If Peter Obi is elected Nigerian President, will he be a Communist, Liberalist or Neoliberalist?

Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, delivered his speech as expected at Chatham House in the United Kingdom. Like in other places and forums where he campaigned prior to his House speech on January 26th, the former governor cited his bad leadership and poor governance discourses as factors contributing to Nigeria’s various socioeconomic challenges.

In this piece, our analyst examines his potential economic and political ideologies if elected president after the election on February 25th. Mr Peter Obi appears to align with liberalism and communism ideologies more than neoliberalism ideology, according to 22 extracts considered by our analyst from his speech, which has 2, 728 words.

Liberalism ideology implies that Nigerians should expect a president who will work to secure individual rights, liberty, and the consent of the people. During his presentation, his alignment with the ideology suggests that he would ensure equality before the law. Nigerians should also expect a president whose goal is to lead a country with socioeconomic policies centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that distributes products to everyone.

Exhibit 1: Core words in his speech

Liberalism

1. It is for this change that my vision of policy change and institutional development is rooted in the push for a broadened scope of social mobility and freedom for Nigerians, particularly our children and youth.
2. We will patriotically reform our institutions particularly ones directly responsible for implementing Government policies to make them fit for purpose.
3. We count ourselves honoured to be trusted especially by the youths, to lead this democratic revolution and we deeply pledge to do so with sincerity, accountability and unquenchable love and desire for a better Nigeria.
4. We are determined to do everything that needs to be done to rescue and lead our beloved country to prosperity, freedom, security and peace. We will use merit to assemble competent Nigerians from all sections of Nigeria to form an effective Government of National Unity.
5. We will turn our youth bulge to a demographic dividend, rather than today’s harvest of a time bomb of violence and insecurity from the uneducated, unemployed and marginalised.
6. …by pursuing a robust reform of the security governance structure with a strong coordinating mechanism that assures that all levels of government – federal, state, and local (with 3-level policing structure) – are aligned with strong collaboration with partners from both the private sector and development groups to provide the required services and deliver results for every Nigerian.
7. Our Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) will be robustly supported. Further borrowing will be strictly for productive purposes.
8. We will enforce the principle of performance auditing and institutionalize monitoring and evaluation process of the entire public service delivery as the primary means of actualizing our vision of a new Nigeria.
9. For the avoidance of doubt, we will collaborate with the Central Bank of Nigeria for the transparent liberalization of the foreign exchange market and the dismantling of the opaque multiple exchange rate regime which effectively subsidises a few privileged persons.
10. We will also seek to boost the supply side, rather than continuing to concentrate exclusively on demand management of the foreign exchange market.
11. We will support local manufacturing capacity of power technologies and encourage and expand local R&D in universities, training centres, and workshops through which many jobs will be created.
12. In line with this commitment to transform our educational sector, we will prioritize the funding of this critical sector. Our tertiary institutions will be remodelled to serve as hubs or centres for research, development, and commercialisation of ideas for the quick industrialization of Nigeria.
13. “Conduct an afro-centric diplomacy that protects the rights of Nigerian citizens abroad and advances the economic interests of Nigerians and Nigerian businesses in a changing world”.

Communism

1. “Shift emphasis from consumption to production by running a production-centered economy that is driven by an agrarian revolution and export-oriented industrialization”.
2. …we will pursue an agricultural revolution through proper segmentation of Nigeria to activate and harness the factor endowments of different parts of the country for both rapid and mechanized agricultural development and as a pillar for Nigeria’s other sectoral development and industrialization.
3. We will incentivise and invest in agro-cluster and industrial cluster development across our geo-resource zones to take advantage of agglomeration and scale effects particularly in North-West, North-East and North-Central regions of Nigeria.
4. …we will ensure that reforms are pursued in a way that protects the livelihood of our hardworking and efficient civil servants.
5. We will embark on effective macro-economic and fiscal restructuring to quickly restore fiscal viability by discontinuing unaffordable subsidies which have left a black-hole in government finances.
6. When unaffordable subsidies are removed, some carefully calibrated transfers will be used to cushion any adverse impact on the economically weak.
7. We will support local manufacturing capacity of power technologies and encourage and expand local R&D in universities, training centres, and workshops through which many jobs will be created.

Neoliberalism

1. We will employ entrepreneurial governance to dismantle impediments to free trade and ease of doing business and implement radical economic policies that will drastically reduce our debt service – a major drain on government revenue today.
2. “Build expansive infrastructure for efficient power supply, rail, road and air transportation, and pipeline network, through integrated public-private partnerships, and entrepreneurial public sector governance”.