African countries, especially Nigeria should have a rethink on these contextual perspectives: Constitutional Democracy, Natural Resources Ownership, Privatization, Pandemic, Good Government, Public Administrative, People’s Equally Shared Prosperity and Well-being; All public and private corporations act on agency or shareholder’s interest. The perspective and all knowledge are well programmed to prioritize and value capital/asset and profits only but totally blinded to value people over their total well being.
We now witness the setback of over-monetization, privatization, globalization and kleptocracy that make way for governments to collaborate with rent seeker corporations and Financiers that are stripping off Public Asset for their own benefits. The public obligation and social responsibility previously under the supposed good governance are totally pushed away and magically disappeared. The consequences of this magical move lead to a huge build-up of responsibility gap that leftover and become a “nobody’s business”.
Let us lean back and rethink, while the natural wealth of a nation belongs to the people but not all people are shareholders of the national wealth. And let us question, what are these public and private corporation’s real shares?
Should they shoulder or absorb the losses beyond monetary values that are suffered by people in general? Let us question, is there any contribution in return from both public and private corporation to the public affairs and the society during any crises or pandemic? Let’s think about the government bailouts and all sorts of corruptions and public fund leakages.
Why does the taxpayer’s money have to shoulder the losses incurred by the failed government? Why then the profits (or kickbacks) from both public and private corporation end up in private pockets, but all government losses are for all general taxpayers to bear even at the expense of future generations. Public assets for private gains, such “pirate-tisation” are definitely a very good business at the expense of people’s rights and well-being.
How can we stay blinded with the magical push away of the public obligation of the government and social consequences of the privatization of public assets and over monetarised economy, kleptocracy in the era of globalization and post-globalization world? We can question, what is the correlation between the poorest beggar, the homeless, the underprivileged with the natural resources and national wealth?
Indeed, what is the actual proportion of the national wealth to be shared by every single person? We are in the critical time of rethinking what all these really mean for “nation-building”? What is the “people-centric” economy? We should not be fooling around with old knowledge that cannot catch up with all these new problems.
We need to think out of the box! What is the fair and effective solution really needed for equality and a fair share of resources and a prosperous economy for all people?
Dr Obuekwe Anizoba Tagbo
Research Assistant – Urban Analytics I / II
Hong Kong University [SAR]
Dr Obuekwe Anizoba Tagbo is a guest writer for 9News Nigeria
