NESG and the Force of Ideas

Kayode Komolafe

The 31st edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit opened in Abuja two days ago.  The organisers of the event are members of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG). Incorporated 29 years ago, the NESG is by self-definition “a non-profit, non-partisan private sector organisation with a mandate to promote and champion the reform of the Nigerian economy into an open, private sector-led globally competitive economy.”

The provenance of NESG was the 1993 move made by a group of “passionate and concerned private sector leaders representing key economic sectors” to establish a “platform” to harvest ideas for the good of Nigerian economy. Armed with products of research, the group’s tested methodology is that of advocacy – engagement of the private sector government and its agencies for reforms while also technically assisting during execution.

The organising principle of NESG could be distilled from its policy options. These are policies in favour of creating the appropriate environment for a strong private sector in a competitive economy. This, in the conviction of NESG, would provide the economic basis for sustainable development in a political atmosphere governed by democracy and rule of law.   

As a think tank, the group has admirably sustained the unyielding pursuit of its goals for 32 years running.

Now, this is another indisputable Nigerian success story of building institutions in the private realm.  

The NESG certainly deserves an applause if only for its consistency and clarity of purpose.

At least one lesson to learn from NESG is that critics should move beyond lamentation and provide alternative ideas on an optimistic note from their various perspectives. This useful lesson may be the necessary remedy for the exorcism of self-flagellation afflicting some pundits who see nothing but darkness as they project to the future of Nigeria. It is important to emphasise this point in this age of hyper-criticism of development efforts in Nigeria in which even the silver lining in the cloud is hardly acknowledged. Those who denigrate Nigeria and see nothing good to point to in terms of building institutions should study the evolution of NESG. Similarly, those who think good things could only be found outside the shores of Nigeria should also take interest in what NESG is doing. 

While our elite of different hues idolise similar think tanks abroad some public intellectuals here may not even be able to spell the abbreviation, NESG. For all its yeoman service in over three decades, the NESG’s positions are hardly invoked or critiqued in discussions of the problems of the Nigerian economy and making prognosis for the future.

As a matter of fact, there has not been enough nationalist emphasis on thoughts in the culture of economic management in Nigeria.

For instance, during the campaigns for the 2023 elections, presidential candidates took turns to appear at Chatham House in London in an amazing display of neo-colonial mentality. Would it not have been more meaningful for the politicians seeking power to manage the nation’s economy to have rigorous sessions here with the NESG? It is not only goods and services that Nigeria needs to produce locally. There should be endogenous efforts to generate economic thoughts for development and common good. 

The primacy of ideas as the motive force in the policy arena is undeniable. The private efforts of NESG and other think tanks should serve as a complement to policy articulation at the official level.

In the last 40 years of Nigeria’s economic history, the most robust policy articulation on the direction of the economy was ironically witnessed under the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida. That was a military dictator, who otherwise owed the public no explanation on policy options in its determination to forge a recast of the political economy. The economic team of the regime provoked debates and defended their clearly stated policies against the criticisms from the Left. The military regime even launched a structured national debate on whether Nigeria should take loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It was at that period that economic management turned into experimentation with neo-liberal ideas of privatisation, deregulation, trade liberalisation, devaluation, cut in social spending etc. Since the inauguration of the Babangida Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), hardly has any fundamentally different idea informed economic management in Nigeria. 

However, while one may not agree with the elements of SAP, it should be intellectually conceded that the programme did not emerge in an ideological vacuum. It was based on serious right-wing economic thoughts.

In fact, today the centrality of ideas to economic management has become even more profound.  

The winners of the 2019 Prize in Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, put matter in their book, “Good Economics for Hard Times,” like this: “Ideas are powerful. Ideas drive change. Good economics alone cannot save us. But without it, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of yesterday. Ignorance, intuitions, ideology, and inertia combine to give us answers that look plausible, promise much, and predictably betray us. As history, alas, demonstrates over and over, the ideas that carry the day in the end can be good or bad… The only recourse we have against bad ideas is to be vigilant, resist the seduction of the “obvious,” be sceptical of promised miracles, question the evidence, be patient with complexity and honest about what we know and what we can know. Without that vigilance, conversations about multifaceted problems turn into slogans and caricatures and policy analysis gets replaced by quack remedies.

“The call to action is not just for academic economists it is for all of us who want a better, saner, more humane world. Economics is too important to be left to economists.”

Although you would hardly find the word capitalism in NESG documents, the gallant efforts of the group are essentially aimed at building a successful capitalist economy in Nigeria. In the last 30 years, NESG’s prescribed solutions to the crisis of the economy have been evidently informed by the neo-liberal ideology. Even in the West where neo-liberalism originated in the 1970s some of its elements are now subjected to a rethink because of the consequences in terms of worsening poverty and inequality.  Hence, not a few thinkers are positing that the neo-liberal order is in retreat. The NESG and other centres of economic thoughts ought to re-examine the philosophical basis of some of their policy preferences. For instance, the NESG could consider the political economy approach. This suggestion would be elaborated upon on later in this column.

The foregoing introductory notes are only meant to draw attention to the fact that policymakers and the public sphere where discussions take place should transcend the regurgitation of neo-liberal shibboleths in performing the difficult task of economic management. This should be done to confront squarely the scourges of poverty and underdevelopment.   

So, using as a peg the evolution of the NESG as a think tank that cannot be ignored, this column will focus on the force of ideas underlying socio- economic policies in the coming weeks.