Rights activist Prof Chidi Odinkalu has fired back at Anambra State Governor Prof Chukwuma Soludo over his recent statements, claiming that the entire Southeast economy only contributes 7.9% to the GDP of Nigeria, compared to Lagos State, the Niger Delta, and Abuja.
Soludo had, at a recent public function in Awka, the state capital, argued that if other major regions and cities were to shut down, Nigeria would be affected because they contribute a major percentage to the GDP of the country.
The governor noted that the same is not the case for the Southeast, adding that ‘even if it falls under a volcanic eruption tomorrow, the economy of Nigeria will not be affected.’
He said, ‘Nigerians will only see the collapse as a human disaster and move on with their lives unperturbed because the Southeast brings nothing but 8%.’
Reacting to the governor’s comments, Odinkalu insisted that in a country with unreliable statistics in which informal economies account for over 70% of productivity and employment, it is dangerous to formulate such kinds of arguments based on GDP numbers for the formal economies.
He maintained that what Governor Soludo achieves through his argument is to promote or excuse irresponsibility as a directive principle of state policy.
According to him, section 17(2)(c) of the 1999 Constitution requires that governmental actions shall be humane, while the provision before that equally requires the actions of government to be measured with reference to their capacity to promote the dignity of all citizens.
“That is not accomplished by telling any part of the country that they’re expendable. It is not politics, not economics, not law, and not political economy.
“I am obviously not making an argument in support of Monday sit-at-home, and I certainly have no interest in doing that.
“But when people are complaining of inequity, it is not an effective or useful response to tell them they are useless and irrelevant, especially when they are in a country that has demonstrated an incapacity and unwillingness to care,” he said.
Odinkalu observed that the problem with econometrics is the reduction of human issues to numbers only, noting that numbers do not always explain every human situation.
Noting that the Southeast accounts for about 15% of Nigeria’s population, Odinkalu argued that if the region produces a mere 8% of the GDP as the Governor claims, that must make the region the place with the least productive human beings in Nigeria.
That, he said, is clearly an unsupportable claim and makes the governor’s claims false.
“The corollary of Governor Soludo’s point must be that Nigeria calibrates its response to insecurity in any part with reference to the economic or political significance of that part to the wider country.
“So, can we then find out which part the country has responded to effectively?
“Maybe it is North-West with a reported 29% of the population?
“Or Southwest, the economic behemoth of the country, where kids have been kidnapped, and their teachers beheaded, and the regime is asleep? By the way, in case no one has noticed, there are active abductions occurring routinely in 4 of the 6 states in at least the Southwest. The gateway city of Ilorin is significantly shut down by the activities of terrorists.
“Maybe it is in the reputed breadbasket of the Middle Belt?
“Or perhaps it is in the regional borderlands of the Northeast which has been aflame for the better part of 2 decades?
“The Niger Delta may appear mostly stabilized, but that is through pipeline security contracts to the militants, who are the cause of the insecurity there. That is not an effective response; it’s sovereign capitulation,” he said.
The right activist, while insisting that there is no evidence to support the thesis of the Soludo argument, said what appears evident and has not changed is that the Nigerian state is historically dissolute.
