Examining The Indian Economic Reforms Model

“On the contrary, many Diaspora Nigerians have been left to live and die with their ingenuities in their countries of residence. For example, Chatham House, UK which has become the political tourism destination for intending African leaders, especially Nigeria has a Nigerian as one of the members of the board. He is Kano state – born Professor Aliko Ahmed, the Regional Director of public Health in-charge of the whole of East England. Others like Phillip Emeagwali, the computer wizard and Akeem Olajuwon, a basketball maestro that dazzled the whole world with his skill at one time are not known to have had meaningful discussions with Nigeria towards bringing back their acquired skill and wealth to the country”.

According to a renowned American book author, public speaker and leadership couch, Brian Tracy; “If you do what successful people do, you will succeed and if you don’t, you won’t.” As the search for the remedies to Nigeria’s economic woes continue, time has come for the country’s leaders to begin to take serious look at the example of nations of the world that have faced similar challenges in the past.
In the 80s, India’s economy became so bad that she would have become bankrupt if nothing was done quickly to save the situation. One of the steps taken by the country was the election of a very experienced and tested leader to take over the mantle of leadership as the country’s Prime minister. The man, P. V Narasimha Rao became the Indian head of government in 1991 when the economic growth rate of the country was about 1%. He began his tenure with the appointment of Manmohan Singh as the country’s finance minister.

Leveraging on his experience and that of his finance minister, India embarked on economic reforms that saw the country’s economy grow from 1% in 1991 to about 6% in 1996 when Rao left office.  Since then, successive leaders in India have continued to follow the economic blue print developed by P.V Narasimha Rao, leading her to occupy the 5thposition amongst the largest economies of the world today ahead of countries like UK, France and Russia.
The records of an online encyclopedia, Microsoft Encarta show that; “Rao served in the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly from 1957 to 1977 and held various positions in the state government, including that of chief minister from 1971 to 1973. He became general secretary of the Congress Party in 1975, and in 1980 was elected to the Indian parliament. Thereafter, he filled some of the most important ministerial positions in the Indian cabinet, including external affairs, home affairs, defense, human resources, and health and family welfare. Rao was elected president of the Congress Party following the assassination of party leader Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991, during India’s parliamentary elections. The Congress Party emerged from the elections as the largest single party, and Rao became prime minister”. He was 70 at the time he became prime minister and with governance experience spanning over 33 years.

Apart from former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Mohammadu Buhari whose leadership experiences before becoming presidents were long but undemocratic, no politician with relevant long years of experience has contested the leadership of Nigeria except Chief Olu Falae whom the citizens rejected in the 1999 presidential election.Again, the present Governor of the Central Bank of India (Reserve Bank of India), Sanjay Malhotra is a career public servant who have served the country in various departments like financial services, power, taxation and Information Technology for more than three decades. Until his new appointment, Sanjay was the Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. On the contrary, Nigeria has never appointed core Central banking professional or career Financial policy expert into the position of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria for more than four decades. Even Senator Adams Oshiomhole’s voice along this line was not heeded during the search for the present helms man of the bank.

Notwithstanding the economic liberalization policy of Rao’s administration in India, the Country equally got engaged in a deliberate attempt to involve her Diaspora population around the world in the efforts towards the Indian economic revival. The over 30 million Indians in foreign lands were encouraged through various incentives to give priorities to remittances to India with a view to accelerating investments at home and contributing to the well-being of loved ones in their fatherland. They were also encouraged to invite investors from their host countries to India. The strategy worked like magic!On the contrary, many Diasporas Nigerians have been left to live and die with their ingenuities in their countries of residence. For example, Chatham House, UK which has become the political tourism destination for intending African leaders, especially Nigeria has a Nigerian as one of the members of the board. He is Kano state – born Professor Aliko Ahmed, the Regional Director of public Health in-charge of the whole of East England. Others too, like Phillip Emeagwali, the computer wizard, Akeem Olajuwon, a basketball maestro that dazzled the whole world with his skill at one time are not known to have had meaningful discussions with Nigeria towards bringing back their acquired skill and wealth to the country.

Interestingly, many of the nation’s political leaders are currently studying or working abroad. Since governance has sort of become subject to handing and taking over by leaders and their family members, it behooves them (political leaders) to prevail their children abroad to always work towards returning to their father land with impressive leadership and productive skills.

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