Reviving comatose monuments as strategic mechanisms in remediating Nigerian economy

Infrastructure deficit in Nigeria is a rattling phenomenon among the key subjects of discourse in the assessment of the Nigeria’s economy. The need to develop existing infrastructures and creatively clear the path for new ones are evident necessities warranting crucial attention. It is pragmatically observable that nations of the world with buoyant economic definitions, never assumed the height of their virility by chance. The voyage to such height were results of conscious efforts of government driven navigations with consistency and workings of systemic creativity. It is evident that the patterns of building these ecomonies were premised on strong foundations of complementary structures of interfacing policies giving high level accuracy in  response to demands as reality unfolds.

In Nigeria, the inability to drive the working systems with profound ameliorants to give modifications to parameters with responsiveness to the dynamics of changing demands, have been a major bane of insensitivity to pressing realities. It is apparent that realities in the Country have left the working systems of socio-economic architectures far behind. The contrast of forcing an archaic system on dynamic socio-economic formations are the results of the deficiencies which are pragmatically finding expression in the Country. The resistance emanating from emerging socio-economic formations against the incompatibility of the antiquatic mechanisms of the prevailing systems have continued to instigate strains which are evidently counterproductive to not only the economy of the Country, but the entire socio-political definitions of the schemes of present realities.

However, the need to institute change in the patterns of the working instruments to infuse new parameters into the system for redefinition of the paths of navigation, demands an ideological shift. This is significantly essential to reshape the foundations of governance in the Country. Such shift in essence would inform the methods employed by custodians of government institutions, in a beneficial manner that respond adequately to present and changing demands.

Matters of the Nigerian economy have recently been on the top burner of discourse in recent times. The heating character of the comments on the economy has to cyclical conversations, particularly with the clusters of direct and indirect disturbances in the polity, which largely have been linked to the bearings of the worsening state of the economy. Notwithstanding, the necessity to bring situation to control is non-negotiable.  In the light of the demands, the steering path towards achieving this must however come by breaking the limitations of traditional patterns of governance which, by and large, have over the years reduced the Country’s potency, taking it aback in terms of growth and development.

Change in the guiding orientation to drive out of the norm of traditional patterns of governance, particularly in response to the economy, must pragmatically be conscious and deliberate with calculated mechanisms in identifying soft areas of target with high advantages. Areas of attention in this light, are more emphatic on targets where the foundation of the infrastructures have already been laid. Many of these areas are in existence in the Country, but due to the traditional  sydrome of inconsistencies and non-sustenance of monumental projects cum the culture of poor maintenance and waving manifestations of policies, many of these have not lived up to the founding purpose. It is glaring that the records of monumental projects and infrastructures which have suffered from these wrong side of governance ideological formations have been reduced to a comatose state. While some are in moribund state, there are others waning, and pathetically there are those whose dilapidation are beyond repair.

Recently, the Federal Government had expressed its readiness to assist in reviving a multimillion-dollar oil fabrication yard in Lagos State which  has been stalled since 2015 after a force  majeure declared by an international oil company operating in the Country. The Snake Island Fabrication Yard was being built by an indigenous company, Kaztec Engineering Limited, with Addax Petroleum Development Company as its technical partner. The member of the board of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Senator Magnus Abe, had during an inspection tour of the yard last Saturday said that an inter-ministerial committee had been established to assess the facility and recommend ways to assist in reviving it. As the chairman of the committee, he had expounded that the facility was built by Kaztec Engineering in 2012 as part of contracts that were awarded to it by Addax Petroleum. He was quoted: “Sometime in 2015, Addax ran into some tax and audit issues with the Federal Government, and so they declared a force majeure on the contracts. By that time, Kaztec Engineering had already spent more than $600million – imported a lot of materials and was employing over 3,000 direct workers. But when the force majeure was declared, all those people lost their jobs. What has happened here is actually a national tragedy in so many ways because not only is the economy very negatively impacted, it is quite disheartening to see that there are a lot of things here that could help this company save millions of dollars that are lying waste.”

It was gathered that the facility was being built to be the first fully-owned indigenous fabrication yard in the Country, which among  other complementary projects could benefit Nigeria using Nigerian contractors. Information on the state of the facility showed that Phase 1A of the project, comprising workshops, warehouse, laydown areas, erection area and 4,000T load-out quay, had been completed.

On projection, the facility was expected to save the Country of thousands of job unemployment and also help generate a projected income of $33 billion over a 10-year period. It is imperative for the Government at this critical time of records of economic strains with erosion of purchasing power and acute unemployment rate, to look into more of such creative measures as this to revamp moribund monuments of huge economic potentials. It is paramount for the Government to begin sniffing for such economic monuments as the Ajaokuta Steel Company which have gulped billions of naira, yet, remain unproductive to the economy. It is therefore important for strategic attention to be paid to reviving all monuments of great economic value with potentials to drastically change the narrative of economic strains in the Country.

The need to address such monuments and infrastructures which are lying in comatose or better still in moribund or state of abandonment and incompletion is imperative to pragmatically ease the pressure of strains in the economy, bearing in mind their potentials in increasing revenue generation into the Government coffers and their employability capacities to get thousands of Nigerians into gainful employment when they assume full operation on completion. It is therefore important for the Government to draft policy instruments for navigating mechanisms to bring these into fruition as one pragmatic strategy to pulling the Nigerian economy out of the quagmire of depression and the associated strings of national turbulence.