Memo to South West governors on economic integration – Chief Dele Falegan

•Chief Falegan

The first meeting of Southwest governors held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, gave Chief Falegan an impetus I have not seen him display in my over half a century close relationship with him.

As I have had cause to say once or twice on these pages, I speak with Chief Dele Falegan every day of the week. Unlike before, I now make the calls as early as 7 am lest he calls. Chief Deji Fasuan’s calls, fewer though, come much earlier than 7 am. My prayer for these Ekiti icons is that the good Lord will continue to preserve them in good health. Amen. They are archetypical of many elderly Ekiti who love Nigeria like they love their Ekiti – even though they have had to endure tremendous psychological pains, arising from the punishing inability of both Nigeria and Ekiti to attain to the lofty heights they believed were readily available to the two entities given their natural endowments. They had both attended the prestigious Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, a privilege the columnist proudly shares with them and were in a pole position, long before independence, to see the huge possibilities awaiting Nigeria.  That their hopes for country and motherland fatally miscarried must be chalked up to our rapacious politicians and an equally gluttonous army of ‘anything goes’.

It should, therefore, be no surprise, to say that I have seen both men agonise severally over many facets of the Nigerian nation, many times expressing their views in full length newspaper articles or in Letters to the Editor. The first meeting of Southwest governors held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, gave Chief Falegan an impetus I have not seen him display in my over half a century close relationship with him. He has, literally, never stopped talking about how unfairly treated in infrastructural development the Southwest had been from one Nigerian federal government to another. In confirmation of this, I remember that at the AGBAJO YORUBA a few years ago, under the leadership of Lt. General Ipoola Akinrinade, we had to set up a 3-man rapid response group to protest the constant neglect of the Southwest when, at the end of every of Obasanjo’s executive council meetings, with Muktar Shagari as Water Resources Minister, huge irrigation projects were being announced in favour of the North with none to these parts.

I digress.

For Chief Falegan, the next meeting of the governors’ forum scheduled for Ado-Ekiti was divine. I promptly linked him up with Biodun Famakinwa, the indefatigable Executive Secretary of DAWN.

Out of respect to the Southwest Governors’ Forum, I shall refrain from going into the nitty gritty of Chef’s memo. Instead, and as a pointer to his thoughts on the subject matter, I reproduce below my article of 30 November, 2011.

IN PURSUIT OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN NIGERIA

It is for me a great pleasure to present below, the views of Chief Dele Falegan,0a trained Economist and banker, former Director of Research at the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the pioneer Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, as he writes on how Economic Integration can see our country out of its current economic morass.

Wrote Chief Falegan: “As a former banker, Femi Orebe’s paper on South-West Regional Integration at the recent EKITI ECONOMIC SUMMIT (14th – 15th October 2011), provided0 for me, an opportunity to dilate further on how such proposals, both 0within 0and , even across geo-political zones, can hasten the much-talked about economic take-off of the0country. It is therefore my view that we have to rapidly put in place, a project along the ROAD MAP already outlined in the DAWN document.

One specific proposal/project I have in mind is aimed at resolving the problem of neglected federal roads in0Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and0Kwara State in the Northern axis with the0South-West0serving as the fulcrum.

I do not think that the neglect of federal roads in this part of the country is deliberate. But the crying lack of attention relative to other parts of the country in this respect0cannot but give room for concern. The daily carnage and loss of lives on these roads cannot but raise eyebrows, especially the inability to drive safely along Ondo and Ekiti States where the federal roads linking them have been rendered completely impassable. These include the roads from Ikare in Ondo State and Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital;0 the one 0between Ikere0 and Akure, the Ondo State capital, which has 0become totally impassable, all collectively impacting negatively on the economy of these states. It is unthinkable that as you read this, there is no dedicated Lagos-Abuja highway in spite of all the huge fortune that fell on our laps during the Obasanjo years.

I concede that apart from financial constraints, there is in addition,0a gaping lack of0executive capacity within the federal government, the Federal Ministry of Works and its direct agency in this respect, FERMA,0which makes it impossible for them to cope with the challenges inherent in this massive business of keeping our road network in top shape as one would normally expect. This cannot, however, be an extenuating reason for the humongous level of carnage on these roads as well as the attendant disruption to economic life

These are the reasons I like to propose that the named states in the South-West and Kwara State should jointly0access the0facilities available at the International Development Association (IDA), which is the soft loan arm of the World Bank to0 fund the0reconstruction0of all the0federal roads0 in the0 zone/s.0 Should the IDA require a guarantee from the federal government, the states should not hesitate to approach the Jonathan-led federal government, for same.

IDA loans have long term0gestation periods0lasting between 40 to 50 years; with a grace period of 10 years during which there is no repayment, and with interest charges at less than 1%. This means there will be no repayment burden for the present generation, and the future, paying generation would have benefitted immensely from increased economic activities to be generated there from.0Repayment will therefore be0almost painless. It is worthy0of note too that0IDA facilities have0no hold on the borrowers’ existing resources which can thus be devoted to0other pressing developmental needs.

The roads within the proposed co-operating states0 pass and cut the states vertically and diagonally from (a) Akure in Ondo State, 0Ado-Ekiti in Ekiti State to Omuaran in Kwara State: (b) Ikare in Ondo State to Ado-Ekiti 0to Ilesha in Osun State: (c) Iyamoye in Kwara 0to Ikole in Ekiti State via Ogotun-Ekiti 0to Ikeji 0in Osun State.

It is suggested that the roads should be dual carriage. They will be about the only major federal project in this part of the country since independence. The recent inspection of federal roads (and indeed all federal projects) in this part of the country confirms the need for a concerted effort by these states in making this joint effort0 and for a federal government, eager to join the group of the most developed 20 economies barely nine years from now, to eagerly0lend 0its support.

A committee of experts on infrastructure procurement made up of members from all the 0states can be set up immediately to work out details. This should be far and beyond politics and partisan politics must not be allowed to kill it off. Details should include (a) the project coverage showing the number of0kilometres from each state which will determine the financial0commitment of each state (b) the total financial package which will determine the proportion of repayment by each state as at future repayment schedule (c) debt burden sharing and typology of debt per state.

Fortunately, these states, individually or collectively, have very low current debt burden and are under-borrowed whether from the point of view of external or domestic debt or both.0To make0each state a major beneficiary of this scheme is to maximally improve overall economic activities in the country. As at today, only about 10 states are benefiting from IDA facilities in Nigeria. Japan has identical facility and repayment terms as the IDA credit and it is a great pity that Nigeria is not maximally utilising0IDA to massively build up its infrastructure stock.

This proposal, if accepted, will add value to the overall development and growth of the entire country. The example 0can 0be replicated in other zones of the country so as to cut down on the carnage and 0the unnecessary loss of the lives of the most active and productive0segment of our population just as it will generate massive employment opportunities for our horde of unemployed youth and, without a doubt, enhance security of persons and property.”