Exactly how long is the ‘long run’?

The current buzz words used by political office holders at both the federal and state levels are that “things will be better in the long run”. Buzz words, often of little meaning, are also referred to as “media-speak”, “slogans”, or simply “jargon” and are used chiefly to impress laymen. Nigerians are urged to believe that […]

The current buzz words used by political office holders at both the federal and state levels are that “things will be better in the long run”. Buzz words, often of little meaning, are also referred to as “media-speak”, “slogans”, or simply “jargon” and are used chiefly to impress laymen. Nigerians are urged to believe that despite life being increasingly unbearable, things will somehow improve and eventually become better in the “long run”.

Back in 1960, Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $1,847, today it is $824. Rather than things getting better in the long run, Nigerians are economically worse off than 64 years ago! In addition to the nation’s increasing poverty levels, social indicators such as crime levels, dilapidated health, educational and road infrastructure, ethnic agitations, and political chicanery all point to the failure of governance and unfulfilled dreams of the nation’s founding fathers, 64 years after the nation started running!

Government’s pleas that citizens exercise patience, fortitude and sacrifice while waiting for long-run improvements in their lives, have elicited understandable public cynicism. Every post-independence government has promised Nigerians a better life in the long run, yet things continue to get markedly worse! The long run is an indeterminable time that is far away in the future. In political language, it simply means “eventually”.

It is deceitful for elected officials to inflict suffering based on promises that things will improve in the long run. They are elected for a term of four years, and none of them is sworn in “for the long run”! Aspirants to political office who cannot conceptualise and successfully implement improvements in citizens’ lives within a four-year period really have no business contesting, let alone winning.

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These days, state governors and presidents feel entitled to two terms even though there is no such thing as their much-touted “full eight-year term”. It is disingenuous for them to hide their shortcomings under the buzz words that things will get better in the “long run”.

Presidents and governors must abide by the imperativeness of improving things in the short term. The majority of Nigerians live below the international poverty line and do not live life in the “long run”. They know that the only certainty about the “long run” is death! They live life on a short-run, day-to-day basis. The appropriate form of good governance for Nigeria requires immediate short-term solutions, not long-term plans. If every government simply succeeds in improving lives in the short term, the long-term effect will be better lives for all.

Production engineers use a mathematical technique called linear programming to maximise constrained optimisation. This simply means it helps to find the best solution to a problem, which takes into consideration all constraints. The main constraint on Nigerian elected office is a four-year term. Winners are expected to be able to improve people’s lives within that period and have no business considering eight-year plans.

It is unfair for them to accumulate public wealth and expect citizens to suffer deprivations in the hope that things will get better at an indeterminable future time called the “long run”.

Nigeria has a history of development programmes that have led the nation nowhere in the long run; from the First National Development Plan (1962–1968); to the Second Third and Fourth (1970–1985); to the National Economic and Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS); to Vision 2020; then to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP); and now to the National Development Plan (2021–2025).

These plans failed due to a lack of clear communication, unrealistic goals, insufficient resources, poor execution, and most importantly, a failure to get key stakeholders, especially the general public, to buy into them. Despite current travails, World Bank economists assert that there are good reasons to believe that Nigeria has not yet hit rock bottom. As far as they are concerned, good times may not yet be around the corner, and the worst is likely yet to come because the major ill effects of today’s unaddressed problems will come in the future.

The unaddressed issues of brain drain, mass illiteracy, the failed anti-corruption war, failure to upgrade and properly equip police, continuing political chicanery and ever-expanding insecurity do not bode well for the future.

Life for Nigerians would definitely improve if only political office holders put their selfish interests aside and make a conscious effort to change things for the better one day at a time; but there is little evidence of that happening any time soon. The almost routine arrest of those who criticise the actions of government on the social media or query the logic of government policies means that the hope of experiencing an equitable, corruption free, secure, infrastructure structure blessed nation in the short-run span of our lives should be shelved while we continue to wait in vain for the promised el-dorado in an unspecified future time called the “long run”!.

Lamentably, it is difficult to see how things will improve in the long run. Today’s executive political leaders are primarily occupied in accumulating personal wealth, apportioning blame to predecessors, complaining about lack of funds, presiding over party infighting and scheming for re-election. If indeed there is a sensible plan to extricate Nigeria from its current mess in the long run, the majority is unaware of it, and is asking “exactly how long is the long run”?