PROPOSING OBINOMICS AS A PANACEA TO ‘AESTHETIC’ MANAGEMENT OFPUBLIC RESOURCES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

In Either/Or as well as in the Stages of Life’s Way, Kierkegaard distinguished between three stages of existence: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious; each stage manifesting as what drives an individual’s choices and how the individual lives his life. The choices of the individual at the aesthetic level, either subjectively or in objective relations to public interests are generally toned by egoism, pleasure seeking, instability and of course irresponsibility. Unfortunately, it has been such aesthetic characters of instability, lack of direction and selfishness that have dominated the Nigerian public space, with their self-serving or aesthetic mismanagement of public resources, and the attendant poverty amidst wealth in the country. Against that backdrop, the paper projects Obinomics, a coinage from ‘Obi’ and ‘nomics’ to capture the governance footpath of prudence, probity, disdain for waste and strategic allocation of public resources of Mr Peter Obi, as the governor of Anambra State, Nigeria between 2006 and 2014, as a panacea to the aesthetic management of public resources in Nigeria. The paper first establishes that the current narrative of poverty amidst wealth in Nigeria, is a consequence of aesthetic management of public resources. This is followed by a brief interpretative overview of the morality and modesty as above-aesthetic that characterized the person and policy directions of Obi as governor of Anambra state, hence his outstanding achievements. Then after pointing out a few evidence of the claims of aesthetic management of public resources in Nigeria, the paper mainstreams the basic principles of Obinomics, as gleaned from Obi’s speeches and treatises as panacea to aesthetic management of public resources in Nigeria.