Sunday, 14 February 2016

HISTORICO-CULTURAL BASIS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND SOCIETAL METABOLISM: THE NEGLECT OF CONTEMPORARY GOVERNMENT

By Anyanwu Anthony

The emasculation, confiscation and colonization of society, national economies and organizational dynamics by the state operators in Africa is an issue of constant debate by visionaries of change, advocates and leaders in business, academia, politics and a wide range of interest groups, who gather on the invitation of Management and staff of Belford Business School (the training arm of Belford Consultants), Jos, to discuss Africa’s economic development in a depressing global economy. 

The gathering has consistently impressed me and I guess many others, who have actively participated in the event. I make this observation in view of the issues for discussion, the sincerity of purpose, commitment and passion demonstrated by the organizers and participants.

I recall the discussions and resolution of 2014, as if it happened yesterday. The gathering held “for any government to be of any serious consequence in the general well-being of the people, it must assure itself of competent, efficient and respectable men of noble sentiments”. 

In 2015, the gathering identified that “the corporate fragmentation of the systemic process of production, distribution and management of resources, control of security system and governance of government, diametrically oppose economic and societal harmony”. 

The combined effect of the above, as pointed out and summarized by the gathering is “a consequential drift in food availability, resource production and social security. It equally illuminates the distinctive forces of government led capitalist relation of production control and the realization that politicization of economic system yield no essential dividend but losses and disorders”.

Taking my bearing from the above and building on the sentiments and interest so far generated through Belford and her team, I invite you to share my present feeling on Africa and her development in the face of threats and biases. 

Historical evidence shows that prior to the great crash of 1939, the global economy maintained stable growth and resilience. Interruption of the processes brought tension and collapse of institutional structures, organizational values and economic procedures. The objectives of government have constantly revolved around determinants of remuneration for services provided by the labour market and resource control to increase defense budget and control of political institutions and power. 

In the process of economic supremacy, nations have engaged in conflicts and wars, which brought serious hardships, disruptions and miseries to society. Besides the American war against Japan, Italy and Germany of 1941, several other wars including the Korean invasion of 1950, have been fought by the Americans. In 1965, the first American combatant group reached South Vietnam and the same year witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King (Jr) in Memphis and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

The struggle to keep national economies under state control has become one of the most ubiquitous and indispensable concept of the contemporary age. As a result of the calculable limits of government to provide high premium economic growth, economies have continued to collapse resulting to resource depletion and threats to national security, biodiversity and the environment. 

The capitalization tread mill of government-led production and system control processes have serious impact on industry, investment, and energy supply and growth trajectory. The implications include economies mired in depression, nonrealistic based practices and weakling of food production, social stability and paralysis of the socio-political landscape.
Corporate colonization and fragmentation of the society and its economic fortune is marked by two diametrically opposed forces streaming from democratization process and societal metabolism. The current situation if unresolved has the potential to deplete the already threatened economies, climate of social relation and the environmental quality.

To reverse the trends and refocus government to the legitimate responsibility of administration of state matters, a re-orientation, re-culturerization and re-awakening of a conscious paradigm is inescapably essential. This paradigm shift will grant equal right to market mechanism to regulate, control and determine economic processes. The role of government shall be limited to quality control, benchmarking and provision of supporting infrastructure and policy framework.

Freedom from government intervention will enable the economic sector to operate maximally and optimally to engender new investment and participation devoid of the prevailing down-turns. The future of global economic safe-net will depend on market capacity to mastermind the operation of economic processes, industrial production and investment regulations by utilizing eco-friendly, people-centered framework and basic profit principles. The 3-bottom-line objectives of integrating people, planet and profit are mutually addressable and complementing in a free-market situation as it evolves in our traditional practice.

Government subordination of the economic system nullifies the efficacy, efficiency and resilience of our culturally sustained operation of the sub-sector. Before the oil collapse, evidence of intervention suffocated crude oil business leading to serious abuses in pricing, marketing and sales of the product locally and internationally to which the country lost financially and suffered undue misappropriation, exploitation and mismanagement in the down-stream sector. The prodigy of losses are still manifest in the main-stream sector, where entrepreneurs are criminalized for processing crude oil locally to save foreign exchange and huge investments on refineries.

It is a common tenet that stifling the equal participation of local contents in the specific crude oil refinery has culminated to vandalism, destruction and diversion of the product at both the local and national level. 

Local refineries have the capacity to refine crude at a relatively cheaper price and optimal level of production, which can boost employment and reduce poverty, insecurity and crime. As a national strategy to boost the economy, government needs to reposition its policies to encourage all stakeholders to play viable roles aimed at reducing cost and increasing productivity in all sectors of the economy. 

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