Restructuring governance (3)

The question was: if we reduce the cost of governance to 10% of each annual Budget, what do we do with the remaining 90%?

And the answer: that we would use it for massive investments in six major fields. Last week we considered Security; Infrastructure; and Industry. Today we will consider Education; Health; and Social Welfare.

4. EDUCATION:

• A well trained, well paid, highly motivated and disciplined army of teachers at all levels. Teachers are among every nation’s most important resource.

• Free nursery and primary education.

• Free secondary education including vocational/technical.

• Free tertiary education. If poor Cuba can organize and afford free education at all levels, why can’t oil-rich Nigeria?

• All tertiary institutions (polytechnic, university, university of technology, college of education, etc.) shall be ranked the same, with none “more equal” than any other. Their basic entry requirements shall be the same, varied only by demonstrated aptitude for the intended field of study. They shall all confer a bachelors degree (B.A., B.Sc., B.Tech., B.Ed., etc.) after 4-5 years of successful undergraduate study. And the government-mandated salary profile shall be the same for all graduates, varied only by supply and demand.

Major emphasis of our education shall be on the training up of a workforce in the following fields, in order of priority:

• The manufacturing sciences—technology, engineering, design, experimental/applied science

• Agriculture—large scale & mechanized, plant and animal husbandry, food storage, processing & marketing

• The medical sciences—physicians/doctors of different specialties, nurses, lab technicians, etc.

• Economics, including political economy (government), urban & regional planning, accounting, finance & banking, business management, entrepreneurship

[I put forward similar proposals on tertiary education 25 years ago, in three newspaper articles: “Discrimination Against Polytechnics,” “Restructuring Higher Education,” and “The Content of Higher Education” (The Guardian, Sept 16, 23 & 30, 1984). Perhaps it’s time to revisit education in detail.]

5. HEALTH:

• Free health care for all. We should study and adapt the “socialized medicine” systems of the UK, EU, Canada, and Cuba. Though a poor country, Cuba has a health care system that not only rivals these others in quality but also is entirely free

• Hospitals, clinics and maternities that are well built and well equipped, staffed with doctors, nurses and technicians that are well trained and well paid

• If you insist on private hospital, you pay the difference

• Our hospitals, including university teaching hospitals, can be “centres of excellence” in different specialties

• Taken together, our hospitals should be good enough to treat our presidents and everyone else, making “medical tourism” abroad unnecessary

6. SOCIAL WELFARE:

A “welfare state,” by whatever name, is what Nigeria needs. Again, that’s one good thing we can copy from the UK, the Scandinavian countries and most of the EU. Those who scorn and disparage the “welfare state” are usually the rich and hope-to-be-rich, plus the rabid right-wing ultra-conservatives of the United States. When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced “social security” in 1935, they called him all sorts of socialist-communist-son-of-a-bitch names. Today, Americans can’t live without “social security”; no one wants to see it collapse, as it threatens to. In addition, America’s decades-old but much disparaged “Welfare” system represents a big chunk of the “welfare state”; and their recently instituted “universal health insurance” (obamacare) brings them right up to the threshold of the “welfare state.” One more step and they are in!

All this by way of providing context for our discourse.

• “Social security” is simply a government-guaranteed old age pension, funded partly by government and partly by compulsory monthly payments into the system by every worker, including the self-employed.

Nigerians cannot continue to depend exclusively on the Extended Family system to care for their old folks.

Social security funds are set aside and “untouchable,” not invested in any stock market; that way, they are guaranteed to be available when needed. Each retiree, at age 62 or 65, receives, for the balance of his or her life, a monthly payment “proportionate” to the amount he/she paid into the system during their working years. In other words, the more you paid in, the more you now receive. If you should die before a certain age, a portion continues to be paid to your under-age children to ensure that they don’t lack in shelter, food, clothing, health care and education.

• Disability insurance to provide for those rendered unable to work by some accident or illness. To be funded jointly by employee, employer, and government.

• Pension: funded either entirely by employer or jointly by employee and employer. Nigeria already has it—but too many employers fail to remit the monthly premiums. Strict enforcement is what is needed.

Taken together, social security, disability insurance, and pension will provide the retired working population a decent living in their old age, reducing considerably the present financial burdens on Extended Family members.

Is all of this possible in Nigeria? Of course it is. You have to understand that Nigeria is one of the wealthy nations of the world. Doesn’t look like it, does it? But if those other nations can do it, we can too. What we need is the political will.

                              • Concluded

Onwuchekwa Jemie