By MA Iliasu
In the book, which I consider Prof. Tyler Cowen’s most entertaining contribution to the History of Economic Analysis, ‘GOAT; Who is The Greatest Economist Economist of All Time And Why Does it Matter’, which also happens to be my favorite book by him, he quoted the comment by the great economist Joseph Schumpeter, who knew Keynes personally, about his book ‘Essays in Biography’, that the book “sheds more light on Keynes the man and Keynes the scholar than does any other publication of his.” Tyler Cowen later argued that in ‘Essays in Biography’ “Keynes in fact penned one of the greatest books on human talent ever written.” But why did both say that?
The two comments on ‘Essays in Biography’ – a book published almost 100 years ago – by Schumpeter and Cowen (scholars almost 70 years apart), despite the two disagreeing with much of what Keynes stood for, are very glowing, among others, because the book is purely analytical about economists and major intellectuals who influence economic behavior. I have since concluded that both read the book hoping that a time comes when a great scholar like Keynes will pay attention to their lives and works and dedicate a whole book analyzing them with similar literary style, intellectual dedication and brilliance as used by Keynes in buttressing his beloved Cambridge economists and other intellectuals.
Obviously, I observed, economists love to be analyzed. But very rarely do they endeavor to analyze each other, and that avoidable tradition leaves a lot of unexplained feelings, uncontextualized thoughts along which line a lot of feuds go unsettled and credits unclaimed. The reader of this long piece is allowed to consider this piece a lazy attempt at an essay in biography using Keynes’ epic Straussian style, to observe while imitating Tyler Cowen’s sentiments, to make a case and celebrate who I consider currently the best economist in Bayero University, Kano, and his colleagues.
Moving forward, even though Tyler Cowen concluded that Keynes was merely making a case for himself as GOAT using his Straussian style, and his idea of Master-Economist was conforming greatness to his own strengths to underscore his mentor Alfred Marshall, I still believe that Tyler Cowen loves ‘Essays in Biography’ because he also agrees with Keynes on who’s the Master-economist. More so that no idea of Master-Economist is more broader than that. I can be so bold as to say the idea is the best in terms of clarity, showing the need for synthetic intelligence and accentuation to the demands of modern eeconomic science. And certainly the Master-economist may need not to be further than that. But who is the Master-economist?
“The study of economics”, according to Keynes, “does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An easy subject, at which very few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the Master-Economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must reach a high standard in several different directions and must combine talents not often found together. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher – in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature of his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.”
Indeed, any reader with keen eye for intellectual profiles can see that everything Keynes requires the Master-economist to be, he himself was, and very few, certainly not his mentor Alfred Marshall, could ever be. And if such was to be accepted in the mainstream, no economist that preceded Keynes could challenge him to the status of the GOAT. However, what Keynes didn’t foresee is the inevitable transmogrification of the economic science from the idea-carrying exercise propounded by Adam Smith and his successors, to the hypothesis-testing expertise to be revolutionized by your Timbergens and Samuelsons. In which case, passing Keynes requirements would become achievable even though ticking all the boxes remains almost impossible.
During my undergraduate years, for example, I encountered a lot of economists that came very close. There is an hypothesis-testing group of erudite scholars like Dr. Wambai Aminu, Dr. Nafi’u Abdulsalam and Dr. Ahmad Buƙata who possess a rare combination of gifts that are often found together like speaking in symbols and contemplating the general in terms of the particular. Those are the mathematicians and the statisticians outliers who can fit-in the world in equations and communicate with the esoteric instincts of a scientific expert. Their capacity for abstraction is undoubted. The science is too easy for them and so they think it’s easy. But is it?
Then you have another set of erudite scholars who possess gifts that are not usually found together, the idea-carrying elites like Professor Mustafa Mukhtar who is a broad-minded generalist that double-up as a part time philosopher, Professor Badayi M. Sani who is the closest thing an economist comes to the Ottoman gentleman who double-up as part-time statesman, Professor Ahmad Muhammad Tsauni who is where a practical intellectual meets the analytical social scientist, and Professor Mansur who contemplates the concrete more astutely than any academic I know.
In the next batch you meet Dr. Aliyu Ɗahiru Muhammad’s inter-disciplinary mastery that’s typical of an Islamic scholar to open up another category of erudition that combines disciplinary versatility with emotional and social intelligence. The master in this regard is Professor Shehu Abdullahi Rano, who’s probably the most well-rounded economist I’ve met. Economists aren’t usually humble. They flex and chase the optics. That’s what makes Dr. Aliyu D. Muhammad unforgettable to the memory for disrupting the status quo, for that man is truly humble in a way that brings the down to earth essence of the late Dr. Bello Ado, who is resting peacefully in his grave, inshaALLAH, as the most durable and finest man manager of all the BUK economists you’ll ever meet.
In my trying hard to resist hyperbole, I once heard and I agree that your degree is incomplete if you weren’t taught Statistics by late Dr Bello Ado, Political Economy by late Prof. Galadanci, mathematics for Economists by Dr. Kutama and Dr. Wambai, and Econometrics by Prof. Shehu Abdullahi Rano. Dr. Latifa Pedro’s empathy is another quasi intellectual dimension that will remind you there’s more to science than walking people through the facts and trasmitting pure knowledge. The brilliant lecturer is a textbook demonstration of how caring succeeds where coldheartedness falters. I’ve seen students resolve to improve their performance by mere exchanging words with Dr. Pedro. The next in line is my project supervisor, Ali Abdulkarim, who has the sharpest and most daring theoretical awareness. He’s most open to debates, quite probably because he’s sure to school you without leaving third gear.
The department of Economics in BUK, when observed closely, employ such intriguing set of intellectual profiles that one will struggle to classify properly. However, it is as if it was done intentionally so they can cover their respective individual weaknesses and reinforce their individual strengths, but most importantly so they can allow students to tap into different breeds of talents. In that well-ventilated building, no two lecturers are the same, no two methods are the same, and the only similarity is perhaps that each one you encounter will impress you in his own distinctive way.
I made these observations a week before our final examination in September 2021, when our class captain sent me a poll asking me to choose my favorite lecturer among the lecturers of Economics in BUK. I took my time before deciding, because while I agree stuff like that are majorly activities of the heart inspired mostly by emotions and bias, I wanted my choice to come where cold facts are in tune with personal choice. And while I was evaluating those choices and the observations I made on them, one of the lecturers who taught me seems to create a pattern , all things being equal, that sets his profile apart from his academic colleagues. The lecturer is none other than the famous Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim, commonly known in the campus as Dr. Shamsu, and on social media as Mooh Shamsuddeen.
The interesting pattern is that if all those lecturers are to be ranked in percentiles, the highest ranked in each individual strength will appear in the 99th percentile irrespective of his own area of expertise, the lowest ranked will appear in the 80th percentile – which shows how incredibly high the general performance of lecturers in Economics department is. However, while some lecturers appear in the 99th percentile in one category and in 80th percentile in other categories to show massive strengths in one aspect and moderate strength in another, Dr. Shamsuddeen appears all the times in at least 90th percentile in the category of every individual strength. Briefly, his highest strength is in the 99th percentile while his lowest strength is in the 90th percentile — a performance level that Statisticians conclude mean an individual doesn’t have moderate strengths let alone significant weaknesses.
That’s to say, for example, if you’re the best mathematics lecturer (99th percentile), Dr. Shamsu can do as great (90th percentile). But usually where Dr. Shamsu is the best lecturer, like macroeconomics (99th percentile), very rarely do others do as great. He can do what you can, with no certainty that you can do what he can – what Keynes calls “possessing high standards in different directions.
And such, I observed, comes to be because of his natural gifts and talents that are hardly found together. Dr. Shamsu is a Mathematician like Dr. Wambai, Dr. Bukata or Dr. Kutama. He is a statesman like Prof. Badayi. A statistician like Dr. Nafi’u and an Econometrician like Prof. Rano. He is a philosopher like Prof. Mustafa Mukhtar and studies history like nobody else that I can recall in that department. He understands symbols and speaks in words. So much like his peers, he contemplates the particular in terms of the general, but is alone in his ability to contemplate the general in terms of the particular. None can rival him touching the concrete and abstract in the same flight of thought.
I bear witness to how no part of man’s nature or his institutions lie entirely outside Dr. Shamsu’s regard as we can learn from his tendency to prove inhumane policies out of the economic theory, and to accentuate decency and benevolence where his sentiments are called to make a difference. He is purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood, case in point being when cashless policy coincides with the efforts to curtail vote-buying – Dr. Shamsu’s purpose in the latter was famous and disinterest in the Federal Government’s insistence on the former equally as much. He is as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, for all his students can testify to how he never neutralize the quality of his lectures, instead he will perfect them to bring everybody on board. Yet, he is sometimes as near the earth as a politician, judging from his sense of humor and skillful wit in giving hope where all seem lost.
His greatest soft skill, in my opinion, is his open-mindedness. Dr. Shamsu is open-minded to a fault. I remember once during our macroeconomics lecture when Auwal J. Gadanya , who’s personally the most gifted Economics student I know, asked Dr. Shamsu about William Baumol’s theory of contestable markets. To our greatest surprise, the great economist openly admitted to not knowing the theory, and enquired to be enlightened by any student who could. It made us nervous. If not because we learnt it from Prof. Tsauni’s Industrial Economics lectures, we’d have assumed it didn’t exist, which is why he didn’t know. At that very moment, Dr. Shamsu the man and the scholar showed his hand. For which soon-to-be professor bears his soul to year three newbies?
I’m sure you’ll understand our reactions if you know how with all this intellectual fame associated to economists the most difficult thing for them to do is to admit error or accept when they don’t know. Paul Samuelson was famously heard quoting Keynes in his post-war MIT classes that “when facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, sir?”, which is a humble braggadocio challenging the cognitive dissonance of bad economists so that enough dogma will be eradicated to do away with putting people’s lives at risk. Just imagine how much suffering will reduce in Nigeria if bad policymakers can simply admit they don’t know or they’re wrong. In which regard, Dr. Shamsu always passes with flying colors, and usually not because he doesn’t know, but to make obvious his willingness to evacuate his opinion if its wrong. The Nobel Prize Winning economist will be twice as good if he had Dr. Shamsu’s attitude.
His second best skill is eloquence. Dr. Shamsu has the linguistic dribbling of a Victorian poet. All lectures, we agreed, are too long and boring except if its Dr. Shamsu doing them. I wish enough students had realized we were all in love with his command of the English language which he effortlessly combines with synthetic intelligence to keep us both deeply enlightened and entertained. There’s hardly anything he can’t express in two sentences. And it will be spot on. His willingness to buttress esoteric terminologies in a proper Durantian approach is world class. That’s how he comes to become everybody’s favorite analyst and comes to be associated with the term “Analyst” even.
In a discipline so controversial and volatile, it is so easy for a scholar to hide in his office reading obsolete texts and teaching them in classrooms to students. One of the reasons American and British economists are so prone to public backlash or praise is how they’re active outside classrooms. When an economist hides, it is very easy to revere him. For only few can grasp the jargon of his papers and the public don’t know him. But when he engages the public, that’s when his greatness or otherwise will be obvious. For if he knows his flowers, he’ll navigate public policies in open displays without losing his reverence. And if he failed, then maybe its true what propagandists about economists – that they are only good for nothing.
Dr. Shamsu’s social media handle is more active than the handles of Olivier Jean Blanchard and Joseph Stiglitz combined. He is always on pace to give his takes on the major happenings in the Nigerian political economy, and not once has he embarrassed himself. In comparison, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize Winner, embarrasses himself at least five times annually. What’s most important is how he maintains consistency, so much like Milton Friedman, without losing his open-mindedness, so much like John Maynard Keynes, and not even Friedman was consistent without being close-minded or Keynes open-minded without being inconsistent.
So many economists in Nigeria, have embarrassed themselves on the issue of government expenditure and subsidy. A lot of them argued it’s good for government to spend, and now that government spending has backfired, they can’t be humble as to take back their words. Likewise the foolery on fuel subsidy. In my little research during writing this essay, Dr. Shamsu’s opinion on gov’t spending and fuel subsidy hasn’t changed in 15 years. Even when it appeared ridiculous. And more so now that it appears spot on.
I held that sentiment in mind when the son of the Emir of Kano, Mal. Sunusi Lamiɗo Sunusi, argued that his father is the greatest economist in Kano. I sighed. Indeed, Sunusi’s pedigree as a corporate administrator is revolutionary. He is one of the finest philosophers and statesmen among the economists of our time. But so often the bottlenecks an economist needs to properly understand to navigate an overly corrupt economy like Nigeria’s do escape him. And among the few who have consistently demonstrated their capacity to never losing the sight of those bottlenecks is the lesser famous hero of mine, Dr. Muhammad Shamsuddeen, who is only becoming an Associate Professor this month, although he’s merely getting started.
Surely it is not untrue that the greatest economists aren’t very famous. For not many have known Adam Ferguson or Thorstein Veblen or Von Mises or Abba Lerner or Pierro Srafa or Thomas Pickety or Friedric Hayek. All of which are arguably greater microeconomic scholars than Keynes. And yet the fame always goes to the statesmen economists who have made it to the spotlight, like Schumpeter or Keynes, who have both gotten the opportunity to be famous and make the difference.
It’s my humble opinion, which I once told him at Maryam Abacha University, that if he was an American teaching in Princeton, Chicago, MIT or Yale, or a Brit teaching in Cambridge, LSE or Sussex, he’d be a major player in global economics. That is still not ruled out yet. For time is but a factor. The CBN still awaits. The MIF and World Bank too. And if the academia remains the chosen, BUK knows the rank of Professorship is merely on the horizon, likewise the Nobel Prize in economics sciences.
I will conclude by revealing my answer to our class captain’s questions: who is the best economics lecturer in BUK? Dr. Shamsu! Who’s your favorite Economics lecturer at BUK? Dr. Shamsu! Who’s the lecturer are you backing to win the Nobel Prize? Dr. Shamsu! Which lecturer will you like to teach you again? Dr. Shamsu! That’s it. Those are my answers!
Congratulations sir!
Iliasu writes from Kano
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
