FG Should Not Privatise All Public Sector

Nigeria is best suited to continue to be in the framework of mixed economy, in which the public sector, private sector and the cooperative sector coexist. The present exercise of privatising even the profit making public sector is not warranted because privatisation is only a modality for improving the efficiency in resource use and resource allocation. In any case, selling a few scrip’s of the public sector to the people at large does not at all mean privatisation.

For a truly effective privatisation, the approach of preserving power for appointments of the executive and also interventions in the commercial decision making process of the public sector need to be fully eliminated.

Privatisation should not be pursued as an end in itself. In fact, many of the private sector units are also suffering from endemic sickness and as such privatisation per se cannot be considered as a virtue in itself for an efficient production system. The weaknesses of corporate management both in the public and the private sectors need to be addressed in an objective way instead of viewing the problem as an ideological issue.

The final point which needs to be made with all emphasis is that Nigeria should not give up its aspirations for maintaining and strengthening the paradigm of intellectual self- reliance for taking its own decisions to serve its national interest in the best possible manner without denying to itself the advantages of the emerging new opportunities and challenges of development.

Comrade Ahmed Omeiza Lukman,
Former Chairman Nigeria Community In Ukraine.