“Fundamental Problems Cannot Be Solved At The Same Knowledge Level That Created Them.” – Albert Einstein

The subject matter of this page is that Nigeria’s fundamental problems cannot be solved at the same knowledge level and development habits that created them.

The flip side of this observation is that we cannot even understand fundamental problems at the same knowledge level that created them.

This is the cardinal elements of the nature’s law that guides economic development made popular by the Great Albert Einstein of blessed memory and the doctrine speaks to our nation’s intractable development problems in four ways:

1.  It  tells us that our country is faced with the most fundamental of all development challenges which is to move a transition economy up from the primary resource trap through the transition bridge to the knowledge phase of development where sustainable economy growth resumes after transition crisis which everywhere ends transition crisis permanently;
2. That, by the arrangement of nature, every nation will need a new and peculiar development knowledge to be able to cross this bridge;
3.  It also raises the question  of who between government and the people has the duty to provide  the new knowledge when a country is due to cross the transition bridge and;
4. What does it take in practical terms to effectively deliver new and superior development knowledge when a country is at the peak of its transition crisis?

These harmless looking but most strategic issues in economic development, conspicuously missing in our current orthodox development knowledge and education are the real problems that has brought our dear nation Nigeria to today’s complex economic and security crisis, which we wrongly blame on leadership and governance failure. They are routine but philosophical issues that all nations are bound by nature’s law to resolve before they can move into the knowledge phase of development where sustainable peace and inclusive prosperity is possible.  These are intricate problems that leaders or governments do not and cannot resolve even if they have the new knowledge: unless we use the genius in our collective capacity to resolve these real issues before the next government emerges our country could be in for far more complicated problems than we can imagine, for that is the nature’s law. Thus how we can resolve these real problems, which hardly look like the real issues, to avert greater complications of tomorrow is what this this project seeks to facilitate.

Now the reality of these four strategic issues above and their absence in our current orthodox development knowledge and education was first spotted by a study team set up for this purpose by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 1986. The leader of the team, Professor Ade Adefuyi described their absence in our development knowledge and education as “British Orientation of Nigeria Universities” and warned that it has disoriented the products of Nigerian universities such that they could not really serve their environment.”

Thirteen years later, the global development community, set up another study team on the platform of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) for the same purpose. The study confirmed the finding of the ASUU study team providing more sides to what is missing in our development knowledge. The outcome of this second studies formed the foundation of the 1999 Economic Report on Africa which was endorsed by all stakeholders including the African leaders. The study confirmed that these real problems identified above and the complex issues arising from them are actually missing in the orthodox development concept and education that has been guiding Africa’s economic growth work: and the report was emphatic that the absence of these elements in the orthodox development knowledge and education has rendered both fundamentally deficient such that they cannot lead any African country to a new economic height that will be sustainable which will be required to meet the growing needs of Africa’s exploding population without significant upgrade, even if the country is managed by angels. This directly brings us back to the subject of this paper which is that we cannot solve Nigeria’s fundamental problems at the same knowledge level that created them.

By the year 2000, the global development community invited African leaders to Davos, Switzerland where the details of the gaps or inadequacies of the current orthodox development concept and its education were handed over to them. The leaders endorsed the Report: explained their perspective on why the concept could not work for Africa and conceived New Africa Initiative which later became NEPAD by default to provide the new knowledge to upgrade the orthodox development concept and its education for the continent. But true to the subject matter of this paper which is that “fundamental problems cannot be solved at the same knowledge level that created them”, the effort failed. That left the managers of African economies, Nigeria inclusive, with no other option but to continue with the deficient orthodox concept and its education till this day.

Between the year 2000 and 2005, all the agencies of the global development community including the World Bank, IMF and UNESCO, revalidated their endorsement of the Report, providing more sides to the gaps and inadequacies of the orthodox development concept and its education. What is more, since 2001 when the effort by the African leaders to develop the Alternative Concept to fill the knowledge gap derailed, all Nigerian governments across partisan line, both the PDP and APC had also confirmed that a new concept is indeed required to get the nation’s economy out of the vicious cycle, confessed that government is not in the position to access and implement the alternative concept without organized support by the elite community, which is absolutely correct and had called on those who can to come forward and assist. Unfortunately, the current policy structure has no windows for alternative knowledge: this left all the governments with no other options but to continue with the deficient orthodox concept in different packages and this could not but build up to today’s complications.

This is indeed the basic truth of how and why our nation slid into today’s complications and how it can get out of it which must be noted. The flip side of this truth is this: history is absolutely clear that it takes only peculiarly structured Alternative Development Concept delivered by broad national engagement and consensus and inspired by knowledge and religious communities to get a transition country out of this type of complications. The rule cannot change because it is now the turn of Nigeria.

Now we must put all of the above analysis precisely in conventional format to make them very clear:

Let us start by asking what precisely is wrong with the current orthodox development concept and its education which has led our dear country Nigeria to today’s complications?

Simple: They have no lessons on economy proper, as distinct from economics which the regular knowledge understands. This may sound incredible, but it is the gospel truth. Economy defines the whole society organized to deliver real peace and inclusive prosperity that is able to keep reasonable pace with population growth: while economics is only a subject that teaches us how to manage a small part of the economy that deals with trade and investments or businesses if you like. While economy is a complete system that secures life and aspiration of a society, economics is only concerned with the prospect and profits of businesses and the security of the platform that puts the products of the economy to the service of consumption which is the market. So economy and economics are miles apart: the absence of economy in our base knowledge naturally structured our mindset for today’s disaster. 

 Because of the absence of economy in our current orthodox development concept and education, we do not have any idea of what it means to develop and grow the economy particularly when the local population grows beyond the size that can be sustained by primary resources alone. It also denies us the mercurial knowledge of the role of nature in economic development which is fundamental and the answer to the question of who between the government and the people play what role in economic transformation process which alone delivers sustainable economic growth at our current level of development. Sure, growing the economy at any height above the primary resource phase of development which, by the arrangement of nature, must begin with transformation is made very complex by the hand of nature such that it cannot be achieved by chance.  Given that we are human beings made to know by learning, not by instinct, the absence of this critical capacity in our base knowledge could not but lock our nation’s economy to perpetual dependence on primary commodities, a tradition which is everywhere prone to crisis. This is the real issue that has built up to today’s wide spread security challenges in our nation, not the failure of leadership or governance.

But complications crept into the problem through the fact that while the current concept and its education have no lessons on the economy proper, they have copious lessons on economics. Given the similarities of the word economy and economics and the fact that economy have no department in the university, anyone who is exposed to modern education will be induced by the disorientation that Professor Adefuye talked about above to think and believe that economy and economics are the same and that those who are trained in economics are also experts in economy, which is absolutely untrue. But in the absence of any appropriate classification of how economics relates to the economy any government that emerges would be induced by the same disorientation to engage the best of economists available and charge them with the responsibility of transforming the economy so that the country will be able to get more from the global economy to meet the extra needs of its extra population, an exercise that is absolutely unknown to economics that produce the economists. But any group that government engages to do the job, will be induced by the same disorientation to think and believe that they know what to do; as they go to work on the basis of this misconception, they will end up creating more problems for the economy than they set out to solve inadvertently though. With every failed effort, those associated with the failure will be induced by the same disorientation to distort the context of their failure inadvertently also.  With every failed regime, the audible section of the elite community will go to town blaming the failure on the lack of vision or political will to do what is right on the part of the political leader: and in the absence of any convincing response to debunk the obvious misinformation, the national dialogue space will amplify it to look like the gospel truth and this will prepare the misinformation for the vicious cycle.

When a new government emerges, the leaders will think that the problem is in the incompetence of its predecessor as the national dialogue space promotes, and that will plunge it head-on into the vicious cycle by engaging another set of economists and charging them with the same responsibility. The new team will be induced by the same orientation to think and believe that they can do the job. They will go to work with the same strategy arranged in different formation; get the same result as their predecessors, react the same way as their predecessors and the audible section of the elite community will again return to the street with the same blame game. This time the context of the blame game has changed: the new culprit is now the leadership recruitment process and the larger Nigerian society seem to have fallen in love with the new culprit.

This is exactly what has rolled our nation’s development problems into a vicious cycle that keep reinforcing itself to perpetuate decline, as the Tony Blair Commission for Africa clinically observed. Unless we break this vicious cycle before the next government emerges the trend will certainly get progressively worse until we land in the coast of Libya or Somalia where we will be forced to do the needful in a harder way. Let us see how Professor Chukwuma Soludo couched this reality in 2012 to understand the complexity of what we are dealing with. Hear him and I quote: “For 50 years since 1962, the central objective of economic policy has been a transformation or diversification of the economy away from dependence on primary commodities. It has not happened, and will probably not happen in the foreseeable future”.

This message is clear enough and requires no further analysis.

The next question now is:

How do we get our country out of this complications?

The answer was provided for us in a snap shot by His Eminence Cardinal Paulo Everisto Arns a former Archbishop of Sao Paulo, from the practical experience of his home country Brazil. Here him and I quote “Alternatives must be identified; must be given legitimacy and must be set in motion. Political and economic alternatives are the hope of the third world”

 Now what does His Eminence’ solution mean to Nigeria?

Simple: He was confirming the subject matter of this paper from the Brazilian experience which is that we cannot solve our political and economic problem, which are the most fundamental of development problems, at the same knowledge level and development habits that created them, and he was absolutely correct.

Now here is the conventional context of His Eminence’ solution for clarity:  The only solution to our nation’s complex development crisis is the adoption of Alternative to the Orthodox Development Concept and this must be done through broad national engagement, which will then activate a new development orientation that will unite the perspectives of the government and the people on all issues going forward. Unfortunately, the Alternative development concept and broad national engagement are not known to economics around which modern development education which produce regular experts that manage the society and economy is built, and that is where the problem had been locked. 

Now Alternative Development concept is the superior natural formula to transform, manage and grow a transition economy when the local population grows beyond the size that can be sustained by the primary resources alone. It predicates economic growth on knowledge and the superior system that converts human capital capacity to national wealth. Once a country adopts alternative concept, the superior system will activate the secondary growth window and the productivity capacities of the economy so that the economy is fully able to do just about anything including creating a diversity of secondary domestic products that can compete globally which will then enable the country to create enough jobs for its people and to get enough resources from the global economy to meet the extra needs of its extra population on a sustainable basis. This everywhere entrench real peace and inclusive prosperity that will sustain through ages.

A key feature of the alternative concept is that it will provide the leverage to deploy high capacity innovation to resolve complications where they exist: In the case of our dear country, it will enable us to, on the one hand, expand the nation’s security capabilities within a very short time and on the other, end large scale unemployment, extreme conditions and criminal inequality to complement force in the effort to end the wide spread security challenges in our nation.

The Broad National Engagement on the other hand is the critical success factor of the Alternative Concept. Apart from reconciling the citizens with the government along the path of all that is true and just for the nation, it will also familiarize society with the unconventional strategy that will guide the nation across the transition bridge and the alternative to the economists in the control post of governance and economic management so that government will easily adjust to guiding the economy along the new and ideal direction in partnership with the elite community instead of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies as envisaged by true democracy. In the new dispensation, alternative to the economist will take over the responsibility of providing policy options from which government will be making informed policy choices that works while government retires to supervising policy implementation, managing emergencies and such other marginal areas of the economy that requires governance flexibility to succeed but which cannot be abused in any way.

This process everywhere entrenches integrity in domestic relation and restores the collective ownership of the national economy which is the other expression for national justice, guarantees the commitment of the majority to the success of the national economy at all times and eliminates the chances of the economy pushing large numbers to extreme conditions where they will have to be forced by circumstances beyond their control to stake their lives and freedom for survival. This will then guarantee real peace and inclusive prosperity that will sustain through ages in the nation. This is exactly what our dear nation Nigeria needs to exit today’s complications.

The beauty of the new agenda which will guarantee its acceptability to all stakeholders is that it will:

1. Introduce only the fourth arm and the most important growth driver when local population outgrows the capacity of the primary resources, which is knowledge: the other three preferred growth drivers being oil and gas, agriculture and solid minerals;
2. Knowledge growth driver will run smoothly alongside the three preferred growth drivers until it establishes its superiority by which time government will need no advocacy to make knowledge and factors that support its efficiency first line charges on investment priority, which will then stabilize the economy at the knowledge phase;
3. Knowledge growth driver will create far more jobs than the three preferred growth drivers put together and at no extra cost to the government;
4. It will boost government revenue on all fronts and;
5. It will cost government nothing but its coordinating office to execute, as the knowledge growth driver has the inherent capacity to generate more than enough resources for its full implementation from the dormant capacities of the economy.

Thus, the alternative agenda is a win-win situation for everyone with absolutely no disadvantage whatsoever. Although all governments desire and had actually called for this new agenda, they cannot adopt it unless it is supported by elite consensus, and this is precisely what we must mobilize to guarantee the success of the next dispensation.

Let us conclude by stating emphatically that history is absolutely clear that it is the citizens, not government, that provides the alternative knowledge that guides economies across transition bridge when they are due, which is the other expression for economic transformation: and like the Biblical Joseph of the ancient Egypt, we believe strongly that God has given us the complete set of the Alternative Development Concept that will end our nation’s complex economic and security challenges permanently. All that is remaining now is a broad national partnership to put the new knowledge to broad national conversation and to guide the conversation to elite consensus so that it is fully able to generate the soft capacities that work with alternative concept to end transition crisis permanently. Once we are able to accomplish this before the next government emerges, it will have no choice but to adopt the new knowledge. This will not only bring today’s troubles to a permanent end, it will also resolve all the other collateral issues to get our nation’s economy firmly on the high way to its great destiny so that in no time it will get there. This was exactly how the countries that we admire today made it and this rule cannot change because it is now the turn of Nigeria.

We urge everyone who has gone through this article to please stand up to be counted and we thank you so much as you do so.

God bless Nigeria.