The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, recently announced that President Muhammadu Buhari had set up, and appointed members of an Economic Advisory Council.
The council is different from the Economic Management Team headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. The EMT members included Ministers of Finance; Budget and National Planning; Trade, Industry and Investment; Power; Works and Housing; Agriculture; and Information; and Central Bank of Nigeria Governor.
Whereas members of the EMT are strategically positioned to implement planks of the economic policies of government, they were (or will remain) too involved with the day-to-day running of their agencies.
Buhari’s economic think tank
25th September 2019
By Lekan Sote
Lekan Sote
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, recently announced that President Muhammadu Buhari had set up, and appointed members of an Economic Advisory Council.
The council is different from the Economic Management Team headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. The EMT members included Ministers of Finance; Budget and National Planning; Trade, Industry and Investment; Power; Works and Housing; Agriculture; and Information; and Central Bank of Nigeria Governor.
Whereas members of the EMT are strategically positioned to implement planks of the economic policies of government, they were (or will remain) too involved with the day-to-day running of their agencies.
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In addition to not finding the time to reflect on economic issues, as line managers, they will not have the necessary detachment of staff officers to objectively interrogate government policies that they participated in formulating.
The President finally saw the wisdom for a group of qualified, seasoned, and exposed experts to function as a think tank to interrogate, review, and provide alternative economic policies of the government.
This answers the likes of Prof Yusuf Dankofa of Ahmadu Bello University, who think Nigeria’s economy is in a mess, and assert that President Buhari’s government “is deficient in… critical thinking.”
The EAC’s terms of reference are: “Advise the President on economic policy matters, including fiscal analysis, and a range of internal and economic issues.” The EAC will also recommend revenue, taxation, foreign exchange, lending, inflation, and other macroeconomic policy inputs for government.
The aspect, “the EAC will have monthly technical sessions, as well as quarterly meetings with the President, (and) relevant cabinet members and head of monetary agencies,” got many tongues wagging in overdrive.
Many concluded that the President has rested the EMT, and rendered Vice President Osinbajo redundant. The overdrive got to a frenzy with reports that some agencies had been excised from the Office of the Vice President.
The Afenifere offered an explanation: “What has happened is that the Vice President’s office has been rendered impotent, useless and irrelevant.” This speculation should get the President to exclaim, “I’ll be damned!”
The Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy however, insists that “President Buhari has only (chosen) to exercise the powers… vested in him. He has therefore not acted unconstitutionally,” or with malice(?)
The optics got worse with reports that the House of Representatives queried past expenditures of agencies supervised by the Vice President. It took a very hardworking Laolu Akande to argue that observers were reading too much meaning into the President’s moves.
Akande offered that “If (the National Economic Council) wants to be briefed regularly by the EAC, we will request the President to do so.” While you wonder why he had to say that, you could also see a concerned aide, panting hard like the tired creature in “Igbo Olodumare,” the Yoruba fable written by D.O. Fagunwa.
Some confused the EMT and the EAC with the National Economic Council, an agency established by the constitution to harmonise, and serve as clearinghouse for the economic policies of the federal and state governments.
Despite an overlap in responsibilities, their personnel differ. While the EAC is an agency of the Federal Government, and not of the federation, NEC coordinates economic policies of the federal and state governments.
Section 18 of the Third Schedule of Nigeria’s Constitution provides: “The National Economic Council shall have power to advise the President concerning economic affairs of the Federation, and in particular, on measures necessary for the coordination of the economic planning efforts of the various Governments of the Federation.”
In 2018, NEC members –CBN Governor, State Governors, and the Vice President– agreed to “donate” $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account, a federation account, to the war efforts against Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeastern corridor of Nigeria.
Members of the EAC include some of Nigeria’s best minds in the specialised areas of economics, accounting, commercial and central banking, finance, investment, fiscal and monetary policy management, business, and consulting.
Many of them have worked in the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and African Development Bank systems. Most of them have PhDs, and have taught in the universities.
The Chairman, Doyin Salami, has a PhD in economics, has worked as a university lecturer, was Member of the CBN Monetary Policy Committee for eight years, worked with the UN, and has been board member of some financial institutions.
Chukwuma Soludo, professor of economics, was a university lecturer, chief economic adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and the CBN governor. Bismarck Rewane is an articulate economist, banker, and investment expert.
These three are representative of other members, who are equally proficient in the arcane world of development economics, investment, banking and finance. They all are, however, long on conceptual capabilities, but less savvy in the bricks-and-mortars end of the economic value chain.
There will be a need to include engineers, ICT whizzies, agriculture experts, farmers, manufacturing and corporate types, and security experts, in order to have more robust, global, and inclusive coverage.
To achieve a perfect fit, the EAC must have a good mix of the theoretician Harvard types with players from the school of hard knocks; the EAC must marry intellectualism with shopfloor savvy.
The Managing Editor of Financial Nigeria, Jide Akintunde, wonders why the EAC was convened. He says, “President Buhari disdains expertise. So, we must ask why he has now assembled some economic experts to advise him.”
He answers his own query, “I think it is because his government is broke. The EAC may therefore be an organ to help raise revenue.” Then, he cautioned, “But this must not be at the expense of our welfare,” and alerts Nigerians to “Be on your guards!”
After setting up the long overdue EAC, the President should retain the EMT, which can harvest and implement the recommendations of the EAC through the strategic ministries and agencies headed by the member-ministers.
The EMT, a sub-committee of the FEC, has the Vice President as Chairman, as a sort of Coordinating Minister of the Economy– in the mould of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. It’s the same way Finance Commissioner Obafemi Awolowo was Vice Chairman of Gen Yakubu Gowon’s FEC.
Section 148(1) of Nigeria’s Constitution provides that “The President may… assign to the Vice President… responsibility for any business of the Federation, including the administration of any department of government.”
That said, issues in the ballpark of the EAC are legion. In the immediate term, attention should be paid to collapsing the multitude of foreign exchange rates into one, and enhancing the value of the naira.
The trick is to prioritise the acquisition of infrastructure, manufacturing plants and machinery, and raw materials, while also curbing inordinate import of consumer goods that could be encouraged by a stronger naira.
The place to start is the planet called Chapter II of Nigeria’s Constitution, christened “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.” Its Section 13 requires government functionaries “to (always) conform to, observe, and apply (its) provisions.”
The EAC must also provide realistic timelines, even a Critical Path Method, to implement its recommendations, so that government programmes and activities can be executed in a logical, linear, and timely manner.
The EAC, which Adesina says will report to the President, need not replace the EMT, which Adesina has not quite said was scrapped. They should be complementary.
