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THE NATION MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2015
COMMENTS
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ERTAIN things about the past speak to the present in the presence of the future. Such is the case with the September 2 news of the dating of an 11, 000-year old moat at Sugbon Eredo in Oke Eri. Prof. David Aremu of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, said in a statement: “The research in Sugbon Eredo, Oke Eri, is aimed at examining the structure, component, technology and functions of Sugbon Eredo Moat, which is 165 kilometres surrounding the former Ijebu kingdom. It also throws more light on the history of the people who built the embankment and how they adapted to their forest environment.” According to a report, Prof. Aremu said “the moat covered Ijebu kingdom up to Epe in the south, Ago-Iwoye in the north, Eredo in the west and the area towards Ore, Ondo State, in the east.” The researchers, led by Prof Aremu, said different charcoal samples from the moat analysed in a U.S. laboratory gave dates of 11, 000 years and 4, 900 years. These results have been interpreted to mean that human presence in Ijebu land dates back to a time beyond the scope of oral history. “These findings pose a lot of questions, which we may not be able to answer now about the establishment of the Yoruba in Southwest Nigeria,” Prof. Aremu said. The statement also said: “The chronology of the site provides information beyond the myth of the Queen of Sheba and her possible influence in Nigeria and the Middle East. In the narrative of the Ijebu, the building of Eredo moat was organised by a powerful influential woman called Bilikisu Sungbo (that is, Queen of Sheba), who travelled to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem.” The don reportedly “advised the Ogun State government to convert Eredo moat to an international tourist site, stressing that foreigners had shown interest in it.” Of course, this is easier said than done. The reality is that in Nigeria tourism promotion is little more than lip service. At the governmental level, the latest report on the antiquity of Sungbo Eredo Moat, and the historical and social implications of the research results, may well pass unnoticed, not to say ignored. Over a decade ago, I couldn’t resist the attraction and decided to go and see the 8,000-year-old Dufuna Canoe in Damaturu, Yobe State, from my base in Lagos. Billed as “Africa’s oldest known boat,” it was discovered in May 1987 by an obscure Fulani herdsman, Mallam Yau, who had struck the dugout canoe buried in the earth while digging a well on the outskirts of Dufuna village. News of this discovery travelled fast and reached the government of the old Borno State, which at the time included Dufuna, now part of Yobe State in northeastern Nigeria. “Then I came in,” said Abubakar Garba, who was an Associate Professor at the Centre for Trans-Saharan Studies, University of Maiduguri, Borno State, when I first interviewed him in 2001. He recalled: “I was contacted to make a full investigation as an archaeologist. I knew at the time that I was making a breakthrough in my field. I got a chip sample from the canoe, which I sent to a laboratory in Germany. They were fascinated
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IGERIA’S economy has all it takes to rank amongst the world’s top 10 economies. Driving the polity effectively towards that goal is the urgent task of the country’s present political and economic managers. Nigeria’s 2015 general elections have been won and lost. The nationwide focus on politics for almost a year has however been detrimental to the economy and the financial markets. Despite being poised for fast growth, Africa’s largest economy is currently crawling on all fours. Key economic and financial indicators are down year-on-year and year-to-date. Ditto for corporate earnings. The most significant being a 1.5% loss in GDP growth and speculative devaluation and volatility of the national currency, the Naira, which has lost at least 20% value against most benchmark currencies. The year-end outlook is also not bright. Most investors and corporate players are coasting and seem to have accepted 2015 as a lost year from a productivity standpoint. Politics in Nigeria as clearly proven by recent events is driven by political cum personal interests. This is always at variance with the national economic interests. The cumulative cost of perceived political instability, record low crude oil prices, and dipping confidence in economic and financial markets is estimated to be anywhere between US$2530bn. Who is counting? Certainly not the political class. They have not come to terms with the fact that a new budget cycle has commenced, and it’s clear that the only tangible approach the new government can take, is to start the process of amending the existing budget and delivering a brand new 2016 budget that reflects contemporary economic realities. After hinting that the Central Bank of Nigeria’s currency controls were making Nigeria’s bond market transactions too complex to meet its rules, JP Morgan, the United States-based lender, has now moved to expel Nigeria from its Emerging Market Bond Index (EMBI) by the end of September, as a result of the illiquidity and lack of transparency in our foreign exchange market. This exit will hurt Nigeria’s financial and economic ratings, putting the nation’s $31bn external reserves under threat of further massive sell-offs of Nigerian assets by foreign portfolio investors. The cost of borrowing will increase; access to the international financial markets for both sovereign and corporates will also become limited. More importantly, this exit will stem the inflow of portfolio investments which peaked at US$20.5Billion in 2013, that otherwise could help stabilize the Naira and balance of payments. To state the obvious, the lack of articulation on policy and economic direction by the new government is not helping matters and is unsettling the financial markets. Time is money. And in the fast emerging global fiscal order, lost time and opportunities may never really be regained. The next challenge the Nigerian government faces is the validation and structured financing plan for the current fiscal deficit, estimated at =N=6.5 trillion. The government’s actions on the fuel subsidy could significantly increase this figure. With the restructuring and swap of state government commercial bank loans into Treasury Bonds, the new government has increased the domestic debt profile by =N=1trillion overnight. Unfortunately
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Attractions made unattractive by the first date.” Radiocarbon dating put the age of the chip at over 8,000 years. Two separate tests on chips taken from different parts of the canoe, carried out at different times at Kiel and Cologne universities in Germany, gave similar dates of over 8,000 years. “There is no reason to doubt the broad date of the boat,” according to Peter Breunig, an archaeologist involved in its excavation on the platform of the University of Frankfurt, Germany. On the boat’s period, Breunig said in a statement, “In archaeological terms it is described as an early phase of the Later Stone Age, which began rather more than 12,000 years ago and ended with the appearance of pottery, probably more than 7,000 years ago.” An initial trial excavation sponsored by the University of Maiduguri led to collaboration on the canoe project with the University of Frankfurt. The lab results redefined the prehistory of African water transport, ranking the Dufuna Canoe as the world’s third oldest known dugout. Older than it are the dugouts from Pesse, Netherlands, and Noyen-sur-Seine, France. But evidence of an 8,000-year-old tradition of boat building in Africa throws cold water on the assumption that maritime transport developed much later there in comparison with Europe. Breunig said the canoe’s age “forces a reconsideration of Africa’s role in the history of water transport”. It shows, he added, “that the cultural history of Africa was not determined by Near Eastern and European influences but took its own, in many cases, parallel course”. The canoe was eventually lifted out of the earth in March 1998, over a decade after its discovery. “Some educated people wanted the canoe to be left in the earth”, Garba recalled, adding that it was a battle to get the then military administration to build a conservation site for what was regarded as “just a piece of wood.” Garba recounted his excavation experience: “To uncover the canoe involved up to 50 labourers, who took about two weeks to
accomplish this task. About five metres down inside the museum, the archaeologists had to use mechanical means to evacuate the water, which kept oozing back continuously.” The Dufuna Canoe was found, he said, “water-logged, on a sandy base with intermittent intervals of clay, and inaccessible to oxygen; circumstances most favourable for most organic materials”. Other objects that surfaced at the excavation site were of little archaeological value. “It has a length of 8.40 metres and maximum breadth and height of around 0.5 metres. The sides are barely more than 5 centimetres thick,” Breunig described the canoe, adding that it even outranks in style European finds of similar age. To go by its stylistic sophistication, he reasoned, “It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.” Contemplating the discovery is like sailing on a sea of puzzles. Garba wondered, for instance: “What could have been the Dufuna environment and adjacent areas at the time the canoe was in use? If the vegetation was more luxuriant and denser, what might have led to its deterioration? What types of prehistoric populations were present at the settlement? Could they have any link with the present population or adjacent groups? Could it have been possible that the mega-Chad extended up to this area or could it have been transported from elsewhere to this area. What was it for?” Today, 17 years after its excavation, the famous Dufuna Canoe is still being kept out of public view to the public’s chagrin. At the time I tried to see the canoe in 2001, it was out of view within a circular fortress in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital. A notice on the building’s wall pointed out that the canoe was “Under Conservation”. Scary skulls and crossbones gave bite to two warnings: “Keep Off”; “Beware of Corrosive Chemicals”. Attractions can be made unattractive, which probably explains why official performance in the business of attracting domestic and international tourists to attractions across the country has not attracted public attention in any impressive way.
‘The reality is that in Nigeria tourism promotion is little more than lip service. At the governmental level, the latest report on the antiquity of Sungbo Eredo Moat, and the historical and social implications of the research results, may well pass unnoticed, not to say ignored.’
Driving Nigeria’s economy to G-10 status By Tilewa Adebajo state governments have not been compelled to execute conditional covenants, such as adhering to the tenants of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which stipulates provisions for fiscal discipline. With a US$49bn domestic debt and US$10.8bn external debt overhang, Nigeria is now committing 23% of its fiscal revenues to servicing debt. With the levels of projected fiscal deficit, we might exceed the revenue-to-debt service best practice benchmark of 25% by year end. The alignment of fiscal and monetary policy which the economy befitted from over the last five years, seems to have been lost over the last several months. The apex financial institution and industry regulator, the CBN, seems to have lost its independence and the intellectual fecundity central banks are renowned for. With an outflow of new policy pronouncements almost every week, the bank has struggled to articulate a well thought out strategy for managing the Naira. This misalignment of fiscal and monetary policy has started to impact the macroeconomic indicators as inflation creeps up into double digits. Unemployment also stands at a high 35%. The effects of quantitative easing are manifesting on the Naira exchange rates as interest rates remain artificially high at 25%. This, despite the excess supply of the currency in circulation with M2 at =N=19Trillion, 25% or =N=4.75Trillion denominated in US dollars deposit. Our commercial banks have also exacerbated the situation: about 50% of their loan books are denominated in US dollars. These artificially high rates, and the distortion it causes are not sustainable in the long run. Western nations over the last eight years have maintained rates at below 1% clearly aimed to spur economic recovery. Nigeria’s financial intermediation rates at 25% cannot support productive investment and development; it will also stunt economic growth. Major reforms are therefore required in the banking system to support single digit rates. Banks also have to better deploy technology to reduce and manage costs. Their productivity and efficiency levels will consequently improve leading to a more competitive financial services sector. Beyond the macro economy, we need to do a critical reappraisal of our trade and investment policies, we need to ensure they are properly integrated into the global value added system. The domestic gains and success we have had in the cement sector with import substitution backward integration has primarily been driven by an individual and unfortunately not yet replicated nor institutionalized in other critical sectors such as agriculture, another potential engine room of Africa’s political economy considering its huge social development and value chain effect. Drastic attention also needs to be paid to Customs and Excise reform and management to ensure proper implementation of Trade Policy, Industrial Development and Investment. The
corruption menace of duty waivers, duty evasion, smuggling and weak import documentation also continues to affect the Naira, clearly disrupting and discouraging industrial development, investment and expansion. Nigeria has been defined as a corrupt country with weak institutions, poor governance, and a compromised judiciary with consistently low scores in the ease of doing business and competitiveness rankings. Despite or in spite of all these quirks, the Nigerian economy with a GDP of US$535Billion is the largest in Africa with a global G20 ranking. Until recent times, the Nigerian economy sustained a 7% annual growth rate, ranking it amongst the top three fastest growing economies globally. Our substandard physical and social infrastructure needs to be upgraded; we need to make Power, Healthcare and Education sectors key focus priorities. Addressing the infrastructure deficit, corruption, good governance and the rule of law will no doubt propel Nigeria to realize its potential and capacity as a G10 economy. Indeed, despite the absence of a cabinet, the euphoria the new government has generated, including its ongoing efforts to clean up the Augean stable is highly commendable. Restoring sanity into the polity was never going to be an easy undertaking. President Buhari’s recent working visit to Washington DC, USA left a good a good impression in the minds of our international business and diplomatic allies. His top level meetings, appearances and the opinion pieces in the critical and pro-Western US media were obviously left a good impression. This was an African leader who seemed genuinely sincere, and genuinely concerned about Nigeria’s place in the global economy. Going forward, the President and his ministerial team (even before he finally unveils them) must constantly balance the dual priorities of institutionalizing probity and economic management. Curbing high level graft must be accorded equal weighting as curbing hyper-inflation. The Nigerian environment despite all its shortcomings and shenanigans is clearly a potential G10 economy. A recent Economist article highlights the “opportunity that knocks” with the new government in place, having endorsed President Buhari before the election. A 2013 article in the same publication cautions that Nigeria, “Africa’s giant is waking up but still looks unsteady on its feet like a heavy weight boxer who has gone too many rounds.” The same publication has in the past enquired if “anyone has seen a giant” and warns further that the awaking giant eventually might fall flat on its face. The Nigerian economy is a purposeful and powerful contraption akin to a Formula One racing machine. Unfortunately, the economy has in the past, been driven by a leadership and a political elite class behaving very much like a “Danfo Driver” in the driving seats of a Formula One. • Adebajo, an investment banker & economist is CEO of The CFG Advisory.