratic rule in 1999, other series of economic reforms were designed to address the structural and institutional weaknesses that have characterized the Nigerian economy. Such reforms were even more necessitated by other emerging challenges of the 21^st Century globalized world, one of which is the commitment of the world to accelerate development towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Such a quest and desire to keep pace with other countries of the world have seen Nigeria moving from one economic framework like the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) to the current Vision 20:2020, from which she desired to be one of the top 20th economies in the world by the year 2020. Unfortunately, Nigeria‟s socioeconomic progress especially with regards to improving the living standard of the generality of Nigerians still seem to remain largely unimpressive and discouraging (Bulus, 2005).

With the various economic policy reforms or framework so far formulated and implemented in Nigeria, current situations in the country should naturally lead one to ask: Why has socio-economic development in Nigeria been elusive? What lessons (if any) can we draw from past policy development plans and framework? Currently, there is growing thought that the „big size‟ of the state is the cog in the wheel of Nigeria‟s development, and therefore current policy reforms tended to place much emphasis on the market-driven economy. Again, the question is: Can Nigeria rightly rely on the market to guarantee her socio-economic progress? The trust of this paper is to seek some plausible answers to these questions. This contribution is done in four more sections, in addition to the present section. In the next section, we present the theoretical framework for the study. Next, we undertake a detailed examination of the various economic policy reforms or frameworks adopted in Nigeria. Thereafter, we draw some reflections on the lessons of past plans/framework. The last section offers some concluding remarks.

National Development Plans Of General Sani Abacha Military Government

Since independence, Nigeria has grappled with at least four national development plans. The earliest attempts were the 1946-45 “Ten-Year Plan of Development and Welfare for Nigeria”(with plan revisions,1951- 55) and the 1955-60 plan (later extended to 1962) which were framed by the colonial administrators. However, it has been argued that these plans “were not plans in the true sense of the word…(but) a series of projects which had not been coordinated or related to any overall economic target” (Olayide, 1976:721). The main concentration was the development of physical infrastructures such as railroads, motor roads, seaports to facilitate trade between the colony and Britain.

In essence, Nigeria‟s First National Development Plan was introduced in 1962 and it spanned a period of 7 years (1962-1968). This was followed by the second (1970-1974), third (1975-1980) and fourth (1981- 1985) which all had five years duration. These plans contain some desirable milestones and socio-economic aspirations of the country. For instance, the objectives of the Third National Development The plan was to ensure an increase in per capita income, (more) even income distribution, diversification of the economy, reduction in unemployment, and balanced development (Anyanwu, et al., 1997:408). It was during these periods that Nigeria experienced the oil boom which enabled her to embark on ambitious industrialization projects as the main strategy for development. But the economic conditions of the country were threatened when the global oil prices crashed in the early 1980s. The situation was also compounded by another serious problem: food crises arising from the neglect of agriculture. The government responded by adopting a set of desperate short term measures including heavy food importation and external borrowing. External debt in the country rose phenomenally from $559.2m in 1975 to $24043.0m in 1986 (Akpakpan,2004:21).

However, by 1986, the government regarded the fixed five-year planning model as “unrealistic” for the management of the Nigerian economy and decided to adopt a three-tier planning system comprising:

1. A 15 to 20-year perspective plan which (was to) provide a clear vision of where the economy should be at the end of the period as well as addressing the key policies and actions that will be required to translate these “visions” into reality;

2. A three-year rolling plan3 which would derive its bearing from the perspective plan and be subject to annual modification to take account of rapidly changing internal and external environments as well as the resources profile of the economy and ;

3 An annual budget which would draw its inspiration and program from the rolling plan. Many (e.g. Nwankwo, 2003; Muo, 2006; Asiodu, 2009) still believed that if Nigeria did not tinker with the planning strategy, the country could have fared better. In fact, there is a growing the consensus that Nigeria had a golden opportunity (through the oil windfall), to turn the tide of her socio-economic misfortunes in the 1970s and 1980s using the planning strategy. However, a combination of various distortions including an overly ambitious industrialization program (that was heavily import dependence), military coups, political unrest, neglect of the agricultural the sector, excessive foreign borrowing, widespread corruption and economic mismanagement caused the economy to rather experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation and decline. As revealed by Todaro and Smith (2003:73), Nigeria‟s per capita GDP which grew from $90 in 1968 to $1020 in 1980 (more than 1000% increase) was “reversed in the 1980s, so that by 1994, GNP per capita had declined by more than 70% to $240, the same level as in 1972”

The Vision 2010 Of Gen Sani Abacha Military Regime

Eventually, SAP was subsequently jettisoned as the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha (1993-1998) abandoned some aspects of the economic package and pursued what it called “guided deregulation”. In spite of characterization to the contrary, we have the assurance of the then Minister of Finance that:

“…Our the nation is ready and endowed to benefit fully from the wisdom of the market. The philosophy of guided deregulation was never intended to delay the “reign” of the market forces as has been unfairly suggested… It is our own response to the need to ensure that economic growth did not lead to economic grief”( Ani,1998).

This was another bold attempt by the Late Gen. Sani Abacha regime to transform the Nigerian economy into “a united, industrious, caring and God-fearing democratic a society committed to making the basic needs of life affordable for everyone … by the year 2010”. The vision 2010 was regarded as one of the most comprehensive and well-articulated documents on how to unlock the huge potentials of Nigeria and transform her from an under-developed economy to “an African Tiger” by the year 2010. The plan of action was partitioned into four major horizons: immediate (October- December 1997); short term (1998-2000), medium term (2001-2005) and long term (2006-2010). The vision 2010 document, which took one year for the 250- member committee headed by a seasoned technocrat – Chief Ernest Schoeneman- to produce, contained comprehensive objectives, policies, procedures, and road-maps for achieving desirable targets in virtually all sectors of the economy. For instance, it established several desirable milestones in areas such as GDP (10% growth rate), inflation (< 5%), population growth rate ( less than 2%), education and health (20% and 10% of the budget), human development index (0.80), etc. (FGN,1997). The poor socio-economic state of the Nigerian economy compared to other nations which the vision sought to improve is shown in Figure 1 while Table 1 shows other projected social indicators for attainment in the year 2010.

However, barely nine months after the committee submitted its reports, Gen. Abacha died suddenly amidst heated controversy over his plan to succeed himself. Before he died, many Nigerians saw the vision 2010 as “a beautiful infant in the hands of a cruel mother- a misbegotten child”. However, the question of whether the government of the day could have implemented the plan or not, and to what extent, remains a subject of debate. Gen. Abubakar, who succeeded him gave himself 11 months to hand over to a civilian administration. This left him with no time to do anything with regards to the plan nor introduce any economic reform than to conduct an election which eventually produced Gen. Obasanjo in 1999. The emergence of Obasanjo put paid to vision 2010 document and it remains “a mere vision” as it was abandoned without much consideration for its merit or lack of it. Many analysts believed (and some still do) that if the vision was faithfully implemented, it would have been our surest route to socio-economic el-dorado. In response to the criticisms that trailed the repudiation of the vision 2010 document, the administration decided to create its own blueprint and framework for the transformation.