Over the weekend, I was in London to attend a ‘Town Union’ meeting of my kinsmen in the UK. The Igbo, whether at home or in the Diaspora make a point of duty to congregate, at least, once a month to fellowship with one another. If such meetings are necessary at home, they are even more so here where the daily struggle to earn the Pound Sterling tends to make life very mechanical. The three-hour journey from Cardiff to London afforded me some time for reflection, and I was sad, to say the least. I had finished reading two books that dealt with the issue of global poverty, with Africa, as usual, the focal point. Both books – Professor Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion and Robert Guest’s The Shacked Continent – were published recently. While Collier, a former director of development research at the World Bank and Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the study of African Economics at Oxford University, just published his, Guest’s book was published in 2004. I was sad because Nigeria, as the two books rightly pointed out, and despite all protestation to the contrary by government officials, remains in a dire state economically and politically. And our deliberate refusal to get our politics right is at the root of most, if not, all our woes. Reading such books will always depress one. Why should Nigeria be ranked amongst the poorest countries in the world? Discountenancing the stratification of the world, by development economists since the 1970s, into the rich, developed world on the one hand, and the so-called developing or Third World, Collier contends that there are about six billion people living in the world today. Out of this, five billion, about 80 percent, “live in countries that are indeed developing, often at amazing speed.” Of course, this group of countries are led by the BRICK countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, Korea. While these people live in a 21st century world of material comfort, the remaining 20 percent or the ‘bottom billion’, which is the major trust of Collier’s book, “are living and dying in 14th century conditions.” Of these people, 70 percent live in Africa and they include the 150 million Nigerians that are trapped in debilitating poverty in a world of increasing affluence. While these books may be dismissed as an orchestration of the neo-liberal campaigns of Western imperialists that tend to portray Africans as helpless and hopeless people, who have no real significance in a 21st century world of ideas, there is no denying the fact that some of the poorest countries in the world today, whose population are further decimated by poverty, disease and ignorance are in Africa. And because little or nothing is being done to make poverty history in Nigeria, at least not by the political elite who are more interested in the spoils of office and rent-seeking, the common man becomes hopeless. As Collier rightly argued, development is about giving hope to ordinary people that their children will live in a society that has caught up with the rest of the world. Take that hope away and the smart people will use their energies not to develop their society but to escape from it. This, simply put, is the story of the Nigeria Diaspora, especially those who left the country since the late 1980s. One of the most interesting paradoxes of life I have encountered in recent times is the fact that while most Nigerians in the Diaspora are eager to go back home, those still “trapped” in Nigeria will do anything to emigrate. One out of every Nigerian I have met here cannot wait to go back home. They are sick and tired of living anonymously, being treated as mere numbers in a foreign land. Yet, as much as they dream of the day when they will make the inevitable return journey to fatherland for good, most are not sure when they will take that plunge. And the reason is simple. Aside the social amenities and near-perfect infrastructural facilities which they enjoy here, and of course security of lives and property, which the government rightly takes as its primary responsibility, the only thing that is holding back the average Nigerian in the Diaspora, especially in the UK, is the fact that no-matter his station in life, every worker here, even those on the minimum wage of £5.35 an hour, earn a living wage. A cleaner can afford an annual vacation in any country in the world, a luxury most millionaires in Nigeria can hardly afford. Here, people look up to the next day without any iota of trepidation. If a Nigerian decides to send £100 to his folks back home, he has automatically lifted them with N25,000. So, as much as he is tired of living here and desires to go back home, he still cannot because of obvious reasons. It is against this background that the plan unveiled last Tuesday by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Professor Charles Soludo to revalue the Naira by reverting it back to its pre-1986 value is particularly important to the Nigerian Diaspora. Little wonder that the Town Union meeting was turned into a mini-economic summit with everyone asking what the implications will be. If there is any policy that may help in reversing the devastating phenomenon of brain drain which has haemorrhaged Nigeria for too long, it is this policy. As simplistic as it may sound, given the overwhelming sentiments of Nigerians out here and their expressed desire to return back home despite all odds, when and if the United States dollar begins to exchange for one Naira, many Nigerians presently living abroad will not have any serious problems making up their minds to come back. I said this conclusion is simplistic given the fact that there are a myriad of other seemingly intractable problems that could dissuade someone from embarking on the fateful journey. But majority will give it a trial. But the question that people kept asking throughout the meeting is: Will it work? Granted, Soludo, since he became the CBN governor has proved that he is a man of vision and rare courage. The consolidation in the banking industry proved a remarkable success. To that extent, many people are wont to say that he should be given the benefit of the doubt. Good. But must we? It is easy to remove two zeros from the Naira so that N1000 becomes N10 and make N20 the highest denomination. But is that the problem of Nigeria’s economy? Put differently, is Nigeria’s economy grossly underperforming because the Naira juxtaposed with other currencies is undervalued? The US is the biggest economy in the world today, yet, approximately US$2 exchanges for £1. Japan is the second biggest economy in the world, but one Japanese Yen is approximately 117 to the dollar. Given our level of production and other grim economic indices which make Nigerians integral part of Collier’s bottom billion crowd, Naira is not undervalued at the rate it exchanges (N125 to $1) to the US dollar. Perhaps, the politics of currency value is better appreciated when the incessant trade dispute between the US and China is factored into the equation. With China’s economy growing at ten percent a year in the past decade, the country has dramatically reversed roles with the US in trade. From being a net importer of goods from the US, it has become a net exporter. In most departments of trade, Washington has found out that China is doing better. In the last two decades, US imports from China, as reported in the US-published Journal of Commerce last year, grew at an average annual rate of 20 percent a year, while US exports to China grew at an average annual rate of 12 percent, with reports putting US merchandise from China at $125 billion, and America’s export $22 billion in 2002. The figure has grown wider since then in China’s favour. China has also swapped places with the US in FDI (Direct Foreign Investment). In 2003, as reported sometime ago in the Los Angeles Times, China attracted $53 billion worth of new factories, while the US took in only $40 billion. Also in the first six months of last year, China exported manufactured goods worth $404 billion globally as against America’s $367 billion. This is, indeed, a dramatic reversal of fortune, considering that barely five years ago, the US manufactured exports doubled China’s. But the point is that in all these reversals, Washington blames “China’s undervalued currency,” and unwillingness of Beijing to allow market forces determine the pace of economic activities. Undervaluation, they insist, is an indirect subsidy on Chinese goods, which become more competitive globally because of their cheapness. So irked were US Congressmen that, before the midterm elections which returned the Democrats to power last year, a bipartisan alliance was forged in the Senate to force China’s hand. Senators Lindsay Graham and Charles Schumer introduced a bill that would impose a 27.5 percent duty on all imports from China unless it agreed to revalue its currency by ten percent. So, why is Nigeria arbitrarily strengthening the value of its Naira at a time others are weakening theirs to boost export and reduce imports? Granted, Nigeria, unlike China is producing practically no good and therefore exporting no manufactured good; we are not even able to refine our crude oil locally so as to export it as a finished product. But how can the new policy boost the countries economy? Shouldn’t we concentrate our efforts at encouraging production by reducing its costs? How will this policy work? If the Naira’ valued is enhanced, will one Naira buy the same worth of gods in the international market that a dollar will buy? If not, those in the Diaspora would prefer to keep their money where its worth is guaranteed rather than bring it back to Nigeria where its value will be decimated in the name of currency revaluation. At least that was the impression I came out with from out Town Union meeting.
