Economic alarmism and the manufactured outrage against Bayo Onanuga, By ‘Tope Fasua

There is a narrative war constantly going on in Nigeria. A bitter political opposition, led by extremely desperate folks are funding those narratives some of which have damaged the image of Nigeria all over the world. A friend sent a message from South Africa, bitterly complaining about how South Africans put down Nigeria – beyond Afrophobia. Nigeria has been turned to ‘gbantueyo’ (cheap/ fake/ disrespected) by these folks who are singularly interested in grabbing power and no more. They, and their ignorant followers who are like a cancer unto the nation are profiting from this short-term venture (monetarily). But I urge that progressives must not give in or give up. For every motley crew of naysayers and attackers they assemble, we must equally file out and array against them, pushing out the positive information about our dear country and sharing to the world, latest developments that show that we have a thinking leader and that Nigeria is improving daily and those who have found an angle are cashing out and doing great even as the global economy is changing in fundamental, inexorable ways.

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I am meeting loads of Nigerians lately who wish to come back home or at least have some productive interactions with their home country. The narrative painted vividly some years back which went ‘anywhere else is better than Nigeria’ has fallen on its face. The positive-minded ones who left the country to explore abroad have now found that every country in the world has its problems and that Nigeria’s problems are mostly opportunities waiting for private-sector solutions. Even the largely orchestrated security crises in some parts of the country are evidently choreographed oftentimes for political reasons, and the right response is being given – state policing. The same folks who try to deploy that issue for political reasons are the same ones filing out to criticize and condemn state policing, with a view to slow down the process to see more insecurity incidences. It is simply unbelievable. Mr President gave Nigeria local government autonomy, substantially more funds flowed to the sub-nationals, and now, state policing is becoming a reality for obvious reasons, yet these folks find cause to be embittered.

Every country evolves in response to its history in real time. In the United States they have a big problem with gun crimes. The Second Amendment which gun-lovers and lobby groups quote, was a response to a time when the violence was even worse – almost Hobbesian levels of madness. That was when the Indians tried to get their lands back, and when vagabonds roamed the wilderness, ready to shoot dead anyone they encountered first. But soon there will be another amendment that begins to curb the proliferation of guns. Time is the factor. Just as it is in Nigeria. Change may be slow in a political setting, but it sure happens.

On matters of the economy, our response is that:

So, the other day Mr Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the President on Information and Strategy obliged Mr. Charles Aniagolu to an interview on Arise TV. I watched the interview only when it generated a buzz in the media. The response that generated hoopla was when Mr Onanuga said he also pays the salaries of many young Nigerians and that he doesn’t see this ‘everybody is falling dead out of hunger’ narrative that some are painting. Nigerians must be careful not to be subsumed in this ‘manufactured outrage economy’. For one, opposition cannot use this route to come into government. What will help opposition is to paint clear pictures of their strategies and plans for Nigerians. As things stand, they have no plans, only vagueness. No simple manifestos, only appeals to emotions and primordial sentiments. I hold that these guys are not interested in helping Nigerians. They are only voyeuristic. They are laughing at those suffering Nigerians while torturing them daily with the narratives they are spreading. It is simple. They should just show the starving Nigerians. Or better still, since they have also made money from this country, let them feed the starving Nigerians wherever they can be found. I am sure that government will readily pick the bills so long as it is not padded and evidence is provided. I know a few people who have become billionaires in this country in the last few years, yet they are profiting from this outrage economy. Some of them are media people. It is very unfair. Help Nigerians, don’t torture Nigerians with your words or by stripping us of hope. We must take the fight to these folks.

The other day they started with the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who has been slaving all over the country, sharing whatever she can lay her hands on with everybody. Philanthropy doesn’t have to be recognised only when the philanthropist becomes pauperised themselves. The First Lady hardly rests and has one of those irrepressible energies some people possess. When she said she has been helping some of our poorest people to start businesses – petty business to keep them going – like frying akara and such like, what these manufactured outrage people did was to start maligning her. If she is dealing with thousands of poor people, is she not solving a problem by establishing them on a path that takes them out of the same hunger and poverty that these noisy folks are capitalising on. This is why I say we must understand that these guys despise the poor people of Nigeria and are only trying to project that to the ruling party. They will not attempt to solve a problem but are heckling those who are trying to just to make sure the problem is not solved for anybody. They have failed.

Anyway, like Chinua Achebe wrote in Things Fall Apart about Eneke the Bird – that since he noticed that human beings have learnt to shoot without missing, he too learnt to fly without perching. We who are saddled with providing solutions in real time – and those associated with us – must learn to find hard evidence to buttress our points and show that there are efforts being made to make Nigeria stand in better stead. Pictorial evidence is required. Documentary evidence is a must.

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I thought about what is going on and approached the National Bureau Statistics. I wanted the breakdown of workers in Nigeria according to the sectors in which they worked. I wanted to see the spread of employment in Nigeria – which sectors employed more than others. I wanted to see the proof of how solid the economic base is. The NBS sent me the data below which they said was last updated in 2023. Note: the NBS data is what is in the second column, while my own idea of where things stand is what is in the next column:

Figure 1: Data from NBS on employment distribution across sectors (column 2) as well as my projection of where things may stand today (column 3). First Page

Figure 2: Data from NBS on employment distribution across sectors (column 2) as well as my projection of where things may stand today (column 3). Second Page

Figure 3: Some new sectors that I believe now employ more people that may not have been captured in the NBS data because economies are dynamic.

Again, for the first two figures above, the first column I the sector. The second is the NBS number for those employed in each sector as at 2023. The third column is my own critique and update of the NBS number. In the first two figures above, I made adjustments based on my own assumptions. Some of the numbers by NBS may have dropped as the economy changed, while in some instances, the numbers would have increased. For example, I reduced those who work in the Manufacturing of Wearing Apparel (tailors, salesmen, receptionists, designers, logistics, uniform production etc) to 3 million, from 4,524,128. Also, NBS figure for those who work in Textile industry was reduced from 726,876, to no more than 400,000. The NBS number for those who work in Retail Trade was increased from 18.8 million, to 25 million, to account for Nigeria’s 39 million MSMEs, and the increase in our population over time. More people are also doing their own businesses lately, including those who trade in our markets all over the country (all those market boys, butchers, fall under here). I think 25 million is not an exaggeration. Note that in my own estimation, I reduced those who work in Crop and Animal Production and Hunting from 24.5 million, to 20 million, chopping the figure by over 4.5 million people, to account for increasing urbanisation. I recognise that there could be double-counting, because many farmers are also traders.

I increased the number for those working as Household and Domestic Personnel from 151,000 to one million because I believe the number was not representative of the possibilities in that area. Imagine how many houseboys and housegirls, gatemen, cooks, gardeners, laundry workers, drivers, are in Nigeria. Just think about many of our sprawling estates and how many of these folks are employed there. The number is massive! This is how to think about employment. When we look critically, we find out that most people who WISH and WANT to work in Nigeria, actually find employment. But many do not stay. Some are not wired for work. Truancy, drug use, bad attitude, greed for quick money, and of course maltreatment from some employers lead to a lot of staff turnover, resulting in unemployment. What is more? I increased the number for those working in Financial Sector (including regulatory agencies), from 387,000 to 500,000 to account for the explosion of Fintechs in Nigeria who employ vast numbers in their call centres and such like.

As regards new job types, I listed in Figure 3, new key employment nodes such as Makeup Artists (these ladies charge incredible amounts for each work they do, it’s a great wonder), Digital and Remote Workers (many of whom work for companies abroad from their rooms), ‘keke’ and motorcycle taxi (okada) riders (some people will denigrate this, but it is this very attitude of dismissing other people’s legitimate hustle that got us here. Some of these keke drivers and okada people make substantial amounts daily that an office worker at their level will never make. A N15,000 profit every day for merely 20 days work in a month is a clean N300,000 per month and N3,600,000 (untaxed), in a year. I think I notice that the NBS categorizations may have left out Plumbers and Electricians, so I made assumptions for that. I also created categories for people who work with Crypto companies, Pension management companies, Airlines and Private Jets (the 50,000 assumption I made understates what is going on in our Aviation sector), Car Manufacturers and Assemblers (with Innoson, Nord and a few others now playing in that sector), our thousands of Salesmen in Real Estate and other sectors, Estate Agents, Facility Management workers and so on.

In the final analysis, with my own assumptions and the new sectors or categories added on (which accounted for a mere 1.55 million), I arrived at 93,887,000 workers gainfully employed in Nigeria today. Of course, my assumptions are subject to scrutiny. But what the NBS data establishes is that it opens our eyes to what is happening in different sectors of the economy. The political noise must never disorientate us from having a cold look at our economy, to establish the truth. It is also important to note that of Nigeria’s 220 million population (which I humbly believe is over-bloated due to political reasons over the years), not everyone is supposed to be a worker. We have a very young population, which means that at least 40 per cent of our population are under the age of 18. That knocks off over 80 million. Another 15 per cent or 30 million are retirees, old and infirm people. So, our working population is between 100 – 110 million. If 93 million employment could be accounted for, we have an unemployment problem, but it is certainly NOT Armageddon.

I think that is what Mr Onanuga meant in saying ‘look, I am not seeing this debilitating crisis that some Nigerians say is unsurmountable’. Of course, like him. I also pay staff every month in my personal capacity. And we believe that for every staff we pay, these are families taken out of hunger. I will encourage Mr Onanuga to continue to oblige our media for these interviews despite the painful way Nigerians form a mob and attack anyone they dislike these days. Mr Aniagolu’s platform I adjudge personally as one of the very best – intellectually stimulating and very challenging. I have had a taste of the headline narrative and click-baiting attacks a few times, but it has made me stronger and I will continue to engage more. Many of these vociferous people actually lack information and knowledge and we must continually reach out directly to our publics whose minds may have been captured by the false doomsday narratives pushed by these folks on a daily basis. The reforms of the Tinubu Government have set Nigeria on a path of recovery. New opportunities are opening. Artificial Intelligence is, however, a factor to consider because in the last 2 months, over 200,000 workers have been summarily fired by the top tech companies and the most common reason given was ‘AI Efficiency.’

There is no way we should be clamouring for jobs in Nigeria without considering global developments. I believe too, that Nigeria as well as other developing countries have an opportunity that is no longer open to developed and plateaued economies – the employment space in the security, environmental, educational, health, social services and information dissemination/mass mobilisation spaces are still open. President Tinubu has asked that at least 400,000 Nigerians be employed in some of these sectors (at the federal level, for those who ask what does the FG do with its money). Yet, many young people prefer to abuse their elders under anonymity rather than step to the plate and get a job. We cannot continue like this.

On a final note, I reiterate that the efforts of the First Lady in engaging with the very bottom of the economic pyramid should be commended. A friend posted that she should be telling her audience about Value Chains and other esoteric concepts. We cannot be impossible people. If she had been going around talking about technology and high finance to hungry people, the same Nigerians will tear her to shreds for it. That is why I conclude that the ringleaders of the campaigns of calumny do not want to see a better Nigeria. They don’t want hungry Nigerians to find food to eat. When the government gives foodstuff, they say ‘is it only rice?’ What have they given? When last did we see the key opposition figures do any act of philanthropy beyond jumping around the world to ruin Nigeria’s image and constantly talking us down? They just want to keep hearing their own voices and having a big laugh as Nigerians suffer. They, and their followers. And we must not allow them to win the debate. Because they have no point! President Tinubu will continue to reach out to the most vulnerable, through policies that mitigates immediate suffering and dislocations, while he keeps his eyes firmly on a more glorious future for our nation.

‘Tope Fasua is the special adviser to the President on Economic Matters.

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