SO—LUDO AND HIS DOUBLE SIX GAMBIT

One of the roles of political criticism involves the ability to critically probe government policies and politicians within a particular context. To elaborate further, it requires a critical capacity to engage with issues, and more importantly, proffer solutions, if any, to the challenges under scrutiny. But, if, however, the critic was, or to put it plainly, a leaf in the genealogical tree of the said government, he/she must state his/her contribution in full.

 

Reading Soludo’s piece, “Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond The Election”, however, creates the notion that political criticism can be a self-congratulatory prolix and that contemporary Nigeria can be discussed without necessarily paying critical attention to historical precedents. If anything, the long essay, gives the impression that we can assume or conclude that former policy makers and political players in Nigeria, whether economic or political, did not contribute to the contemporary Nigerian imbroglio. The article is steeped in prophetic suggestiveness but does a disservice to historical honesty.

 

Omitting certain facts in a write-up is what Prof. Soludo, in his ThisDay article of May 6, 2013, “Nasir el-Rufai’s Book as Intellectual Fraud?” defines as fraud, which is the“course of deception, an intentional concealment, omission, or perversion of truth.” He is a culprit of his “internet” definition, in that there is an aesthetic silence of his own contribution to the failure of the nation. Where is this “intentional concealment” in the article gone viral?

 

A little analogy is apt here, before baring Soludo’s “intentional concealment” in his piece. Ludo, to those who know and play it, is a board game for two or four or three or even, one player (if you are that bored!), in which players race their seeds from start until finish, though the movement is controlled by the role of a dice. If, after a roll of dice, you hit the double six you have another chance of playing again and, in addition, your journey’s speed is doubled. Soludo hit the double six with his article. The self-gloating, chest-beating and I-am-that-I-am piece of writing has brought him into Nigerian political discourse again. After his sabbatical leave, he simply rolled his dice from the comfort of his balcony and boom: he is the topic of discussion in every Nigerian corner.

 

 

According to political theorists, “Success comes to political ideas not when they are justified in seminar but at the moment of their application to life and society.” Summarily, modern political praxis should thoroughly be permeated with a productivist ethos that leads to the wellbeing of citizens of a particular country. In other words, action speaks louder than words and not through long partisan lectures. The question is thus not only how to understand and with what to connect Soludo’s morality and its social basis, but also what to read of it and how to make sense of what is read.

 

Soludo, in his article, failed to talk about the Nigerian bank-consolidation gamble, which he chaired on July 6, 2004. At the special meeting of bankers’ committee in the same year, he claimed “our goal is to consolidate and build upon the achievements of the sector especially in the last ten years and to take the system to greater heights.” The heights to which he alluded were carried out with a shoddy consolidation process. He asked Nigerian banks to have a minimum capitalization of twenty-five billion naira by the deadline of December 31, 2005 before they would be permitted to hold public sector deposits and to publicly trade shares.

 

Internationally and locally, he was applauded and at the same time, criticized for his great double six on Nigerian banks. In 2007, Goldman Sachs published a research piece listing Nigeria among its ‘Next 11’, a group of countries expected to catch up to the fastest growing developing BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, China and India) and JP Morgan’s praises went as follows: “[Nigerian] banks are sufficiently capitalized to support strong EPS (earnings per share /returns) growth, averaging 25% over the next 12 months and 28% in the following 12 months”, quoting from Funmi Osinupebi’s analysis of the Nigerian consolidation era.

From the local side and from Nigerian economists who studied Soludo’s game of probability, it was a mere hit and fail move. Economists argue that the move was a borrow-pose show-off; he simply copied the German banking consolidation and applied it on the Nigerian system. In fact, consolidation in Nigeria, economists argue, in a non-organic way and without some regulation, produced similar results as a non-consolidated financial system.

On the same token, the next CBN governor after Soludo, Sanusi Lamido, found wide gaps in the banking consolidation. Lamido mentioned eight weaknesses in the post-consolidation banking era which were: macro-economic instability caused by large and sudden capital inflows; major failures in corporate governance at banks; lack of investor and consumer sophistication; inadequate disclosure and transparency about financial position of banks; critical gaps in regulatory framework and regulations; uneven supervision and enforcement; unstructured governance and management processes at the CBN and weaknesses in the business environment. Two important weaknesses—major failure in corporate governance at banks and unstructured management processes—are worth discussing since we are talking about leadership and management.

 

After the consolidation, bank CEOs siphoned investors’ funds into their pockets, send their scions to international schools and build choice houses in choice areas with stolen funds under the careful watch of Soludo. Since he has scored the president an “F” what would his score be during this era? Again, how did Mr. Sebastin Adigwe (Afribank), Mr. Okey Nwosu(Finbank) Dr. Erastus Akingbola (Intercontinental Bank), Dr. Cecelia Ibru(Oceanic Bank) and Dr. Bath Ebong (Union Bank), get away with the CBN’s post-consolidation loans without checks? These are just peripheral questions that need answers.

One would have thought Soludo would make mention of this in his article. El-Rufai summarised his consolidation move thusly: “[…]the deformed baby called consolidation was a revolution, but today many of the poster-children of the policy like Intercontinental, Oceanic, Finbank and Spring Bank are history, the banking-stockbroking rock stars are facing prosecution, and with N4 trillion spent to prevent the collapse of his revolution.” Yet he makes no mention of this in his essay as if four trillion naira wont create a dent in Nigeria’s economy. That is pure fraud, to borrow again from his “internet” definition. It is ludicrous and at the same time, pretentious, therefore, when he says “Jonathan’s record on the economy is a clear ‘F’ grade.”

Again, he goes ahead to praise his former boss’ achievements but fails to point his weaknesses. He painted Obasanjo as a clean and perfect president without flaws. How about talking about the more than two thousand lives lost in Odi, Bayelsa State under the very eyes of OBJ? How about talking about his involvement in the Halliburton scandal? How about pointing to his clamour for a third term in presidency? How about talking about the sentimental and near-whimsical vagary of Obasanjo’s role as a Nigerian political godfather?

Yes, it is true that both APC and PDP do not have “any credible agenda to deal with the issues, especially within the context of the evolving global economy and Nigeria’s broken public finance.” This might be that puppeteers, like his former boss, control certain aspects of election campaigns, the candidates and other strings that hold the country. After all, his former boss is one of the strongest godfathers in Nigerian politics.

Funnily, he adds that “Sadly the government’s economic team is very weak, dominated by self-interested and self-conflicted group of traders and businessmen, and so-called economic team meetings have been nothing but showbiz time.” Showbiz is when you borrow a foreign system of banking consolidation and impose it on the Nigerian banking system without good corporate governance. It is when Soludo, from his comfortable balcony, roll out a dice of criticism without actually looking at how he contributed to the failure of the economy. Showbiz is when you think you have the knowledge but don’t have the second chance to right your pass wrongs. One might also add, that there is a sound of “self-interest” in his article.

Soludo’s piece, however, is worth a read by every Nigerian; it completes and complements some part of political discourse, but displaces and discounts the ethos of political criticism. The latter is precisely because he is so summary in one context, yet so provocatively rich in the other, precisely because of that imbalance, one can question the motif behind his brilliant piece.

 

Nigeria is our country. Nigerians have, in one way or the other, contributed to her downfall. The onus is on Nigerians to start teaching their leaders the real meaning of accountability and integrity. Let the security man on Marina Street stop asking for bribes in car parks, and then he can talk of corrupt leaders. Let the businessmen cutting corners and then he can talk about bad leaders. We have, in our own little corner, a major role to play in sensitizing ourselves about the real meaning of leadership. In short, let us look inward to critically understand the external. Nigerians should be seeing both together.

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