Dr. Chike Obidigbo is the MD/CEO of Hardis and Dromedas Limited, Enugu, an indigenous manufacturing concern that manufactures a wide range of beauty care, health and hygiene products. A notable industrialist, Obidigbo is a council member of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (Man) and a former vice president of Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industries Mines and Agriculture (Eccima). He took part in all the brain storming sessions aimed at moving Nigeria’s businesses and economy forward. Recently, he spoke to BusinessWorld’s associate editor, CHRIS UBA, on wide-raging issues that bother on the economy, among others. Excerpt.

You are always talking of full employment. Is this really possible during an economic downturn which has been adjudged as not favourable to full employment?
EMPLOYMENT does not necessarily mean that everybody must be fully or gainfully employed. There are those that have sustainable employment, there are those that are over worked, there are those who are due to incapacitation are not employable  at all.  What we are talking about is a sizeable per centage of employment opportunities for able bodied member of the community.

Is the kind of employment you are talking aboutrelated to job in a factory or agriculture?
Well, you see, we live in a society and the society in which we live every member is supposed to be making some contribution for the well-being of the entire society. Whether somebody is employed in a ministry or is a factory worker or is self-employed, the whole idea is that everybody should engage in a kind of productive venture that will help to move the economy forward. Because, all over the world, countries are rated based on their abilities to utilize the available labour. That is workforce.  They are identified either as superior or inferior because of the level of productivity within their economies.
The biggest problem we have in Nigeria is that the economy is already too low even before we started talking of global economic downturn. Nigeria’s economy has remained nothing. Absolutely nothing because we have a lot of young people who are rooming the streets. We also have a lot of elderly people who ought to be producing something no matter how minimal to support the overall economy. But these people are not being utilised and they are just wasting. When labour is considered wasting it means that labour is consuming out of the little that the rest is producing. Therefore, there cannot be any meaningful economic growth.

They are the issues of pervasive poverty and gross underdevelopment in the country. What do you think is responsible for these?
Well, the area in which I am knowledgeable is the area of productivity. The government has shown no interest. In the area of productivity.  And you cannot talk about the economy being viable when the able bodied members of the society are idle and wasting. We are in a system where it is very difficult and almost impossible when majority of the people think for themselves. It doesn’t have to be so. Government has to do much of the thinking, which is the level of thinking that will carry along everybody. But unfortunately, the government is not doing that and the small productive sector we have is diminishing by the day because of the same lack of interest. The same lack of care by people in authority.

The productive sector of any economy includes the manufacturing sector. What do you think the government should do to enliven this vital sector?
Well, if I am to speak, I will not say what they have not done properly. I will say  they have done absolutely nothing. The government has done nothing for two reasons. One,   total lack of interest and two, because the government does not see itself as having the responsibility to create opportunities for the people. That is why they don’t have any sensible statistics or data on employment in this country.
If you ask me, I will say that more than 70 per cent of employable people in this country are unemployed. So, you can imagine the situation where more than 70 per cent of the people, 30 per cent is producing for the economy.  There can be no economic growth and this is what is keeping us down.

Why is the manufacturing sector not doing well in this country compared to its counterparts in Europe, America and Asia?
It is not only the manufacturing sector that is not doing well in this country. The agricultural sector is also not doing well. Even our so-called oil and gas industry is not dong so well because from the situation on ground we are not collecting as much revenue we deserve because of the corrupt and illegal dealings that are going on in the industry. But on manufacturing specifically, the problem is that the government in creating jobs for the young people. Every year, thousands of young people are shut out of the university system and there is no plan whatsoever on how to accommodate them.
If you at the budgets of this country you will see that there is no provision made for the manufacturing sector of the economy. There is provision. And the manufacturing is the sector that has the capacity to provide the much needed employment opportunities that we need in this country.  But because the government is not interested in providing employment for the young people they have no interest in manufacturing. Because government understands that the job of creating employment is so enormous that no government can do it alone, they solicit and encourage the participation of the private sector and that private is the manufacturing. Everyone that is engage in manufacturing in this country is like someone who is swimming against the tide. It is a question of the before the tide washes everyone of use away.
Those ones that seem to be surviving,  have a lot of funding outside the country. Some of them borrow their money from outside Nigeria at very low interest rate. Some of them collect their raw materials directly from the suppliers on credit and they come here they process and they sell to our people and repatriate their profit and pay very little by way of interest and commission. But there is no body that is thinking, nobody that is planning, nobody that is caring about what we are doing here. We are on our own.
All over the world the manufacturing sector is regarded as the prime sector of the economy. It is the sector that energizes the economy. Whenever the manufacturing sector is low, that economy must remain low. And that is why, even the oil producing countries of the world, when they sell their oil they use the money from oil exports to energize the other productive sectors of the economy specifically the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. But in Nigeria, it is not so. Absolutely nothing has been done by the government   present and past to enhance the operations and activities of the manufacturing sector. And so long as it remains so, all these problems will always remain with us coupled with all the social dangers that emanate from non availabilities of the opportunity.

In concrete terms how can Nigeria become a productive nation?
Well, to become a producing country is not difficult. It is a question of leadership because our leaders do not appreciate the need for them to set up, encourage and sustain productive activities. This is simply because they don’t think they owe a responsibility to the people they are ruling. If the leaders will understand that they have a responsibility to create and provide sustainable employment opportunity for the young ones, then they will start asking questions, where will the jobs come from? And once they start  asking this question, the answer will come up almost immediately and that is to say it is only the productive sector of the economy that has the capability to change the face of our economy. And that will only happen when our leaders understands this.
Generally, it is known that the private sector should be ahead because you cannot spearhead on nothing, the government will provide the infrastructure which they have totally and woefully failed to provide. There is no way you can talk of production, when the energy sector is dead. Our power sector is an embarrassment, infact, a national disgrace and NEPA for example has killed more industries than any other arm of government. So, until we start to think about the nation and not just what we gain as leaders, what goes into our pocket, but how to boost  the economy, how to put bread on tables of our families, that will be when we start thinking about manufacturing and of course the agricultural sector.

How is the global economic meltdown affecting manufacturers in the South-east   part of the country?
Even before the global economic crisis, manufacturers in the South-east have suffered from the disequilibrium. That is to say a lot of facilities and the infrastructure that are marginally available in some other parts of the country are totally absent within the Southeast.
Whether it is by deliberate design I don’t know but we all know that the energy supply in the South east is extremely very poor and unreliable and that is why you find some medium and small scale manufacturing units relocating to other states like Delta, Rivers, even to Akwa Ibom because the southeast is where we have the worst case of energy supply. The security of lives and investments is lowest in the Southeast. All the factors of production are totally lacking within the South east. Whether it is a deliberate design to forestall the progress that the Igboman wants to make or not, in the productive sector, I do not t know but I know we have suffered terribly way and our governments do not even understand what is happening.

What role do you think private economic groups like the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ECCIMA) can play to help government achieve  the Vision 2020 project?
It is very difficult because, first, we have a government that does not listen to advice. Our government has mouth to speak and when you want to speak back to them, they are not interested; they don’t listen so it is very difficult. When you talk about government-private sector participation, which is a partnership, that is virtually impossible because the public sector is not interested in what the private sector is doing. That is why even the organised private sector cannot influence government decision in anyway because the government doesn’t take them into reckoning; they just decide what they want and push you down the line.
So, concerning this so-called Vision 2020 nobody can say he has felt any effect because when you talk about a vision that will terminate in 2020 for example, it means that every year, there will be a programme, there will be a project within the first one year and in subsequent years until you get to 2020.
But can we say we have seen anything on the ground? We have not seen anything on the ground to show that something is happening about the so-called vision 2020. And I don’t believe in it because you cannot talk about vision 2020 when you have no programmes on the ground for food security, generation of employment opportunities, for the banks to be supportive of the private sector, for the government corrupt tendencies to at least be reduced to a reasonable extent. So with all these problems in place, there is nothing like vision 2020, it exists only in name.

How can we get the right people to run the government?
As a matter of fact it is very difficult. It was the former governor of Imo State, late Sam Mbakwe who suggested that we should import management of this country. But it is not a laughing matter because in Nigeria here we have people who can move this country forward. But these Nigerians can never be allowed to get in there because corruption has fenced out our state houses. Corruption has eaten deep into the process of election and selection in Nigeria. So there is no way correct people can get into power because they will not be allowed to get in there. And as long as we are having this kind of leadership which is all over the place, we are not going to make any meaningful move at all.
I am very sorry to say that but I have no hope and belief that even this present administration can move this country forward because I don’t see the capacity, I don’t see the strength of character and we need a very strong properly focused administration not only in the states but especially at the federal level down the line, then things will start changing. It is only in Nigeria you see people who steal the peoples’ money to no end.

Would you say that the SME’s sector  in the country is adding value to GDP growth like its counterparts in other parts of the world?
Well the SMEs are the worst in the problems that are militating against the real sector because they are regarded as baby industries. Majority of them are indigenous and they have many problems which include lack of skills, lack of knowledge and lack of manufacturing confidence. In fact, their management is characterized by trial and error. There is no school where they can go to acquire knowledge on how to run their businesses.
That is why the failure rate of the SMEs is the highest in the country. If statistics is available, its mortality rate is the highest in the world. Because the sector is   not equipped, they are not prepared; they are also not supported by the government, they are not encouraged by anybody.
When SMEs come on board, and they fold up, nobody cares. If somebody sets up a small business today, and employs about 10 people and the next year, the business collapses, nobody cares. The fact that 10 people have lost their jobs doesn’t mean anything to anybody in government.  They don’t care. Because, if they care, they should find out ways and means of supporting and sustaining especially, these SMEs because they are the indigenous ones, they are the ones that need help not the multinationals that already have everything that they need. They have all the help that they require.

You heard the industry and commerce minister talking about industrial cluster .What is your view on that?
I am sorry to say this; the minister doesn’t know what he was talking about. Because, he has no knowledge of what he was talking about. He has no experience of what he was talking about industrial cluster because he has heard other people talk for about industrial cluster. I am very sorry to say that. This is one of the problems we have in this country.
When you talk about industrial cluster, I have had the privilege of being to a   number of these industrial clusters out side this country. I know what is involved. And I know that it cannot work in this country unless the raw materials industries are here in abudence.