By Femi Odere
The unveiling of the first ever Ekiti State Development Plan, 2021 to 2050, at the Abuja Transcorp Hotel on Tuesday, October 4, 2022 to the state’s development partners, and its launch in Ekiti State about a week later, precisely on Thursday, October 13, 2022 by His Excellency Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, the immediate past governor of Ekiti State, represents a significant milestone and a paradigm shift in the economic development trajectory of the state.
The birthing of what would henceforth be called The Plan is, without a doubt, a sure bet, and an iron-clad strategy for the state’s rapid economic emancipation. The Plan stands to also positively affect specifically, the growth narrative of the state if one should, as we must, take cognizance of the age-long truism that failure to plan – be it human or organizational entity – is tantamount to having planned to fail.
What’s even more significant in this state milestone is not only the acknowledgement of the state’s diasporic indigenes in The Plan, but the fact that an impressive 13 per cent of the capital infusion that’s needed in order to deem The Plan to have been successful at the termination of its shelf life in 2050 is expected to come from this critical mass of the state’s population outside its jurisdiction.
Therefore, the Ekiti Diaspora’s share of the overall capital injection into the state through The Plan is not only to underscore their importance in the state’s sustainable development, which one has made spirited efforts in the past that they must be included in the developmental architecture for the good of the state, but also the acknowledgement that their active participation in the development agenda of their place of origin is sine qua non.
Furthermore, The Plan now attests to the fact, which has been extensively documented in the developed and developing countries, that the Diaspora was, at the foundational levels of these countries’ development, indispensable to the growth of the now advanced countries, without whom it would have been almost impossible, if not extremely difficult, to have attained the higher developmental heights they now find themselves today.
It therefore goes without saying that an underdeveloped country such as Nigeria, or any of her sub-nationals that has set a serious developmental roadmap for itself, but has yet to figure out a way for its Diaspora to assist in its developmental journey has simply not started, no matter how far it thinks it has travelled. It’s as simple as that.
Although The Plan has dealt with the “who” by identifying the Diaspora as one of the critical stakeholders whence funds must be sourced for development. Their remittances have also been aptly pinpointed as the “what,” even when there are other subtle, but also enormous, revenue sources that are still embedded in this group. The “how” is just as important, and critically too.
One must hasten to say, however, that the reading of the 286-page Plan is yet to be completed as it’s possible that the aforementioned “how” are contained therein. If not, it is important to emphasize the absolute necessity of this “how” to the overall success of The Plan, which is the kernel of this piece.
To be sure, there are two components to this “how” as the third leg of the “who” and “what.” One of the components is the frameworks or mechanisms in terms of policy formulations and programmatic inventiveness that must be brought to bear for the effectiveness of the “how.” This can be seen as the tangibles. The other, which can be called the intangibles, but equally comparable in weight, and shall be explained presently with a few anecdotes, is the quality of the mindsets of those that must necessarily drive the Diaspora resource endowments into the state’s coffer. These two components are not mutually exclusive.
The focus of this piece, therefore, is not another attempt at iteration and/or pleading, as one has done in the past, but may still do as occasion demands, but that it’s in the enlightened self interest of the state to look seriously in the direction of its Diaspora for resource mobilization for sustainable growth and development. Rather, it’s an attempt one hopes would bring us to a better understanding of the role of the Diaspora, viz-a-viz state officials, in relation to this Plan, if the state must maximize its accruals from this critical mass.
Perhaps the best place to start this submission is to take a cursory look at how the Diaspora was described in The Plan, because failure to look at this definitional term with the “third eye” can affect the appropriateness of the policies and programmes that are necessary for harnessing the multiplicity of Diaspora resource endowments for development, thereby negatively impact the expected outcome.
After all, any challenge, idea, issue or even situation not properly contextualized and appropriately defined stands a good chance of miscarriage, no matter the mental and intellectual exertions put into it thereafter.
Going by Google definition, “Development Partner means a Third Party from whom a party either in-licenses a target for development and/or commercialization or with whom a party shares the economic risk of development or commercialization of a target or product being developed or commercialized on behalf of the applicable party.” The search engine also states that development partners can play in the socio-economic development of a developing country “through budgetary support, projects/programmes and technical assistance,” among other things.
From the above definitions, clearly from the latter, it can be seen that the Diaspora is sufficiently situated to be investors, as has been aptly identified in The Plan and development partners at the same time.
Since one doesn’t have to belabour himself again on the question of a Diaspora as an investor, because that has been adequately captured through remittances, and how this can be a change agent for the socioeconomic development of his home front, the emphasis here, it seems to me, is the role of the Diaspora as a development partner.
Judging from the role that the Diaspora can play, according to the above stated definition in the socio-economic development of their country, or her sub-nationals for that matter, “through budgetary support, projects/programmes and technical assistance,” one can cast his mind back to some of the things that the state’s Diaspora are already doing that qualifies them as development partners.
For example, the state’s Diaspora have been playing the three identified roles, perhaps without sufficient government awareness in, say, the education sector. Depending on the extent to which government is willing to engage them, the Diaspora can expand these roles in the education sector, because they’re already active in the sector mostly as groups or associations. This is one low hanging fruit that the government can conveniently pluck because they, the Diaspora, have, over the years demonstrated inordinate interest in uplifting the quality of education in the state through their alma maters.
If the government can demonstrate the willingness and seriousness to meet them halfway in what has almost become second nature to them, the resultant effect would be more injection of financial resources into the sector, while government would have increased latitude to channel funds into other sectors for other developmental purposes. The example that has been given here is not intended as a policy suggestion, although it can be configured to be such, it is to buttress the argument that the state’s Diaspora can conveniently be immersed into this dual role as both investors and development partners.
The unprecedented, eye-popping 13 per cent expected capital from the Diaspora to actualize The Plan, which, for all intents and purposes, has placed them among the First Eleven in their state’s development playing field, thereby acknowledging their being a collective force to be reckoned with, must also necessitate a paradigm shift on the part of government in terms of tactics and strategies that must be deployed in order to score this 13 per centage resource points. Critical thinking is of utmost necessity here.
As the immediate past holder of the Diaspora portfolio in the Fayemi administration, one had realized almost immediately after assuming office that the weight of the portfolio, as structured, was incommensurate with the weight of the Diaspora it was meant to shoulder, which was seen then as having the potential to negatively impact the outcome that one had envisioned. It was on the strength of this realization that a strong case was made to the former governor to have the portfolio reconfigured into a Commission, or a Bureau at the very least.
Even though it took very little time for the former governor to be convinced about the need for this reconfiguration, COVID-19 had something else in mind as it said, ‘hey pal; not so fast.’
Aside the COVID-19 pandemic that significantly slowed down the process of this reconfiguration, perhaps the lack of understanding of what Diaspora truly entails in the state’s development scheme of things by government officials and even senior colleagues, whose personal interventions and/or the buy-in of their ministries were critical to the reconfiguration, was mind-boggling.
Despite the fact that one had painstakingly put a 12-page “Ekiti Diaspora Commission Proposed Law 2022” together, a commissioner had expressed his view in a conversation which one could only summarize to mean that he didn’t give much stock to the Diaspora relative to the state’s development aspiration. One hopes that his view has now been modified by virtue of the prominent place that has been accorded the Diaspora in The Plan.
Having tried my possible best to bring the Commission into fruition in order to be recorded as one of the legacies of the Fayemi administration, and yes, to also add an important feather to my public career hat, the commission remains an “unfinished business” for me that should be revisited as a matter of priority by His Excellency Governor Biodun Oyebanji, moreso now that the state’s diaspora is key to the state’s development aspiration.
The critical role that have been conffered on the Diaspora by virtue of the definitional terms into which they fall in the state’s new development paradigm now makes it crucially important for government officials and political appointees to be apprised of the importance of this resource pool by the Chief of State himself.
As a further testament to the serious lack of understanding of the Diaspora, one was taken aback, if not perturbed, but had to laugh it off, when a very senior cabinet member of the previous government mentioned in passing during a conversation that he thought former Governor Fayemi just wanted to find something for one of his loyal friends when my announcement to oversee the Diaspora portfolio was made. He said he only had a better understanding of the portfolio with the moves one was making and the calls that enhanced the administration from friends and diasporic indigenes across continents.
Although an honest confession, one wondered then how many others in his rank are of this mindset that may have necessitated perceived lukewarmness for the portfolio. But what he did not know, perhaps until now, should this piece find its way to him, is the fact that my appointment was principally on account of a 142-page policy document I had written on the Diaspora of a South-West state, not Ekiti, that I had given to the then Honourable Minister Fayemi in his Ibadan redoubt to assist me in submitting to the governor of that state, more than finding something for his loyal friend.
The then federal minister had asked, on being presented the document, whether one had brought, jokingly, his dissertation for marking. The retort then was quite on the contrary, but that I just wanted to prove a point.
In retrospect now, one may not have been able to deny it were it to be said that one perhaps have a special kind of insanity lurking somewhere in the brain, struggling to find expression. Otherwise, why would anyone write 142-page on anything just to prove a point? How about a commissioner whose ministry was critical to pushing the commission envelope who spoke condescendingly to me as if I had come to beg him to do the Diaspora a favour rather than the other way round?
The point here, however, is that the mindset with which state officials apply into the Diaspora portfolio can make or mar its effectiveness in the overall development of the state. Government officials should not only see the Diaspora as sine qua non to the development of the state as they see Finance, Agriculture, Trade and Investment ministries, etcetera, but Diaspora portfolio should be seen as a specialized one that should be accorded higher priority.
Moreover, whosoever must drive the Diaspora agenda in order to realize the stated goal in The Plan must not only think without a box, but s/he must be imbued with the right policy frameworks and programmatic inventiveness that must necessarily engender higher participation of the state’s Diaspora communities across the world.
The stakes are higher now that the state has decided to officially factor its diasporic indigenes into its developmental architecture with the 13 per cent capital that has been assigned to them in the state Development Plan. Time is therefore of the essence, because a 30-year period in the life a state is, quite frankly, very short.
•Odere, a former Senior Special Assistant, SSA, to former governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, on Diaspora Affairs, writes from Iropora-Ekiti, and can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com.
