It has been seven years since Governor Udom Emmanuel Udom embarked on his illusory industrialization agenda in Akwa Ibom.
The industrialization policy from the genesis of his regime looking through the lenses of the economic historian is a fallacy, because it lacks the basic and requisite foundation of an organized industrial society that embarked on same policy.
Note: This was not written with an intent of brandishing the current government but to pinpoint it's economic policy failures and why it's failed.
We all know that from inception of this administration, the incumbent government has put it up herself to transform the state from a civil service economy orientation to an industrialize economy by her promises, which the government is carrying out.
With my curiosity and education in economic history in university and by extension rigorous research and analysis, studying other society that started or shared the resemblance to Akwa Ibom in their journey to industrialization. I would say that there is no lookalike to what Gov. Udom Emmanuel is doing here.
In my study I found out that these economies got their starts right from the beginning, by setting up various prerequisites and requisite foundation of every industrial economy.
Basic Structural Foundation of Industrialization
Udom's government right from the inception did not set up structure for achieving his agenda, maybe due to the fact his government was not knowledgeable in sending out expertise studying advance society that shared common similarities in characteristics.
- Development of Iron and steel sector in Akwa Ibom.
- Investment in manufacturing capacity was largely left to the private sector.
- Built an Engineering population that can reverse engineer first light tech and technical know how in machine designs.
- Electricity/power generation
- Development of children-youth mathematics special community
- Learning, importing and transfer of many blueprints for western factories and job concept for Akwa Ibom indigenous people. The people lacks the idea on establishing a working firm.
- Huge Industrial financing of small business.
- Advance intra- state transportational connectivity, through rail line
The economic success stories of Japan and Singapore in comparative to Akwa Ibom. Japan and most especially Singapore had a small relative population, little or no raw materials and some other variables.
Learning from Japan's Early Industrial Progress.
Why Gov. Udom Industrialization Agenda was a Failure: What He should have Learned from Japan's Early Progress
Japan’s agricultural productivity was high enough to sustain substantial craft (proto-industrial) production in both rural and urban areas of the country prior to industrialization.
Japan in the early part of the 20th century was not as industrialized as the UK or US, it was by no means stuck in time like it had been. There was a huge, absolutely HUGE mania for westernization (this died down during the war years, for obvious reasons) from about 1890 - mid 1930s.
This manifested as a desire for 'western style' goods, a desire that ultimately trickled down to the lower classes.
When this demand became great enough, domestic production of western goods ramped up. Their method for doing this was to simply import and reverse engineer both goods and processes (A good example would be the start of the Janome Sewing Company).
However, these goods were considered inferior (generally, not always.) If you go to an antique store in Japan, look at the bakelite products (usually dressing table sets, small decorative items, etc) and you'll notice that many of the cheaper ones are stamped 'Nippon' -- that's Japan.
The speed of industrialization is limited primarily by capital, available labor, raw materials, skills and infrastructure. It's also limited by precedent. That is to say, if no one has built a business like the one you plan to build, it's much harder. But Japan started off by importing entire blueprints for factories and job concepts.
The government was dead set in the 1890s on appearing modern and civilized to the western world. Because their industrialization didn't require them to do the research and development, they shaved years off the time needed to industrialize.
Japan actually was a very poor nation, however, as much as Japan wanted western goods, the western world wanted Kimono, and they were willing to pay a great deal of money for these exotic robes. They were also willing to pay richly for Japanense entertainments.
The chief difference, however, was that while very few Japanese could afford western goods, booming industry in the US and Europe meant that middle-class families could afford japanese goods.
This created a trade imbalance and suddenly, Japan had a lot of capital in which to invest in their new factories.
The model for industrialization they had imported required very few highly skilled workers, mostly low-skilled or semi-skilled workers that were only experts in their one task. So skills were not a limiting factor in industrialization.
Japan skilled her Work Force, Udom should do same
However, workforce should have been because in Japan's culture of the time, men stayed at home and did what their father did. Girls were sent out to their husbands or the pleasure quarters.
There was not a large, available male workforce like there was in other nations. However, at the time, Japan was trying to close the pleasure quarters (and from time to time, the geisha districts -- the pleasure quarters would be officially dead in 1954.)
The girls there tended to be low or no skilled, except for a very select few that had well, bedroom skills. While there was little shame in being a prostitue, it was considered a noble sacrifice for the family.
One thing that Japan had done in an attempt to clean up red-light districts was create small schools to teach prostitutes and geisha the kinds of skills used in cloth manufacture and clothing manufacture.
Factory jobs were considered more modern and better than selling a girl to the redlight district.
Farmers still had large families. As a result of these policies and realities, Japan had a huge factory-ready force of women, who were considered ideal for detailed work due to attitudes at the time.
So, Japan had a workforce, the necessary capital, the necessary skills, and a business model that was tried and true. And of course, they were already accustomed to importing raw materials so that presented only a small problem. All of these factored into their ability to build an effective industrial base.
The state government in her visionary efforts in building an economy away from civil service economic practice has failed in achieving any of the listed structure or emulate Singapore or Japan.