By Emmanuel Ado
“The Person Who Says It Cannot Be Done Should Not Interrupt The Person Who Is Doing It.” – Chinese Proverb
The year 2020, has variously been described as the lost year, an extraordinary year, the worst year ever, that many people would prefer to forget, and if possible delete, a year worse than 1918, when the world witnessed the equally catastrophic influenza that like COVID-19 , millions of people died and normal life rudely disrupted. It must be emphatically be said that absolutely nothing prepared the world for the unprecedented events of the last one year, not even the clairvoyants or prophets foresaw the massive devastation in their usual new year predictions that the coronavirus pandemic would wreck on the world, in terms of the number of deaths and dire economic consequences.
On the very positive side, the ever restless man was compelled to “rest”, planes that were constantly on the move, except during routine maintenance littered the parking lots of airports, thus giving back the skies to the birds of the air, the real owners of the skies, and the birds celebrated their repossession, with beautiful acrobatic displays. And for people living in notoriously polluted cities like Mumbai, where over one million lives are lost yearly to pollution, the ravaging pandemic was in an ironic sense a welcome relief,as they enjoyed fresh air, a luxury before the onset of Covid-19.
By January 9th 2020, when the World Health Organization(WHO) formally acknowledged the emergence of the deadly virus in Wuhan,China, it was clear that several projections at every level would be in jeopardy, and that Nigeria, with its over reliance on crude oil would be hit real hard, by the economic turbulence the pandemic would wreck on the wheels of industry.
The economic downturn triggered by a combination of declining oil prices and low demand, is sadly a development that will for long time remain a significant threat to the economic development of Nigeria, given the failure of Nigeria to wean itself of dependence on crude as a major revenue source. In the first five months of the 2020, the United States, with Trump’s America First Agenda, slashed its oil import by 11.67 million barrels, and with other buyers like Ghana discovering the black gold, the situation is bound to become more tricky. But the real danger lurking for Nigeria, are the developments in the field of electric vehicles , which are expected to hit 10% of global passenger vehicles sales in 2025, rising to 28% in 2030 and 58% by 2040, with 67% of municipal buses, 47% of two-wheeled vehicles (scooters, mopeds, motorcycles and so on) and 24% of light commercial vehicles, according to BloomergNEF. This will certainly be a huge leap when compared to the fact that currently electric cars make up just 3% of global car sales.
A bright spot in what was a dark year,is the discovery of the vaccine that will hopefully help restore some normalcy, in the COVID induced turmoil.
For Kaduna State, what has obviously made the difference, that has tremendously helped mitigate what would have been compounding reverberations of the pandemic, is the elected leadership and a team of tested hands. The consensus world over, is that the pandemic overwhelmed the world because leaders like Donald Trump abdicated leadership. Given the recession, the second in five years for Nigeria, and an economy that contracted by more than 6.1% in the second quarter, Nasir El-Rufai would have had very convenient excuses not to deliver on projects, and his obligations to workers due to revenue crisis, but that hasn’t been the case due to a clear vision,a development plan, and decisiveness. These extra edges are propelling the march, and at a lightening pace of the state in all the critical sectors, towards a resilient economy, in spite of the recession.
Kaduna State is extremely lucky to have El- Rufai , a foresighted man of undisputed competence, that equally understands the urgency in fashioning and implementing in a timely fashion the right policy decisions, at the helm of affairs at such a critical time. At the outset of the pandemic, the Kaduna State Government didn’t panic,because it had long taken the painful decisions that would eventually help the state weather the storm. Assuming for instance that Kaduna State, hadn’t reformed its revenue service and increased internally generated revenue astronomically from the paltry N12 billion in 2015 to more than N45 billion, it definitely wouldn’t have been in a position to pay its workers, or dream of increasing the minimum wage, nor be in any position to execute the myriad of projects that have positively changed the face of the entire state,that was an infrastructural nightmare. In March 2020, about 95% of the revenue from the federation account was spent as salaries for the less than 110,000 workers in a state of about 10 million.
It needs be restated that the major challenge for the kaduna State Government ,like the other levels of governments in 2020, was managing the pandemic and so far it has given more than a credible account of itself, from mobilizing the North to the danger ahead, to leading the way in enforcing lockdowns. Aware that the public health system wouldn’t handle the anticipated deluge of cases, El-Rufai’s strategy was to “keep it out, delay it and make sure it’s in small numbers” that can conveniently be managed. This informed the total lockdown for weeks, and creating its challenges for the poor and vulnerable, but having been envisaged and being a caring government, providing for the poor wasn’t really a mountain for it to surmount. In addition to the huge expenditure incurred in providing care for infected patients, in insurance cover and allowances for frontline health workers, it spent over N500 million in buying palliatives for distribution to the poor. Constantly drawing lessons from COVID-19 situations, it’s has turned its attention to the need for credible data for planning purposes and fashioning out the much needed Social Protection Policy, that will guide the implementation of social security programmes for the poor.
Undoubtedly, Kaduna State is also coming out of the experience, better prepared in terms of public health system with the construction of a 136 bed infectious hospital and a similar initiative that would see infectious disease hospitals being built in the 23 local government areas of the state, to meet future exigencies.
As in 2015, when El-Rufai in reaction to the dwindling resources confronting the new administration, surgically trimmed the number of appointees, reduced the number of ministries, to robustly respond to economic crisis,in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, it swiftly adopted very stringent belt-tightening measures, prioritized capital expenditure, to manage the expected consequences that the pandemic eventually unleashed. El-Rufai’s prediction that the economic crisis would persist, due to its unpredictable duration, is persuasive and ought to have be taken seriously by other states, as most of the world’s largest economies continued to be on lock-down, a development that had grave implications for Nigeria both in the short and long run.
Nigeria,true to his forecast “that should these unfavourable conditions persist” , may witness the worst economic crisis in its entire history” has come to pass, as it indeed slipped into recession, simply because monetary and fiscal measures to guide against it, were not adopted or were adopted late and worse still haphazardly implemented.
The evidence that Kaduna State clearly understands what needs to be done, to kickstart the economy, can be seen from the tax incentives for businesses, in accordance with Sections 95 (1) and 127 of the Kaduna State Tax (Codification and Consolidation) Law, 2016, which was endorsed by the Kaduna State House of Assembly based on the request from the governor. Other incentives include extension of deadline for filing tax returns, waiver of penalties, interest for late filing of returns, extension of grace periods for payment of consumption tax by the entertainment and hospitality sector, PAYE by private schools, for persons subject to presumptive tax, and other tax rebates to cushion the effects of the pandemic on taxpayers. A sweet deal that has reeked in more revenue, than it would have realized, had it insisted on maintaining the status quo.
The lessons from El-Rufai leadership are numerous; major is that strategy and execution are interrelated and that while strategy requires foresight,execution requires immediate action. The result is that COVID-19 has not lowered the pace of work in the onward march towards building a resilient economy and his many other unprecedented achievements. El- Rufai has shown that leaders must have the confidence to make difficult decisions and the ability to recognize that change is constant. Lastly, is that leaders must have insatiable appetite for success.
