One important thing, yet currently relegated to the background of public policy, is planning; no country can develop unless it has a well-articulated national plan. For example, the industrial revolution in Europe was a brainchild of careful plan in reaction to challenges of population growth, changes in economic relationship, agricultural revolution, scientific revolution and colonialism. Similarly, the challenge of the spread of communism by the USSR to war-ravaged Western Europe compelled the US to introduce the Marshall Plan (Economic Recovery Programmed) which was adopted by sixteen Western and Southern European countries.
The plan achieved its objectives as those affected countries recovered quickly and prevented communist expansion into Western Europe. The Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore – embarked on the path of development at the same time with Nigeria, but they quickly moved ahead because of good planning. The magic wand used were: ‘focus on export to developed countries, human capital development, use of cheap labour, high tariffs on imports and high saving rates.’
Another good example of development strategy of a post-colonial state is India, which maintained consistency and redefinition of goals in relation to challenges from the environment in the twelfth five-year plans made since independence. The plans were for the following years: First Plan (1951 – 1956); Second Plan (1956 – 1961);Third Plan (1961 – 1966); Fourth Plan (1969 – 1974); Fifth Plan (1974 – 1979); Rolling Plan (1978 – 1980); Sixth Plan (1980 -1985); Seventh Plan (1985 -1990); Annual Plan (1990 – 1992); Eighth Plan (1992 – 1997);Ninth Plan (1997 – 2002); Tenth Plan (2002 – 2007); Eleventh Plan (2007 – 2012) and Twelfth Plan (2012 -2017).
The foregoing plans transformed India from an agrarian peasant country to a modern one with nuclear weapons.
Nigeria embarked on development plan with the Colonial Welfare Plan (1946 – 1956). This was followed with the following Post-colonial Plans: First Plan (1962- 1968); Second Plan (1970 – 1974); Third Plan (1975 – 1980); Fourth Plan (1981 -1985) and the Fifth Plan, otherwise called the Rolling Plan (1990 -1992).
Unlike India which continued with planning based on time dimension, the Fifth Plan was the last one in Nigeria. What we have after that were programmes initiated within and from international institutions. Such Programmes include the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) introduced by the UNO; New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) introduced by African Union.
Those programmes introduced locally include: National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS); Contributory Pension Scheme, Vision 20:20:20; Monetization, 7 Point Agenda and Transformation Programme.
Those programmes introduced from outside Nigeria were aimed at integrating Nigeria into the western economic and social systems. There were mere imposition from above and not relevant to specific interests of the masses.
The major challenges of planning in Nigeria can be found in areas of conceptualization, implementation and evaluation.
In terms of conceptualization, the plans were imposed from above without considering the needs of the masses. It is based on the needs of political elite without considering the need of the common man. This is why the implementation process was not supported by the masses.
Most of the public policies introduced in the Fourth Republic were introduced without careful planning as they were introduced to satisfy political interests. The ideal thing is to design programmes in relation to those of political parties and within the framework of national development plan. For example, there was no relationship between Vision 20:20, 20, National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), the 7-Point Agenda and the Transformation Programme with the programmes of political parties.
Furthermore, there was no continuity as each of the programmes existed only in the regime of the leader who introduces it. Each of the programmes is abandoned as soon as another leader is elected. This is unlike the countries of Asian Tigers and India where Programmes outlive the period of leaders.
A programme that is poorly conceived without proper planning cannot be well implemented. This is the reason why most of them ended as political slogans without making serious impact on the developmental process. It also resulted in the underdevelopment of socio-economic sectors like industry, education, health, transport, science and technology, environment, etc.
Over centralization of the National Planning Commission (NPC) is another challenge in the implementation process. Plan implementation is a complex activity requiring the decentralization of functions to field offices in each of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
This simple administrative technique was neglected. Furthermore, the NPC commission is only a commission in name as it operates with an organizational framework of a ministerial system with a minister as the head. The commission cannot escape the poor management technique of a ministerial structure of administration.
The third phase in the planning process is evaluation which is done to identify the extent of achieving goals. This is necessary as every plan is a learning process in which lessons are learnt from previous ones. Plans are forgotten as soon as they were introduced in Nigeria. That is why there is nothing like institutional memory.
The way forward is to go to the drawing board and re-engineer the planning process. Focus should be on technique of bottom up which should start from the target group.
Scientific implementation strategies should be adopted with the use of skilled manpower with relevant experience. There should be continuous evaluation aimed at having a data bank of institutional memory which can be used to correct shortcomings in previous plans.
