Another major constraint to the adoption of cassava in flour production is the issue of quality. Only a negligible proportion of cassava flour produced in Nigeria meets the international quality standard for human consumption and industrial use, especially in terms of moisture, impurities and cyanide contents.The reasons are not far-fetched: the clumsy nature of the product itself and the quality of processing equipments used by the farmers. Cassava is bulky and it ferments very quickly if not processed immediately after harvest. The challenge of transportation that confronts the Nigerian farmer does not help this situation, neither is the prohibitive cost of importing processing equipments. Smaller equipments that could be fabricated locally are not available at affordable costs, no thanks to the infrastructural bottlenecks such as lack of electricity (power) and basic iron and steel raw materials. Ameliorating these bottlenecks with a clear plan of action should be our priorities now if we want to have motion with movement, not that cassava bread is a possibility. As an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan many years ago, one of my professors, who is now a National Merit Award Winner taught us about many determinants of the focus of economic policy, one of which is the personal/private interest of the formulators, which is usually and smartly disguised as altruistic interest, and I think this is our major challenge in Nigeria. The way to appreciate this is to go beyond the general statements of policy objectives to see the programme contents highlighted to achieve the objectives. Then it will be clear that the usual Nigerian statement: 'we always have good policies; the problem is with implementation' is not altogether true. While there may true implementation capacity issues, there are also strong issues of formulation and disguised private interests. Or how do we reconcile the concessioning of Nigeria's motor assembly plants with raising to 15 years the age of used cars that can be imported as well as the unbridled importation of all brands of new cars' Or the achievement of 9.5 percent inflation with the removal of fuel subsidy as the President indicated in his 2012 budget presentation' Has the government developed an alternative to road transportation that will curtail the cost-push inflationary pressure that fuel subsidy withdrawal will produce' That is the danger of economic policies that are partial rather holistic in focus and consideration.From some of the revelations at the Senate petroleum sector probe, it has become clear that even the policy to remove fuel subsidy is based on general (rather than empirically verifiable) facts. And that is why it has been easier to understand the factual and more logical case against the removal of petroleum subsidy than government's case for the removal. How, for example, can someone say that Nigerians are not benefitting from fuel subsidy, when everybody has become a local government of its own, providing facilities that are taken for granted in other climes! Who does not use petrol in Nigeria today (yes: I mean petrol, not kerosene)' The subsidy is expensive; yes. There are slippages; yes. There are abuses; yes. Nigeria is subsidising her neighbours who buy smuggled petrol; yes but Nigeria is also wasting more resources in the display of her 'big brother' stance in the sub-region, earning nothing in return. The question people have been asking is: do you strangulate your citizens because of the vices that have accompanied petroleum subsidies' Are there no better ways of keeping the people alive and well informed beyond merely telling them that whatever you do, you are doing in their interest'Some of the State Governors that were initially opposed to subsidy removal on the clear and indisputable premise that it will further impoverish Nigerians (all of whom have become private PHCNs) have suddenly discovered that subsidy removal is the best thing that should happen to Nigeria now. Do you know the reason for the sudden change' They have been told it will lead to larger revenue allocation to their coffers, even if the sharing formula remains the same. Who will not support a policy that promises him/her more allocations for items such as security votes and the like' One would have thought that the Governors would keep up their advocacy for a review of the revenue allocation formula, which unfairly skewed national resources towards a Federal centre that should, in a normal federation, be weaker than the States. The States are nearer the people, they feel the pulse of the people more closely, and they have more statutory roles that impact directly on the citizenry than the federal. The type of increase in fund allocation that they need is not from the removal of fuel subsidy but the one from an outright overhaul of the revenue allocation formula. Now the Federal Government will use more than 70 percent of its huge allocation to fund its handful of civil servants who, by a defect in the national constitution, pride themselves as superior to their State counterparts. Or how else would you explain the Federal Government's ability to implement the new national minimum wage while the States are scheming to further strangulate their citizens to generate more money to pay their workers' This is part of the major flaws in our constitution and economic policy framework that must be boldly confronted. The National Assembly should be part of this advocacy.There might have been some disappointments about the performance of the National Assembly in the past, but in all honesty, the Assembly is getting better by the day. They have demonstrated improved understanding of issues and have, to a large extent, taken the criticisms of Nigerians very seriously. But there are still issues of economic policy they should pay closer attention to. This includes probing into the economic rationale and detailed programme content behind federal budgetary allocations. It is weak and lame duck to equate budgetary spending to implementation. Funds should be traced to projects to which they are assigned; not in a sensational manner like the House of Representatives' power probe that was long in theatrical shows but short in visible results. Where clear cases of wastages have been found, whistles must be blown. Expectation of gratifications by the Distinguished and the Honourable; whether before, during or after budget formulation, implementation and monitoring; should be treated with a long pole.The fault or failure of economic policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria is not in our stars, but in us. We must not only know and say the right things; we must be willing and ready to do the right things. Nigeria needs an economic policy process that produces motions with movements, not a mountain of hard and boastful statements that are deficient in content and lacking in action. We have heard many of such statements on Boko Haram, arrest of decline in education standards, improvement in budget performance, etc. There is need for a change of gear. The National Assembly should start with a critical scrutiny of the 2012 budget. It must bring out for the world to see specific aspects of the budget that truly points Nigeria in the direction of 'Fiscal Consolidation, Inclusive Growth and Job Creation.' Nigerians are anxious to know how a budget so christened will materialise while the government continues to drive up interest rates with costly domestic borrowings; and when details about small business and entrepreneurship promotion (the primary antidote to insecurity) are left to our to our guesses while security, the 'effect' rather than the 'cause' of previous economic policy failure, has gotten the lion share of the budget. I hope there is a budget line within the huge security vote for community policing, because the capacity of the existing federal police has fallen far below what is needed to contain the existing security challenge.
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