Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, Nigerian political economist and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has announced his decision to withdraw from discussing the Nigerian economy publicly.
According to Moghalu, he has declined nearly all interview requests from Nigerian media in recent mosts, a stance he explained through a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account. He explained that continuing to engage in public discussion about the Nigerian economy has become futile, amounting to a “dialogue of the deaf”. This more than implies that ideas or policy solutions he had canvassed have not had any impact on policy making and perhaps public discussion of Nigerian economic challenges and potential policy choices.
Dr Kingsley Moghalu’s Abiding Passion for Nigeria
Moghalu’s silence on the economy isn’t due to a lack of concern. Rather, he pointed out that he is very passionate about seeing a stable and growing Nigerian economy despite the fact that his livelihood does not depend on the state or performance of the Nigerian economy.
The former presidential aspirant posted on X, “It’s ironic that people like us who actually do not need Nigeria and its economy for our personal survival are so concerned simply out of passion for our country, but after a while, we must recognize the harsh truth and act accordingly,” he stated. Moghalu contested the 2019 presidential elections as a candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP).
Dr. Moghalu made a series of interventions on Nigeria’s approach to managing the foreign exchange scarcity. He advised very early that Nigeria should focus on stabilising the naira at a “market value” rather than waste the country’s foreign exchange reserves on defending the naira in order to have a “strong naira”.
The naira now exchanges for over N1,600 to the dollar, justifying Moghalu’s position that the high exchange rates e.g N70-N900 to the dollar exchange rate range that Nigerian policymakers were targeting was not realistic.
Is Nigerian Politics Too Hot for Progressives in Ties ? Or Progressives Are a Victim of their Poor Strategy?
Dr Moghalu’s frustration hides a bigger problem- the inability of Nigerian “progressives” (in this context professionals and technocrats from the business world or economic policy circles or academia) seeking to constitute an alternative political elite to become relevant in Nigerian politics beyond newspaper pages, television screens or social media. They have not only failed at building political parties that connect to voters at the grassroots, their ideas about how the economy should be run have not also become a significant factor in policymaking and governance.
Perhaps, progressives like Dr. Kingsley Moghalu have not invested enough in building durable political organisations that prioritise mobilising Nigerians towards their vision of the economy, society and the nation (as opposed to canvassing for votes). Nigeria’s progressives tend to shop around for a political party that they could “use” to contest presidential elections 4 to 6 months before the elections. The political parties then go completely silent after they lose the elections. Sometimes these emergency political vehicles, controlled by completely unknown political entrepreneurs, sell their platforms to the mainstream political parties, leaving the progressives presidential aspirants shocked and stranded.
In the run up to the 2019 presidential elections, Dr. Oby (Obiageli) Ezekwesili had to step down as the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria after the “owners” of the party decided to support the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Likewise, in the run up to the 2023 elections, Dr. Moghalu lost the presidential primaries of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to a completely unknown business man, Dumebi Kachikwu and immediately resigned membership of the party. Sometimes the progressive politician “decamps” and tries to seek the ticket of the mainstream political party as Professor Pat Utomi did in 2019 when he failed to get the APC gubernatorial ticket for Delta State.
Peter Obi, former Anambra State Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party in the 2019 elections is perhaps the most successful politician to represent the progressive strand in Nigerian politics. Obi came a close third to Nigeria’s two major political parties in the 2023 presidential elections, even defeating President Ahmed Bola Tinubu in his Lagos home base.
But Obi’s exploits also reflect the severe limitations of Nigeria’s progressive politics; he moved to the Labour Party in May 2022, 9 months to the 2023 presidential elections seeking a presidential ticket. The Labour Party quickly disintegrated into two factions- the original faceless owners of the party and the Peter Obi faction-after the elections. Neither Peter Obi nor the Labour Party has had the slightest impact on economic policy or governance after the 2023 presidential elections. The APC governs virtually without opposition.
Nigerian progressives tend to look for emergency political vehicles to contest presidential elections rather than do the hard work of building up political parties from the grassroots. Unlike the mainstream politicians, they find it impossible to work together- this may be why they have not been able to transform their values and ideas on economic policy and governance into popular political demands. The problem may not really be the “illiteracy” or the resistance of the electorate to “issue-based politics” as a commentator argues.
Barriers to A Politics focused on Governance: Poverty, Misery and “Near-Term” Economic Survival
Nigeria’s political terrain is tough for politicians who aspire to go into politics and solve problems. Opeyemi Agbaje, a political economist and Chief Executive Officer of Resources and Trust Company Limited (RTC) offers an insider’s and scholar’s view on the problem.
According to Opeyemi Agbaje, Nigerian voters have a limited interest in “issue-based politics”. He explained that “religious and other primordial considerations” are the main drivers of political affiliation and high levels of poverty make Nigerian voters “susceptible to electoral bribery”.
Agbaje argues that due to its “history of social democratic politics”, South West Nigeria is more amenable to a politics based on “substantial policy and governance issues”.
The political economist, who had contested gubernatorial elections primaries in Ogun State, pointed out that it is political coalitions “that represent or are perceived to represent geo-regional interests that win elections in Nigeria”, technocratic or professional politicians have a chance to put their ideas into practice “only to the extent they are integrated in those groups”.
Agbaje says the technocrats and professionals in Nigerian politics “have not managed to form broad-based political groups or coalitions that reach the scale to challenge the incumbent establishment coalitions” because they tend to act as individuals”.
The challenge is for technocrats in politics like Dr. Moghalu to act together and build durable political party coalitions from the bottom up; this will “force” issues of governance and policy into the discussion of politics in Nigeria and will position the technocrats as potential allies of the major political parties with more bargaining power.
An example of the change this may bring to Nigerian politics is probably South Africa’s coalition government in which the dominant patronage-focussed African National Congress (ANC) holds 20 of 32 ministerial positions, with 6 cabinet positions that are key to economic reforms going to the pro-market Democratic Alliance (DA).
The technocrats and professionals in politics like Kingsley Moghalu, Patrick Utomi, Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, Akinwunmi Adesina, Nasir El Rufai etc tend to have an enthusiastic national, cross-ethnic support, and could build strong national political parties also using the strategy of cross-ethnic representation.
Besides a difficulty to work together, another hurdle they face is the tendency to be part time politicians, having to earn their living as busy professionals. Perhaps, if they try to build the political parties first, fellow Nigerian professionals who are tired of the shamefully poor governance of their country shall add every other thing to it, i.e funding.
