How To Move Nigeria From Stabilisation To Transformation

By Olufemi Awoyemi

The direction of travel is real, but so are the household pain and fears. This now appears existential to a growing number of citizens, and this is not helped by growing ‘NOISE’ getting in the way more than the govt would like, I suppose.

This reality cannot be dismissed, explained away, or buried beneath the language of macroeconomic success. As frustrating as this will sound for the govt, this is par for the course. It is, and will always remain a perfect cover for the MAZE and the misdirection that attaches itself to reforms.

So, the next crucial test for leadership is whether the gains from restoring macroeconomic order can translate into investment, production, jobs, and measurable relief for citizens.

This should form the basis of the pre-election debate and the rigour of plans to build on the stabilisation and moderate the noise. It is not merely about slogans, but about credible plans, milestones, sequencing, and execution.

Given how elevated conversations are treated in the public space, let me be clear about the reference here and what I mean.

Noise, as referenced here, is not the required citizen engagement that is growing and should be encouraged, but rather the disagreements with policy and evidence-led criticism from subject-matter experts and entities. Those are the lifeblood of accountable governance in a democracy.

The noise I am referring to relates to the volume of commentary that drowns out the direction of travel.

@proshare’s EMIU review named it as including selective headlines, partisan interpretation, treating one day’s issue as the whole story, premature verdicts, reform fatigue, vested interests, and a tendency to judge long-term structural change by immediate household pain alone.

An honest footnote followed, indicating that actors in the current government had run the same playbook as the opposition under earlier regimes. To a lesser degree, they added daily volatility, political framing, selective reporting, and the understandable impatience of citizens living through the adjustment.

But some things are not noise. They are too real to ignore, and we can use a few as examples, including matters such as the mental incongruence of deploying a utility service within a geographical space and calling it Band A+B+C+D to serve not as a resolution but a band-aid to an inefficient model, more like an open social-experiment tax on households and businesses. Another is the gap between the rate of increase in expenses and the stagnation of wages, the growing income and wealth inequality, and the heightened state of fear and paralysis in the face of insecurity, to mention a few.

Each of these examples adds a layer to the TRUST DEFICIT, and that deficit clouds the very thing reform demands: the ability to recognise AND separate gains, pain, and fear as equal parts of the same process.

So beneath, within, and above the noise, the more important question stands. Is the economy being repositioned to produce, compete, and endure enough to become an investment, production, jobs, and lasting relief?

From the work we have done thus far, stabilisation is often visible in the hard indicators as seen in confidence restored (globally), fiscal and monetary imbalances contained, markets working better, buffers rebuilt, and prices made credible again. These are not easy accomplishments, and cannot be wished away.

Transformation, on the other hand, takes longer. It is reflected in productivity, investment, jobs, industrial capacity, exports, infrastructure, institutions, and whether households and businesses can plan with confidence in a secure environment.

Thus, when a renewed-hope agenda is sold without milestones and guardrails, it is also par for the course to challenge/attack it.

The fix is not louder slogans. Plans and communication must be sequenced around citizen engagement, or they invite the very noise the Govt complains about.

That said, the heavy lifting so far has been highly commendable. The task now is the last mile, to redirect the messaging, sequencing, and conduct towards it. We all have a role to play in getting us to the promised land, our differences notwithstanding. The project is in Nigeria, not a party or entity.

–Olufemi Awoyemi is the Founder and Chairman of Proshare