What The Papers Say
The Guardian, Nigeria
The study groups: A national industrial policy
The basic philosophy for Nigeria's industrial development ought to be self-reliance. We should, as much as possible, develop our own technology, using the large pool of knowledge, manpower and natural resources available in the country.This means that our first emphasis ought to be on the development of independent privately-owned small-scale industries of low to medium level technology, aimed at servicing the masses of the people with food and essential manufactured goods at reasonable cost. By harmonizing and dovetailing the specialities of these industries, the way would be prepared for the rise of medium to large-scale industries utilizing their products.
But small scale parts cannot always add up to a large whole; there are industries which cannot be expected to evolve in this way, especially since our aim is rapid industrialisation. Such major primary industries as steel, oil, gas, petrochemicals and heavy machinery will require, from the outset, a heavy reliance on foreign technology and expertise.
There are two ways of obtaining foreign technology and expertise for the major industries through outright purchase, and through foreign investors. Our self-reliant philosophy would demand that whenever possible we purchase outright, from wherever we can find them, industrial machine systems including the machine tools for reproducing both the main machines and their essential parts, and that we employ foreign technical experts as we need them, to assist us in setting up the system and in training our engineers and technicians to operate it.
In the process of use, and over a given period of time, we would master the system, modify and indigenize it to fit more closely our environment and needs, and then go on to replicate it.
It is when outright purchase is not possible, when, as is often the case, the overseas owners of the technology and machine system insist on coming in as investors and partners in the enterprise, that the real problem arises.
How to deal with such foreign investment is one of the central problems which the study group reviewing existing trends and making recommendations on a new industrial policy for Nigeria must tackle.
In tackling this problem, the basic principle which the study group needs to grasp is that world economic relationships are characterised both by unequal development and by an orientation of nations toward serving their own national interests.
The relationship of foreign investor to host country is invariably a hostile one, and it is for that reason that in any industrial development process in which foreign investment is to play a substantial role, the nation's industrial policy must assume the imperatives of a mobilisation for war.
We would be naive to think that foreign investors have our national interest at heart, or that their corporate interest and that of our nation coincide. Experience both in Nigeria and elsewhere in the developing world has consistently demonstrated the contrary to be the case. Therefore the question is, how do we arrange matters so that we can obtain major foreign technology when it comes with a string of foreign investment attached, and at the same time achieve our national goal of full industrialisation with autonomy?
National Concord, Nigeria
The newsprint crunch
The release of licences last week by the government for the importation of newsprint has again brought to attention one of the more urgent problems facing newspapers in this country, particularly the private-owned ones.All the newspapers which applied to the Federal Military Government to import the raw materials were given a licence each to bring in a quantity of reels far less than what they asked for. But while government-owned newspapers were granted such foreign exchange facility as to import a substantial percentage of their needs, privately-owned papers were, on the other hand, granted merely one-tenth of what the government papers received.
The imbalance between the amount of foreign exchange granted, for instance, to the government-controlled Daily Times and privately-owned National Concord, two national papers that could be said to have approximately the same level of paid circulation figure, must be striking to even the most uninitiated mind. Whereas the Daily Times got a licence to import two million naira worth of newsprint, the National Concord got a licence to import a paltry 200,000 naira worth. All other privately-owned newspapers are known, of course, to be in Concord's shoes.
Nobody is insisting, it has to be pointed out, that newspapers should be given an undue amount of foreign exchange facility to import their raw materials. The foreign exchange squeeze in the country cannot be overemphasized and it would be unthinkable to imagine that the government, which has not shown itself to be the best friend of the press, would give newspapers privileged attention. Yet it could be argued, validly, that newspapers in modern societies, irrespective of the nature of their ownership, have come to play such a significant role as the "watch-dog" of the state that they do warrant exceptional attention. And just in case some critics may think that these arguments are self-serving, let it be known that no one has yet equated the roles of newspapers in society to those of, say, beer brewers.
These arguments aside, there is the obvious attempt by the government to twist the arms of privately-owned papers via denying them adequate newsprint. The issue could always be raised as to the legitimacy of government engaging in discriminatory state policy but such issues are of constitutional nature and better left to the traditions of a democratic system. Nevertheless, it is important to ask what the govern- ment hopes to gain from its new offensive against the press. It could, admittedly, gain a sycophantic press but would one serve the interest of the people or, in the long run, that of the government?
A press which sees nothing wrong in the affairs of the government stands unwittingly to accelerate the downfall of that government, especially one by the military where democratic avenues for expressing opinions and disagreements are lacking. It is not enough that the government has good intentions; it must allow the press to have their ears to the ground in order to articulate the feelings and yearnings of the people.
The Federal Military Government should for the good of the nation, reconsider its notion that our newspapers ought to be yessing institutions that should betray the course of history and their responsibilities to this country.
