It was a dreadful evening on October 20th, 2020, when the army unleashed fire on peaceful protesters at the Lekki toll gate on the island of Lagos, Nigeria.
Protesters had come out to decry police brutality against youth nationwide. The youth also voiced their anger against bad governance, pointing out inadequate healthcare, education, electricity, transportation, job opportunities, and an increasing rate of poverty in the country.
For instance, in 2020, the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria allocated approximately 43 percent of the Nigerian budget for recurrent expenditure. The future of education has gone beyond brick and mortar to virtual and personalized learning, but the federal government and the University Association battle over staff salaries while holding students back with a dilapidated educational system.
In the World Bank’s 2020 ease of doing business index, Nigeria ranks 131st, which positions it far into the bottom half of all ranked countries. This jeopardizes the faith of potential investors from exploring the wealth of the nation and redistributing it to the economy.
Despite the fact that our nation-state is failing, over years we have seen our people emerge as warriors with entrepreneurial initiatives to fill in the gaps. Andela solved the problem of unemployment in the tech ecosystem by training and paying people with programming skills. Cowrywise, Piggyvest are encouraging the average Nigerian to understand the importance of personal savings and promoting this lifestyle through their platform. Nigerians have options to invest in the stock exchange market through applications like Chaka, Bamboo, and Trove. Paga perhaps was the first mover in solving the problem of financial inclusion. Microtraction, Future Africa, Greenhouse Capital, Venture Gardens, and a host of Angel networks are backing early stage entrepreneurs who are solving our country’s wicked problems. Co-creation Hub has always been a community of hope with their STEM and Syndicate program. Utiva and Edubridge are helping bridge the gap between 21st century skills and industry demands. We’ve also seen women entrepreneurs emerge like Fara of Okra and Odun of Piggyvest, Dr. Ola Brown among many others raising the bar in the startup ecosystem.
With all the “Zero to One’s” recorded in our ecosystem, we haven’t actually seen the tremendous impact we wanted these initiatives to have in the economy. We’d imagined that through these tech innovations and the capacity of the service sector, our economy would have boomed. Personally, I felt we should have seen a boom in the Nigerian economy.
But what stifles this tremendous impact we desire? Governance — the rule of law. Our government can either minimally improve our lives or make our lives dramatically worse. The measure of your well being perhaps is not what you have at your disposal, but rather your health itself. The same principle applies to governance. The government prides itself with the fact that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, has an emerging economy with great potential, has a large market share, and comes with the tag “Giant of Africa”. But, come to think of it, what is the health of our dear nation-state? By health, I’m referring to the value of a nation’s institutions, which is measured by the rule of law. When a government is unpredictable and opts to take coercive measures in some instances and not others, how can an individual navigate his or her activities without fear of repercussions?
The World Bank makes a strong case that the value of institutions, as measured by rule of law, accounts for the largest source of wealth in the world, even more than natural resources, material goods, remittances, etc. This reveals that there’s a direct relationship between governance and the prosperity of a nation. For us to prosper, institutions must be adaptable to change.
However, implementing rules that appeal to the entire government will be cumbersome and unrealistic because efforts will be defeated by tribalism, lack of funding, delayed implementation, corruption, opportunism, regulatory capture, among other reasons. We can offer more choices to people through competitive governance, which entails building a charter city, a special jurisdiction with its own set of rules that are independent of the rules of a host nation. An example is Hong Kong in China, a special charter with its own set of laws formulated to drive economic growth in China and prosperity for its people. Similar models exist in Shenzhen and Shanghai, which are successful today. These special economic zones (SEZs) transformed China into the economic powerhouse we see today. Singapore and Dubai have similarly successful SEZs.
These examples offer a glimmer of hope for those of us who seek better governance, as we can obtain better governance through competitive governance in the form of charter cities. The charter city structure is not meant to fight against the current government, rather it provides an alternative that complements the existing government. It is an alternative that thrives under public-private partnership.
With this model, we can have special jurisdictions that adopt best practices in trade activities, innovation, governance, and law, and establish an enabling environment for businesses to overcome political and economic barriers that commonly stifle reform efforts in host nations.
We can have charter cities with their own governments, where transnational trade and financial and economic activities thrive. New cities designed to improve our rank in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, thereby promoting growth through the inflow of investment and creation of jobs. A place with state of the art facilities centered around sustainability and environmental protection, where people can live, work, and play.
Written by Cesare Adeniyi-Martins
