Premium Times columnist dissects why Nigerian economic policies keep failing

In a column published today, Premium Times editorial board member Uddin Ifeanyi argues that Nigeria's recurring policy failures—from fuel subsidies to minimum wage hikes—stem from politicians' fundamental misunderstanding of economics and their conservative grip on cultural practices that veto modern development choices.

Ifeanyi traces the pattern to the Gowon era's 'Udoji Award' wage increases, which triggered inflation not from the payments themselves but from foreign companies raising prices. Since then, successive governments have financed spending through central bank money printing rather than productive revenue, distorting allocative efficiency whether through subsidies that create perverse incentives or tax hikes that suppress consumer spending and business investment.

The column identifies a deeper structural problem: Nigerian politicians conserve 'cultural and traditional practices that are in our current context the moral equivalent of surrendering to long-dead black men a veto over the choices we make today.' Ifeanyi distinguishes between culture's 'beautiful parts' (belonging in museums) and 'useful parts' that could serve as Archimedean levers for development—if leaders had the self-awareness to tell the difference.

The analysis draws on Keynes, Marx, and Bismarck to show that effective government intervention requires thinking that Nigerian policymakers consistently lack, suggesting the development challenge is intellectual before it is material.

For anyone trying to understand why Nigeria's economic interventions repeatedly backfire, this column provides the diagnostic framework: it's not just corruption or incompetence—it's a conservative political culture that treats inherited traditions as immutable constraints rather than tools to be reshaped.

SOURCE: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/920295-we-do-not-think-yet-here-we-are-by-uddin-ifeanyi.html